His Penultimate Hurrah

You knew this was coming. President Obama, according to the political celebrity-focused pundit class, will be faced with a theatrical conundrum after midterm elections. He must either continue pretending to ineffectually despise Republicans while pleading for ineffectual legislation like the $10.10 minimum wage. Or, he can finally drop the pretense and reprise 2011, venturing even more boldly out of his right-wing closet to give John Boehner 99.999% of what he wants, to save Hillary the trouble and precious political capital.

Freed from the chore of grubbing money from Wall Street and Hollywood, Obama can hunker down with his fellow neoliberals across the aisle to ram through the corporate coup known as the Trans Pacific Partnership.  A reanimation of the "Grand Bargain" for the grandees (Social Security and Medicare cuts) isn't out of the question either. I imagine that the permanent immiseration of the old and poor will be the quid pro quo for a couple of token public-private infrastructure deals, temporary corporate tax loophole-closings, and temporary funding for corporate-run universal preschool.

  To paraphrase Bette Davis: Fasten your seat belts -- it's going to be a bumpy night/two years/decade/ass-killing slide down into the black pit of doom.

We got one of our first nauseating clues about what the Barack-Hillary interregnum will be like in today's New York Times. Peter Baker, who works the Oval Office trial balloon beat, puts it thusly:

Whipsawed by events and facing another midterm electoral defeat, President Obama has directed his team to forge a policy agenda to regain momentum for his final two years in office even as some advisers urge that he rethink the way he governs.

Without waiting for results from elections on Tuesday that few in the White House expect to go well for Mr. Obama, top aides have met for weeks to plot the final quarter of his presidency. Anticipating a less friendly Congress, they are mapping possible compromises with Republicans to expand trade, overhaul taxes and build roads and bridges.

So right off the bat, Obama is portrayed as the powerless victim of "event whipsawing," absolving him of any personal responsibility for the event horizon nose-thumbing about to be delivered to the American people. Politicians don't run the government -- events do. And the Big Event is not Ebola, or the ignored and looming catastrophe of climate change -- it is the not-so-invisible whipsaw of the free market plutocrats, who just bought themselves a new-old passel of corrupt politicians to do their bidding.

For a president who has lost public support and largely failed to move his agenda on Capitol Hill since winning re-election two years ago, there may be little hope for significant progress if Republicans capture the Senate and add to their House majority. But if Republicans are fully in charge of Congress rather than mainly an opposition party, both sides may have an incentive to strike deals, at least during a short window before the 2016 presidential campaign consumes Washington.

This approximately year-long window of opportunity is just perfect for the oligarchy. All eyes, courtesy of our corporate media Svengalis, will be directed to the stars of the 2016 horse-race, instead of on the back-room deals being forged between the bipartisan frenemies already in power. Paul Ryan, (R-Sadism) is not sated on what he cynically termed the "low-hanging fruit" of food stamp cuts and other concessions given him last year by Patty Murray (D-Masochism). Ryan wants to gnaw on the whole trunk of democracy like a busy little nihilist beaver. He's also shamelessly telegraphing his omnivorous gluttony for even more human flesh. He's betting that the conservative Obama will forgo the veto pen on legislative Social Darwinism if one of the prizes is the president's longed-for global corporate coup of the free trade deals. And he's probably betting right. Obama has never even taken Chained CPI and other poor-punishing treats off the neoliberal table-- he's just hidden them under his cheap tray of populist hors d'oeuvre and sugar-coated Halloween crumbs for the duration of his last campaign season.

 

The Nightmare Before The Nightmare

Ryan also promised that, just as they did in the Democratic-controlled Congress in the last throes of the Bush administration, Republicans will upend the filibuster by using budget reconciliation to ram through plutocrat-friendly legislation. Even so, the Democrats (mostly of the anonymous coward branch of the Party) quoted in stenographer Peter Baker's article are coyly pretending ignorance of the ploy -- which they themselves chose not to avail themselves of in the last six years of their majority: 

Joel P. Johnson, who was Bill Clinton’s counselor late in his presidency, said Mr. Obama should test Republican intentions soon after the new Congress takes office. “Make it clear there is a negotiating table awaiting, and don’t shut down the possibility that there could be a dialogue that results in something that’s progress,” he said.

In some ways, a change in the Senate majority may not make that big a difference. Other than presidential nominations, which can be passed with a simple majority, most significant legislation must still muster 60 votes, which neither party will have, to overcome a filibuster. One Democrat close to the White House said the election was just “the difference between 96 percent gridlock and 100 percent gridlock.”

Gridlock is the stale excuse used by both sides of the duopoly to explain why they can't get anything done. Actually, they get plenty done -- including protecting the security and police states and bloating the coffers of the military industrial complex to beyond bursting, ignoring the unemployed, and cutting deals to reduce food stamp benefits. and absolving themselves of ethical constraints to their insider trading and other methods of self-enrichment.

Fasten your seat belts. And rev your engines, honk your horns, screech your tires, blast your air brakes. Let's not make it easy or pleasant for them.  

*** 

Update, Sunday evening: Here's my response to Paul Krugman wondering why the logic of business tycoons, notably even in Japan, has such weird influence on gummint economic policies:

How can the twisted logic of austerity, as espoused by the billionaires, be kept off the to-do list of their surrogates -- the politicians that "we" elect to run the place?

Get the $$$ out of politics. Yes, easier said than done, given that politics and money are now essentially the same twisted entity. As Sen. Bernie Sanders told Bill Moyers this weekend, only a populist uprising massive enough to shake the corrupt duopoly to its very core will do the job.

Again, easier said than done, since a pervasive police/spy state now exists to quell such inevitable uprisings. The AP just got the goods on Missouri, which established a strict "no-fly zone" for news helicopters wishing to film the state brutality against the peaceful Ferguson protesters. The plutocrats and the politicians don't want a repeat of the aerial footage of the Watts riots of the 60s, which cemented public demand for various civil rights reforms and the War on Poverty. They want Nixon's ensuing counter-revolutionary Southern Strategy to remain the status quo. They want to keep that screw turned dead-right for as long as they can.

 It serves the interests of the greedy big business "thought leaders" to keep wages depressed and jobs scarce. And just in time for Halloween, Al Simpson was back on TV to play the folksy Grim Reaper. Despite the misery that misguided austerity has wrought, the plutocrats still want to burn Social Security at the stake.

The only deficit we have to fear is their empathy deficit.

(You can catch the Bernie Sanders clip on the Bill Moyers link located on my Blogroll. I wasn't all that impressed, because he essentially blamed voters for not holding Obama (whom he cloyingly still respects and admires) to his campaign promises when he filled his cabinet with Wall Streeters. Sanders also respects and likes Hillary. As far as I am concerned, Bernie basically succeeds in cancelling himself by refusing to criticize his fellow pols. That clip of his Iowa speech was great, though. He is quite the fiery orator.... as was/is Obama.)

Have a Very Classy Halloween

Not counting the zombie invasion of roaming Ebolaphobes, what are you most frightened about this Halloween?

If you're a One Percenter, chances are that the lower classes coming into your neighborhood to beg for goodies is high on your list of fears. One wealthy woman allegedly (or maybe actually -- because although this reads like satire, the super-rich are extremely talented at unwitting self-parody) sought advice about how to keep the riffraff away. From Slate:

Dear Prudence,

I live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, but on one of the more “modest” streets—mostly doctors and lawyers and family business owners. (A few blocks away are billionaires, families with famous last names, media moguls, etc.) I have noticed that on Halloween, what seems like 75 percent of the trick-or-treaters are clearly not from this neighborhood. Kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. I feel this is inappropriate. Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children. Obviously this makes me feel like a terrible person, because what’s the big deal about making less fortunate kids happy on a holiday? But it just bugs me, because we already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social services. Should Halloween be a neighborhood activity, or is it legitimately a free-for-all in which people hunt down the best candy grounds for their kids?

—Halloween for the 99 Percent

Needless to say, "Prudence" told Rich Bitch to stuff her Snickers up her Ayn Rand knickers.

Meanwhile, we learn from the New York Times Motherlode blog that there are subtler ways for the rich to control the seasonal beggars daring to set foot in their neighborhoods. Simply judge the Trick or Treaters by their classiness and couture,  and hand out the goodies accordingly:

Turned off by the people who came to their door last year, many of them adults or kids in street clothes, and few who said “trick or treat,” he (the author's Halloween decoration fanatic neighbor) decided to try something new: candy tiers. This year, they’ll reward those who play by Halloween’s basic rules — wear a costume, say “trick or treat” and be more or less a kid — by giving them pretty good candy. Those with amazing costumes will get better sweets. Those who don’t dress up at all or are of voting age or older will get a consolation prize: Dum Dums, which our neighbor considers the dregs of the candy pile.

So a taciturn kid dressed as a hobo will choke on the cheap lollipops, huh? On the other hand, anyone named Biff wearing a Mitt Romney mask will be rewarded with adult-size PayDay bars. Too bad the Times blogger didn't reveal the location of her neighborhood. It is a prime target for decorative off-brand toilet paper. 

(Incidentally, I always liked DumDums, especially the red and purple ones. Those disgustingly chewy caramel-peanut PayDays were the first to hit the garbage can.)

Meanwhile.... just not in time for Halloween: bringing a whole new meaning to the term Hot Zone:

Sexy Ebola Containment Suit

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That Hideous Strength

Maybe you haven't heard the news. Not only does The Homeland now have its very own Ebola Czar, it has spawned yet another shadowy government agency. It's called N.I.C.E. -- the National Institute for the Co-Optation of Ebola.

In C.S. Lewis's dystopian novel That Hideous Strength, N.I.C.E, stood for the National Institute for Controlled Experiments -- a shadowy government agency designed to exploit and destroy everything it touches through the copious use of propaganda. Torture and prison are in store for the few malcontents refusing to get with the program. The novel, the finale of Lewis's Space Trilogy, derives its title from a 16th century poem about the Tower of Babel myth, in which a massive structure built by the oppressed masses for the glory of the elite few resulted in death, destruction, and lots of people talking past each other.  

In dystopian 21st century America, a lethal little microbe that has killed a lot of people in Africa and sickened a few people here has been magically transformed into a political wedge issue, a campaign talking point that serves more to demonize the other side than to frighten the ruling establishment into implementing sanitary living conditions and true universal health care for all people, all over the world.

It turns out that not only can Ebola be grown in culture, it has quickly become an integral part of the American culture wars.  Health care workers have become the latest pawns in the identity politics game played by the two sides of the corporate duopoly. Ask not if we can study and treat this disease. Ask which "side" can best co-opt Ebola, and then pick your team. Are you with the Republicans, who cast nurses as demons to be cast out of society or burned at the stake along with their illegal immigrating germs? Or are you with the Democrats, who cast health care workers as exemplars of American military might and superiority?

Are you with Chris Christie, vicariously insulting your peers who dare stand up to the hideous strength of the boorish ruling class? Or are you with Barack Obama, who pays lip service to Doctors Without Borders even as his hideous and secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership would put life-saving medicines out of the economic reach of poor countries fighting Ebola and a whole host of other treatable diseases?

Chris Christie: (nasty, brutish and short to accommodate hate-infested A.D.D. sufferers) "Sit down and shut up."

Barack Obama: (droning on and on in jingoism to accommodate the fiscal needs of the Military-Industrial Complex he so ably serves): "I said this at the U.N. General Assembly -- when disease or disaster strikes anywhere in the world, the world calls us.  And the reason they call us is because of the men and women like the ones who are here today.  They respond with skill and professionalism and courage and dedication.  And it’s because of the determination and skill and dedication and patriotism of folks like this that I’m confident we will contain and ultimately snuff out this outbreak of Ebola -- because that’s what we do. A lot of people talk about American exceptionalism.  I’m a firm believer in American exceptionalism.  You know why I am?  It’s because of folks like this..... What we are -- what we need right now is these shock troops who are out there leading globally.  We can’t discourage that; we’ve got to encourage it and applaud it."

(Did you ever hear Florence Nightingale described as a bellicose shock troop before?  Moreover, tiny socialist Cuba is leading the fight against Ebola. It's not as concerned with border security, partisan politics.... or profit-driven health care.)

Dr. Kent Brantly, the physician successfully treated for Ebola, again was co-opted by Obama as a photo-op prop on Wednesday. After the president displayed his utter sincerity by referring to Brantly as "Keith," the good doctor delivered a gentle but pointed retort to the jingoism:

"At this time, perhaps more than any other, we feel the impact of our position as citizens of not only the United States of America, but as citizens of the world. We must strive together for the good of all mankind to put an end to this disease.”

Of course, Obama never once applauded or even mentioned Kaci Hickox, the nurse whose civil disobedience does not jibe with either Obama's political needs or the fiscal needs of the Military-Industrial Complex. The war budget is now so bloated that it actually boosted the GDP several percentage points this quarter. Obama himself cut the budget of the Centers for Disease Control.

So pick your poison. Better yet, refuse to drink. Or better yet, go for a bike ride as you try to ignore your police escort.

Wait a Minute Mr. Postman

 So the New York Times has the big scoop that the U.S. Postal Service manually monitors our mail as well as computer-scanning every piece of it for Homeland Security posterity. What a shock. Half my mail seems to arrive mysteriously unsealed these days. Either the senders ran out of spit, or the gremlins have been at work again. Just yesterday, a thank-you letter from Doctors Without Borders arrived already ripped open. (I don't know if it had gotten mangled en route through Chris Christie's Port Authority, or was simply delayed in a postal containment tent set up for monitoring Ebola charities -- but I'll try to find out for you.)

According to the Times, the Postal Service admits having honored more than 50,000 mail-monitoring requests from various police agencies, There has been little oversight and accountability on the spying campaign, nor has its efficiency or lack thereof ever been measured.

The surveillance program, officially called mail covers, is more than a century old, but is still considered a powerful investigative tool. At the request of state or federal law enforcement agencies or the Postal Inspection Service, postal workers record names, return addresses and any other information from the outside of letters and packages before they are delivered to a person’s home.

Law enforcement officials say this deceptively old-fashioned method of collecting data provides a wealth of information about the businesses and associates of their targets, and can lead to bank and property records and even accomplices. (Opening the mail requires a warrant.)

Who are they kidding? Warrants are so yesterday, as old-fashioned as the century-old surveillance program itself.

 But anyway -- I have long suspected/known that the post office had gone over to the Dark Side... or at the very least, harbored Dark Side aspirations.

It all started with a strange phone call I received one dark December night in 2010. When the caller identified himself as the chief assistant counsel for the Postal Regulatory Commission, my heart skipped a beat. Had I neglected to put extra stamps on that thick letter I'd just sent out?  Had they finally tracked down the culprit who'd put the chewing gum wrappers and pennies and other detritus into the prepaid credit application envelope from the annoying Capitol One scammers?

I Should Be So Lucky

  No, it was actually far more horrifyingly banal than that. My caller (who only rang the once) said he knew of me through my New York Times reader comments, and was just alerting me to an op-ed he'd written for the paper in hopes I'd give it a thumbs-up review. His nifty idea was to make the financially-strapped Postal Service more viable by having mail trucks double as spies for other government agencies. (cue the James Bond music.)

I obviously assumed it was a prank call.  But after hanging up, I checked the Times Sunday review page. And there it was:  The Postman Always Pings Twice (cue the Nightmare On Elm Street music) --

The service’s thousands of delivery vehicles have only one purpose now: to transport mail. But what if they were fitted with sensors to collect and transmit information about weather or air pollutants? The trucks would go from being bulky tools of industrial-age communication to being on the cutting edge of 21st-century information-gathering and forecasting.

After all, the delivery fleet already goes to almost every home and business in America nearly every day, and it travels fixed routes along a majority of the country’s roads to get there. Data collection wouldn’t require much additional staff or resources; all it would take would be a small, cheap and unobtrusive sensor package mounted on each truck. (This idea is mine alone, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Postal Regulatory Commission.)

Well, thank God for that. Also thank God there was no option for reader comments.  Then again, this guy had my number. I began to shiver as I read further:

True, other types of vehicles, like taxis or buses, could also carry sensors. But such vehicles typically don’t follow as many regular routes. Nor are they managed by a single organization that could readily coordinate nationwide or regional data collection.

There are a few obvious objections. For starters, there are privacy concerns regarding certain types of data. But a review panel could be set up to monitor the use of the network and ensure safeguards for handling the data.

Mind you, this was long before Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the Panopticon State. Back in the good old innocent days of 2010, most people were blissfully unaware that their privacy had gone by the wayside decades ago. The worst thing that had happened was that the Bush administration was caught harassing librarians over what books we were subversively reading.  This was before the seemingly daily revelations of privacy abuses, greeted with a politician or a bureaucrat blithely insisting that such assaults on civil rights were not done "willingly", or if they were, they could be handled by "review panels." Soothing cross-agency checks and balances are there to ensure that any abuses can be safeguarded against public outcry. But my Mr. Postman already knew this years ago.

There’s also the question about marketplace competition from a federal agency monopoly, an issue that has led Congress to limit the types of non-postal services the agency is allowed to provide. But in this case, the service wouldn’t be competing; rather, it would be providing a platform that a business could never afford. If anything, by offering access to a wide range of data and thereby being a catalyst for business innovation, the service would be promoting competition, not hindering it.

Who is Mr. Postman kidding? There is no separation of government and corporations. Ed Snowden worked for private contractor Booz Allen, not the NSA. The Department of Homeland Security has an office high in the government-subsidized Goldman Sachs tower, and shared its intelligence on Occupy protesters directly with Wall Street. In an oligarchy, the moneyed interests always call the shots. Fool me once, ping me twice, the excuses are getting stale. The proles are beyond wise to the fact that we live in a crypto-fascist world.

Incidentally, the reason that I am not including the name of my postal ringer within this post is so that the next time he Googles his own name, my article won't instantly pop up in the search results, and the Postman will be less likely to ring/ping me twice. But if he does, I'll be sure to ask him about that New Jersey-Chris Christie connection to the tampering of my letter from Doctors Without Borders. 

  ***

Oh, and totally off-topic, but since other bloggers brag about their adorable pets, I thought I'd share this latest snap of my dog Snap in one of his good moods:

Quarantine This

In the spirit of austerity, and with memories of the Sequester and shut-downs still fresh in their craven little minds, the ruling establishment has now decreed that human beings as well as the programs that help human beings must now be quarantined in the interests of Homeland Security.

Whether the possibly unconstitutional sequester of people against their will is humane (Democrats' house arrest) or inhumane (Republicans' unheated tents in late October) is a matter of fevered debate.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who never met a public employee or teacher he didn't hate, has actually imprisoned a nurse in a tent outside a hospital on grounds that her humanitarian spirit might possibly spread to others. (She has tested negative for Ebola.) In a just world, it would be the corrupt and corpulent Christie who'd be placed under perpetual quarantine.... in a super-max prison somewhere, with no possibility of parole, for crimes ranging from "BridgeGate" to his illegal halfway house scam to pay-to-play as a governing ideology.

(Update: the New York Times now reports that he will release Kaci Hickox, who lawyered up, from tent prison -- if the CDC approves. This way, he can cover his own ample ass should she later develop the disease, which is what he is probably really, really hoping happens. He is that much of a dick.)

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo hasn't been much better, boomeranging around the political spectrum all weekend from Far Right A (Christie) to Plain Right B (the Obama administration) in a frenzied quest to appear competent as he, too, has barely escaped prosecution for corruption.

Double Your Fun

Let's hope, meanwhile, that Ebola doesn't strike in Detroit, which on the banana republic scale  now ranks pretty close to Liberia, where the virus is out of control. Since thousands of Detroit residents have had the basic human right of water snatched away from them for lack of ability to pay, even such basic sanitation niceties as hand-washing and toilet-flushing have become luxuries out of their reach. It has gotten so bad that the United Nations visited the Motor City to condemn the fact that the gulf between rich and poor in the United States has widened to alarming and inhumane and dangerous proportions.

It's actually pretty amazing that President Obama will have the chutzpah to visit Detroit next week to "stump" for the same Democrats who have remained stonily silent on the plutocratic pillaging and ethnic cleansing of that once-great city. But I wouldn't be surprised if he manages to fit in another photo-op with the latest celebrity Ebola recoveree first, to hand out the sterile air kisses as a prelude to the next blast of hot air. Projectile political speech, as we should know by now, is as hazardous to our health as any microbe.

Here's what Obama should do: grab his pen and sign an executive order providing for five-star hotel accomodations for all returning symptom-free Africa aid workers under quarantine order, and a promise of a life-long government job in the field of their choice, followed by awarding of the Medal of Freedom and a ticker-tape parade.

***

In his latest "blame the Republicans and give the Democrats a pass" column today, Paul Krugman bemoans lack of investment in public infrastructure and how "America has turned its back on its own history."

Umm... it's the plutocracy, stupid. A gridlocked government with two undemocratic parties running the joint is just a propaganda ploy to get us to pick a team and pretend we're all participants in a battle royale between the forces of good and evil. Maybe after the midterms, Krugman will turn his attention to actual issues affecting ordinary people. But I am not holding my breath. Anyway, here's my published comment:

 Americans haven't turned their backs on history. The plutocrats have turned their backs on America.

For the government to invest in infrastructure, there first has to be a commitment to the commons. And the super-rich hate to make commitments outside of their own class.

In the global economy, there is no such thing as patriotism. Multinationals locate their headquarters and trillions in excess cash to international tax havens Or, if they're feeling especially benevolent, to the states that will pave their private parking lots for free and spend public money to train the low-wage labor corps of the future. (The promised jobs are never for right now.)

Public works projects require well-paid, unionized jobs. Since one of the main objectives of the oligarchy is to destroy unions, squeeze labor, and thereby depress wages, even the ability to borrow at zero interest is not in their best interest and not in line with their goal of total global feudalism. What do the Koch and Walton dynasties care about potholes and crumbling schools? They've got their Lear jets, helicopters, private tutors and armed security forces.

They are corporate parasites who aren't satisfied with sucking the last meager drops of blood, wealth and toil from the public. They're even taking out life insurance policies on The Help, with themselves as sole beneficiaries.

As Downton's Dowager once observed, "Nothing exceeds like excess."

And the serfs are getting restless... and mad as hell.

Grievous Errors

I hadn't planned on writing about the Media Matters outing of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat as a paid shill for an anti-LGBT hate group.  My outrage and disgust capacity had already just about reached the breaking point when I read about his unfortunate appearance before a group so despicable that it's on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of terrible, awful, and downright dangerous people.

But then, even after he got caught publicly gay-bashing and made a smirking "mistakes were made" pseudo-apology to a few blogs, Douthat now has the chutzpah to use his latest Times column to double down, albeit in a more nuanced fashion, on the homophobic rhetoric. He suggests that Pope Francis made a boo-boo by launching a pro-gay trial balloon at the Vatican this month. He's upset that all the money given to the church by wealthy Catholic plutocrats seeking and getting expiation for their mortal sins while dissing unwed mothers has been wasted. Look at all poor Henry VIII went through way back when the pope refused to grant him a divorce and he had to start his own church! The Catholic Church caving now might even de-sanctify Thomas More for all we know.

(OK, so Douthat didn't actually say those things in those exact words, but Times-brand hatred must always be presented as subtext-only for discerning readers with the patience to read between the sanctimonious lines. The class war against the poor under the protective cloak of  religion is the tried and true modus operandi of him and his brethren on the "Christian" right.)

 You'd think that after being exposed as something more vile than the nuanced and somewhat respected Times pundit he plays at being once a week, Douthat would at least have tried to temporarily change the conversation into something more palatable, like Ebola or the mid-terms. That he did not is a sure indication that he will be keeping his job, despite his moonlighting. He is the useful idiot, the click-bait that the Times keeps around to keep the liberal readers fuming and re-clicking and Tweeting and bringing in all that ad revenue.

Hate sells. This whole mid-term election is based on hate. We are going to the polls based on how much we despise the opposite side of the duopoly. Republicans will vote Nihilist purely because they hate Democrats. Democrats will vote We Suck Less only because they can't stand Republicans.

As much as I try to avoid commenting on Douthat and preaching to the liberal Times choir, I couldn't resist chiming in on his latest sermonette. Here, pending possible later removal by the censors, is my response:

Preserve us from the hypocrisy of paranoid pundits.

Douthat is one to talk about "preserving the pope from (the) error" of welcoming gays and remarried Catholics into the church, when he himself just committed the grievous error of speaking at a fundraiser for the Alliance of Defending Freedom. This is a rabid hate group which has actually called for the criminalization of homosexuality.

Media Matters has the scoop:

"On October 16, Douthat spoke at 'The Price of Citizenship: Losing Religious Freedom in America,' an event held by ADF and aimed at drawing attention to a number of popular right-wing horror stories about the threat LGBT equality poses to religious liberty. Douthat spoke alongside radio host Hugh Hewitt and the Benham brothers, who are notorious for their history of extreme anti-gay, anti-choice, and anti-Muslim rhetoric. The event ended with explicit solicitations for donations to support ADF's legal work."

 As Media Matters notes, Douthat tried to preserve his reputation by announcing, when confronted, that he wouldn't be cashing his ADF check. He was apparently shocked, shocked to learn that there was a profit motive going on! But as we know, bigotry and freedumb don't come cheap. There is nothing charitable about right wing extremism.

Somebody needs to make a good act of contrition in an upcoming column. Resignation in disgrace would be nice too.

 

The Pits in the All-American Pie

President Obama bragged recently that by almost every economic measure, America has become better off under his watch. Obviously the weasel word here is "America." In Obama-speak, it is defined as the stock market, the plutocracy, and the media-industrial-war complex.

Actual living, breathing Americans are still in the pits, according to the most recent supplemental poverty report issued by the Census Bureau. Factoring in such expenses as medical debt, and such regional variables as transportation, housing, clothing, and child care costs, nearly half of us --150 million people -- can be considered  "near-poor" (incomes below twice the official poverty threshold). The official abject poverty rate is holding just about steady at 15.5%, or nearly 48 million Americans.

The poverty rate among older Americans is actually increasing, up by about four million people, largely as a result of medical expenses. And were it not for Social Security, more than half of all Americans over age 65 would be living in penury. In the population as a whole, according to the report, out-of-pocket medical expenses alone have sent an additional 10 million adults of all ages into a state of near-poverty.

In California, one in four residents is now deemed poverty-stricken under the supplemental measures listed by the Census Bureau. Ditto for New York City. Both locales also boast more than their share of billionaires, who have raked in an even greater share of global wealth in the past year. From The Guardian:

The richest 1% of the world’s population are getting wealthier, owning more than 48% of global wealth, according to a report published on Tuesday which warned growing inequality could be a trigger for recession.

According to the Credit Suisse global wealth report (pdf), a person needs just $3,650 – including the value of equity in their home – to be among the wealthiest half of world citizens. However, more than $77,000 is required to be a member of the top 10% of global wealth holders, and $798,000 to belong to the top 1%.

“Taken together, the bottom half of the global population own less than 1% of total wealth. In sharp contrast, the richest decile hold 87% of the world’s wealth, and the top percentile alone account for 48.2% of global assets,” said the annual report, now in its fifth year.

Meanwhile, though, most Americans (besides desperately believing that there is not only still a middle class, but that they still reside in it)  have no clue about how extreme the wealth inequality really is. According to a survey conducted by Harvard Business School, most people think that the average CEO makes a whopping 30 times the salary of the average worker, while believing that a fairer ratio would be more along the lines of 7:1.

The correct response is that, on average, the American CEO makes at least a staggering 300 times as much money as the employee. That would take the unacceptability factor into the outer limits of the stratosphere, to a level far above the comprehension of most of our brains.

And that, of course, is perfectly O.K. with the ruling elites.

Incidentally, the New York Times has today countered the Census Bureau's supplemental poverty report with a special supplemental section of its own. It is called, simply enough, Wealth. 

Far from being a self-celebration of extreme inequality, this supplement frames its articles around the theme of what a headache and hardship obscene wealth truly is for its sufferers.


If, for example, you are an executive stressed out from making 300 times as much as your serfs, you can relax. Get rid of any vestigial guilt you might be feeling at a euphemistically titled plutocratic "boot camp" where you can yoga away all your cares and woes. And if you're an older woman who is royally pissed off about all the attention your dog food-eating impoverished peers are getting, the Times has some special advice to help you cope with the angst of having all that money. There are other stories about heiresses on horseback, and how to supplement the stressful happiness that wealth brings by coddling your brain chemistry.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a Harvard study to prove that there is more than enough cluelessness to go around in this wildly tilting world of ours.

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