Exit Ryan

The response to one-time wunderkind Paul Ryan's "retirement" announcement has been surprisingly underwhelming.   Credit for the massive corporate tax cut largely has accrued to the Orange Imbecile, despite years of efforts by Ryan to enrich the most affluent at the expense of everybody else.  He has been praised in some quarters for having the "courage" to publicly endorse screwing the poor by annihilating food stamps, Medicare, and Social Security, but Obamacare limps on despite his best efforts.

Ryan made his decision to leave for all the obvious reasons.  His position as Speaker was imperiled by the widely anticipated "blue wave," and there was no guarantee that even his seat in the House was safe.  It was a lot easier being Speaker under Obama, when all he had to do was lead a chorus of Republicans chanting "no."  Most important, though, he must despise having to defer to the whims of a buffoon like Tr*mp.

Quite possibly, he does want to spend more time with his teenage children, who are just the right age to start reading Ayn Rand novels.  He'll also have opportunities to start making some serious money on the lecture circuit and as the leader of some Koch-funded superPAC.  I don't expect him to become a lobbyist, but doors certainly will be open.

What Ryan seems to enjoy most of all is playing the role of "smartest person in the room," so we can expect to see his teddy bear ears flapping regularly on cable news.  In the meanwhile, he remains Speaker; and it will be interesting to see if his lame-duck status frees him up to be just a little bit more critical of the Administration.  Personally, I don't believe his "courage" is up to the task.

House Divided

 The Freedom Caucus, by making the thoroughly odious the enemy of the merely malevolent, is said to have nailed shut the coffin of Ryancare.  Impressively, the renegade Republicans stayed ideologically pure, resisting the temptation to give the rich a major tax cut and screw over millions of poorer folk who benefit from the expansion of Medicaid.  One wonders if the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist regret financing Tea Party primary challenges against more "moderate" Republicans.  (John Boehner, deposed by those same ideologues, must be smirking pretty hard today.)

In truth, though, the Ryan bill would have had a hard time even without the Republican schism.  It was pure Reaganomics, and despite compulsory genuflection at the shrine of Saint Ronnie, there are Republicans who understand it's not the 1980s anymore — and everyone can see that Donald is a far cry from Ronald.

Well, on to tax reform!  Sadly for Ryan, he was counting on the tax cuts from the failed health bill to make the numbers look vaguely reasonable in his tax package.  There's also quite a bit of division among his party's corporate contributors over those ideas for boosting exports and making imports more expensive.  There could be more chaos on the Hill forthwith.

Nobamacare

Don't count on conservative "opponents" to torpedo the Ryan plan for ending Obamacare.  The Freedom Caucus is making noise, but at the heart of the current proposal is a goal dear to the far right: the destruction of Medicaid.

Most Americans who have health insurance enjoy it as an employee benefit, and are entirely indifferent to the cost of purchasing their own.  Nevertheless, the insurance exchanges got most of the attention in debates over the ACA — even though it was the law's expansion of Medicaid that was most significant in bringing health care to millions who lacked it.  The Republican "Patient's Choice Act" will not merely eliminate Medicaid for those enrolled in the expansion, but create a system of block grants to the states that will destroy the program entirely.

The single most important goal of the Obamacare repeal, like virtually every other piece of Republican legislation since Reagan, is to cut taxes on the rich.  Finding the money to do that inevitably involves reducing benefits for everybody else.  Ending Medicaid — which pays for half the babies born in the United States and half the elderly in nursing homes — uses a lot of money that otherwise might be lining rich people's pockets.  Sad.

The Patient's "Choice" Act will give poor patients a "choice" between medicine and food.  The chief hope for its failure is defections by Republican senators from states where Medicaid was expanded under the ACA, and where its elimination may do some real political damage.  Those senators now are working hard to figure out just how much damage might be done, and how well that damage might be offset by the gratitude of wealthy donors.

Briefly

Health Care
Tr*mp says, "I have to tell you, it's an unbelievably complex subject.  Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."  Nobody?  Well, duh!

Voter Suppression
Our President had to stock his Cabinet with plutocrats, presumably because he just couldn't find enough wingnut ideologues — but he does have unreconstructed Confederate warrior Jeff Sessions, who has dropped the government's argument that the Texas voter ID law was designed to suppress minority voting.  Can the other plaintiffs win without the backing of the Justice Department?  We'll see.

Federal Budget
Congress never pays much attention to presidential budget proposals, so we can ignore Tr*mp's speech and just wait for Paul Ryan.  We are most likely to see yet another attempt at implementing supply-side economics, and need only look to Kansas to see how well that works.

Military Spending
It is obvious to the simple-minded that more military spending will "make America stronger" — except that it won't.  Fortunately, this particularly dumb idea would have to be funded with cuts to enough programs popular in the various states to ensure it won't happen.

Antisemitism
The cemetery vandalism will turn out to be the work of drunken young men, possibly wearing red caps; and the bomb threats not part of any organized plot, but individual acts inspired on 4chan or by the Daily Stormer.  This doesn't make the problem any less serious: antisemitism is an inevitable accompaniment to any kind of xenophobia, and enough empty threats might inspire some demented individual to attempt a real bombing.

* * *

Update (11PM): Well, he gave the campaign speech again.

Enablers

Christie
Obviously Chris has abandoned all hope of continuing his political career, as signaled by his approval of a 27¢ per gallon gasoline tax increase for New Jersey.  Maybe Tr*mp will allow him to be a talking head on that new news network — albeit neither loyalty nor gratitude seem to figure much into Tr*mp's "temperament."

Giuliani
Rudy was a racist when he served as Mayor of New York City; but these days he's a louder racist.  It's cute how he's out there insisting Tr*mp is a "genius" who can fix the tax code because he's exploited it so well.  (Needless to say, Tr*mp's tax proposal would leave the outrageous breaks for commercial real estate developers intact.)

McConnell & Ryan
Mitch and Paul still seem to have difficulty gagging out support for "their" presidential candidate, but somehow they manage to do so no matter how embarrassing he becomes or how often he contradicts orthodox Republican policy.  Tr*mp may be inconsistent, but he sticks with cutting taxes on the rich — and that's what matters.

Cruz
I guess Ted has come to decide his wife must be ugly and his father really did help plan the assassination of JFK.  How else to explain his endorsement of Tr*mp?  Surely an individual of such high and noble ideals could not have succumbed to political pressure.

Catch-up

Russia in Syria
The main question: why?  Is Putin acting for internal Russian consumption, continuing his "strong man" routine?  Is he concerned about losing Russia's naval base?  It's not because he likes Assad — nobody likes Assad.  Maybe he's just decided that since Syria probably is the most fucked-up arena in the world, Russia, hoping to re-establish itself as a "world power," just has to be there.

Initially, it seemed inevitable that Russia only could make the megamess worse, but there is a possibility that Russia might make things better, by sharing some of the responsibility for pumping out the cesspool.  After all, Syria can't get much worse.

Hillary and Benghazi
Yawn.

Migrants
The United States has no valid excuse for admitting so few war refugees, leaving others to shoulder the load.  The idea that we need two years per applicant to filter out potential "terrorists" is nothing but an excuse.  The real motive for the unconscionable rigmarole is xenophobia and racism.

Paul Ryan
Of course.  All the "I don't wanna" was bullshit from word one.  He always had the essential quality: allegiance to the economic policy of soaking the poor to further enrich the rich and pretending it creates "growth."  Despite it's other bizarre obsessions, the Freedom Caucus agrees.

The Primaries
I'm still giving Bernie money, even though it's dead certain now that Hillary will be the Democratic candidate, and that Bernie's pulled her about as far to the left as she's ready to go.

In the meanwhile, the Republican field continues to be a total freak show: Ben Carson!?  He makes Trump seem reasonable (and intelligent) by comparison.  Bush, despite all his money, appears to be dead in the water.  Ted Cruz, who is straight-out evil, is moving up — but he's far too ugly to be elected president.  Rubio, the quintessential opportunist but pretty as a picture, may end up the candidate — and, sadly, he might even win.

Draft Louis Gohmert!

Now that Kevin McCarthy has withdrawn himself from consideration for new Speaker of the House, having made the fatal error of saying out loud what everybody knew — that all those Bengazi committees were purely political, aimed at hurting Hillary's electoral chances — the amusingly fratricidal GOP must come up with an alternative.  Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Daniel Webster (R-FL) have absolutely no "establishment" (i.e. more evil than crazy) support, so neither can be elected.

The movement to "draft" Paul Ryan, who previously said he wasn't interested, has picked up a full head of steam, and probably will succeed.  Ryan is conservative enough to satisfy the Freedom Caucus and evil enough to satisfy the establishment; also, he is smart enough to recognize that the post of Speaker has very nearly as much power as the post of President, and Ryan likes power.  Better yet, there are no term limits on the post of Speaker.

If Ryan still refuses to run, for some incomprehensible reason, allow me to suggest Louie Gohmert — far and away the most intellectually defective person in Congress.  Gohmert never had an original idea, and just might have to learn to read before he can arrange the order of business for the House.  Gridlock will retain its stranglehold on government, and the USofA will bumble and stumble on.

Short Subjects

The Ryan Budget

Evil.  What else is there to say?

Okay, there's a little more to say.  Ryan claims that eviscerating SNAP and turning Medicare and Medicaid into block grants to the states will generate enormous economic growth.  Needless to say, even he knows he's wrong.  He's not stupid.  He's just evil.

The Supremes

The most recent decision in favor of plutocracy (McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission) really does not do too much more to empower the oligarchs, because they already had all the power.  On the other hand, it makes the very richest of our plutocrats a bit more powerful than the others — and to that I say, "So what?"

If Clarence Thomas (like so many black men of his age) dropped dead tomorrow, it probably wouldn't matter.  Obama would feel obliged to nominate a "moderate," and what the hell good is that?  (Even the ACLU seems to believe that money equals speech.)

Andrew Cuomo

If I had Mario Cuomo's personal email address, I would advise him to slap his boy around a bit.  Here in New York, it's pretty obvious that Andrew is pursuing the Clinton (Bill, mostly) route to the White House (which mostly involves right turns.)

Andy-Boy has been fucking over Bill DeBlasio (that shameless liberal) while sucking up to Wall Street and the hedge fund managers who no longer have any real limits on how much they can funnel to his eventual campaign.  I wouldn't vote for him if he were running against Rush Limbaugh.  (No, I wouldn't vote for Rush.  I guess I'd go Green again, for all the good that does.)

Schismatics

According to the Times, the United States has discontinued non-lethal aid to the Syrian rebels after fighters for the Islamic Front grabbed up a couple of warehouses full of stuff we'd contributed to the Free Syrian Army, the administration's preferred rebel group.  I read the article twice, and a couple of things stood out.  First, it was suggested that no Free Syrian Army fighters were around to defend the warehouses.  Second, the Islamic Front has no relationship with ISIS or Al Qaeda.

The administration is "considering" support to the Islamic Front, but by the time consideration is over, you can bet the Islamic Front will have fragmented into a bunch of new militias, along with a bunch of other rebel groups.  The main motivation for a large majority of those groups, at this point, is to steal as much as possible.  Pity the refugees, and the countries to which they have fled.  There will be nothing left if they ever get to go home.

..........

More schismatics:  Despite his "fiscal" dedication to taking food out the mouths of poor children, Paul Ryan is under attack by the very members of Congress (and outside organizations financed by such as the Koch brothers) who were kissing his ass a few years ago.  Then John Boehner came to his defense, displaying what might pass as genuine anger, but with no tears.

It seems there are a few Democrats in the House who genuinely like Ryan, or so they say.  Is he moving to the middle for the sake of the next presidential election?  Can he find the critical point that balances the true crazies against the traditional conservatives?  Can the Republican Party keep from ripping itself apart?

Stay tuned.

Over the Cliff!!!

Butch and Sundance did it.  Thelma and Louise did it.  Results were mixed.

As for the fiscal cliff, it is pretty obvious that John Boehner cannot control his caucus.  Maybe, come January, the crazies will elect Paul Ryan to the office of Speaker.  You never know with those assholes.

I just listened to Obama's brief statement. He didn't say much — certainly nothing especially specific.  I was kind of hoping he would withdraw his most recent offer ($250,000 to $400,000, "chained CPI"), but he didn't.  He just expressed a little half-hearted optimism and left the room.

I suspect the Administration calculates that going over the cliff might turn out to be a net gain.  Now that Boehner's "Plan B" is dead, the last chance for Republicans dodging responsibility is gone.  Once the leap is undertaken, and tax increases and sequestration kick in, the right-wing ideologues scarcely could oppose tax cuts for the middle class because they are not extended to the very rich.

As for the sequestration, those spending cuts will kick in slowly, probably not doing a great deal of damage while Congress works to balance the demands of the defense lobby and the remainder of the human race.  I fear defense will make out better than humanity, but what the hell?  What would you expect?

Will the markets take a dive?  Uh huh.  Briefly.  As I've observed before, the markets have very little to do with real life.

Ryan v. Biden

Ryan was pretty good, but Biden was Biden — and that's a pretty amazing thing to be.  Maybe Obama can call in sick next week and send in Biden as substitute debater.  Frankly, I wouldn't mind at all if Obama called in sick of politics and sent in Biden as substitute candidate.

People talk about Biden's "gaffes."  I don't call them gaffes.  I call them telling the truth.

I thought Martha Raddatz was really on top of things, but there's no doubt in my mind that the right will accuse her of bias because she showed so little tolerance for dissimulation and bullshit.  Maybe they'll let her do a presidential debate in 2016, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I especially enjoyed the closing statements.  Biden's pre-scripted remarks sounded sincere and authentic.  Ryan's pre-scripted remarks sounded like pre-scripted remarks.

Viva Biden.

Republican Wrap-up

Well, this is a lot of of posts for one month, but it's been kind of a special month.

I couldn't even be bothered to comment on Paul Ryan's tissue of lies last night, albeit I might blow my nose into it.  (What's with the "tissue" analogy anyway?  I guess I'll have to go to Ask.com,)

Clint Eastwood was very entertaining tonight, and he remains somebody whose work I admire, whatever his political views.  Marco Rubio is looking a lot like a future presidential candidate.  When it comes to Latinos, Republicans seem to be especially fond of Cubans. Uh huh.

Anyway, Mitt's speech tonight was another attempt at "humanizing," and it wasn't too bad except when he was scripted to smile.  I guess there wasn't enough time to teach him to smile convincingly.  Just the same, I guess he managed to appear a little more human — but if you were watching him going down the rope line before his speech, he was the same old rod-up-his-ass Romney we know so well.

I counted less than a minute of totally vague policy talk, and maybe a minute and a half of Obama bashing.  Nevertheless, I guess it will give him a "convention bump" for a week or so — until the Dems launch their infomercial.

Blah blah blah.

How dum r we?

It is no secret that Americans read little and none too well. American computational skills have necessitated the development of the modern cash register, which requires only that the human being be sufficiently competent to scan in a price, punch in the amount of cash presented, and count out the correct amount of change. (The operators of such machines generally earn more than minimum wage because of their superior skill sets.)

Hence, it comes as no surprise that there is a lot of support, out there, for assorted Republican candidates for the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. If you've had a look at Paul Ryan's latest budget proposal, you will understand that Ryan — like me — does not hold American intelligence in high regard.

Just two tax brackets?!!! Are you kidding?!!! (No.) Letting American corporations repatriate their foreign profits for free, forever?!!! (I know! Let's ship even more jobs overseas!) Let's not even bother to consider the extreme reductions to high income and corporate tax rates.

(Well, maybe we ought to at least think about them, because we Americans are not too bright. The justification for tax breaks to the rich is that they will invest more in our economy and, therefore, create jobs. Sounds good, except that when they got tax breaks under Bush, they invested their extra money in derivatives — not new business — and brought down the Western World. Derivatives represent fast money. Investments that create jobs represent slow money. Don't bet on the tortoise against the hare. You'll lose.)

I won't get into Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Pell grants, and the rest of the proposed Ryan cuts right now — suffice to say that the plutocrats grow fatter and grosser at the expense of the far more ordinary. Romney implies that the ordinary deserve to struggle all their lives, because they're dumb — and he deserves to be President because he embodies the "meritocracy."

Well, the ordinary are pretty dumb, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve decent lives — with decent incomes, decent health care, and what used to be very ordinary hopes for the future of their children. If we really had a meritocracy, Paris Hilton would be whoring out on the Tenderloin, and Romney's vast brood would have no greater opportunities than some very nice, bright kids who are growing up in East Harlem.

Watch Obama move even further to the right. Here, in the 21st century, money moves all mountains — and it makes me sick.

Medicare, again

The special election won by Democrat Kathy Hochul in New York's heavily Republican 26th Congressional District had national Democrats jumping for joy. Apparently, Paul Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program was not at all popular up there in Erie County, and Democrats expect similar feelings extend nationwide. Probably, they're right.

Republicans claim Democrats "misrepresented" the Ryan proposal. Frankly, though, their chief problem seems to be that people understood all too well: just eliminate Medicare, the government insurance program, and replace it with a voucher to buy private insurance. Government savings only can come from voucher amounts always being significantly less than policy premiums. Those who can't afford to pay the difference wind up with no insurance, so they would not even be using their vouchers — leaving even more money to distribute in the form of tax cuts for the rich.

Republicans are right, however, in pointing out that Democrats have not offered a real alternative for reducing Medicare costs. The Obama plan, such as it is, depends mostly on reducing payments to providers — which logically would result in fewer providers accepting Medicare. We are still waiting the administration to suggest a replacement for the cost inflating fee-for-service model, which encourages providers to provide many unneeded tests and unproductive treatment protocols.

The chief reason Medicare is so costly, though, is that the people using it are older and sicker than the general population. To bring costs per patient down, the most sensible thing would be to bring younger, healthier individuals into the pool. In the past, I've recommended selling Medicare policies to major employers who wish to provide coverage to their workers. Since Medicare does not have to advertise nor pay out profits to stockholders, it ought to be able to offer real competition to private insurance companies. To stay competitive, the privates would either have to cut rates or offer better coverage and service.

Yes, this would look a lot like a first step towards a single-payer system, but if the private sector really is so much more efficient than government, it just might be able to steal away Medicare's customers — including the ill and the elderly. Now wouldn't that be a triumph for the free market?

Standard and Poors Downgrades Congress

A couple of days ago, Standard & Poors announced that there is a one in three chance that it will downgrade US debt from its customary AAA rating within the next two years. The bond market barely flickered, indicating that nobody who mattered was terribly concerned. Granted, S&P's reputation for accurate evaluation of risk suffered somewhat in 2008, but the real reason for the collective yawn was that bond traders understood the announcement was a political rather than an economic statement.

(Yes, the stock market took a bit of a dive following the announcement as the amateurs panicked, but it rapidly recovered. One might be curious to know just who was shorting the most volatile stocks just prior to the S&P pronouncement.)

So, what was the political point S&P wanted to make? In the words of the shop teacher from South Park, "Hey, you kids! Quit messing around!"

More than anything else, Wall Street values stability — especially since it has shown itself to be so inept at risk management. While nobody in his or her right mind believes the US ever would default on its debt, S&P probably thinks there might be enough idiots in Congress to create instability by playing politics with the debt ceiling right up until the last minute. If the rest of the world gets to thinking that our government is approaching critical mass for idiocy, US debt markets — private as well as public — could suffer.

A statement similar to S&P's was sent by the bond trader PIMCO earlier this year, when it announced it no longer would be purchasing US debt, thereby implying distrust of government. The real reason PIMCO is getting out of the market for government debt is that is pays such low interest — specifically because it is so very safe an investment.

Look a little deeper, though, and there may be cause for concern. S&P issued virtually identical statements — twice — with regard to UK debt. It is widely believed that those "devaluations" helped elect the Cameron government, and encouraged the current British austerity program.

Would Wall Street prefer a compromise closer to the Ryan proposal than to the Obama proposal for debt reduction? Well, S&P speaks for a lot of very wealthy individuals. What do you think?

The Ryan Budget

The 2012 budget proposed by Paul Ryan has received a good deal of press attention for its audacity, with many comments on how "politically risky" it is. Well, it ought to be risky — in point of fact, it ought to bring the Republican party crashing down in the 2012 elections — but Republicans don't seem all that concerned. Once again, they are counting on the overwhelming economic ignorance and the pathetic intellectual laziness of the American people.

Yes, they want to bring the top tax rate for the rich all the way down to 25%, and the deductions they plan to eliminate are those most beneficial to the middle class. The cuts they propose have an inordinate impact on the poor, children, and the elderly. Don't even bother to ask about the estate tax. As usual, their policy advances the further transfer of wealth to the very rich from everybody else.

Are Americans really stupid and lazy enough to buy into it?

Maybe. Well, probably, especially since the Democrats are not likely to make significant efforts to educate and motivate them. The president wants to amass a billion dollars for his 2012 campaign, and given his penchant for pissing off his base over the past two years, he'll have to get almost all of it from Wall Street and other big donors. Watch for some of his signature "compromises," and be ready to put your fingers down your throat.

State of the Bullshit

Obama got off to a good populist start last night when he suggested taking away the tax giveaways to the carbon companies and using the money for alternative energy development. It went downhill from there.

If I hear any more blather about "competitiveness" I'm likely to go out of my mind. I can't see any way we're in direct competition with China, India, Europe, Russia, Brazil, or any other country. We can't compete against China, our current boogeyman, in any sort of labor intensive manufacturing sector, and they can't compete with us when it comes to our most important industry, finance. Speaking of labor intensive pursuits, I heard the President mention that the United States has the most productive work force of any country in the world. A little later, he went on to say how we had to become even more productive.

Hmm... How did we get so productive? Easy. Our captains of industry just lay off workers, don't replace them, and insist the remaining workers pick up the slack for fear of losing their jobs too. It's getting to look more and more like the age of sweatshops in the American workplace, but calling for even more productivity will not do much for our unemployment crisis.

High speed rail won't happen unless major Republican contributors can be assured of getting all the contracts. The President's other big priority, more money "invested" in his Race to the Top education "reform," won't happen either. Personally, I'm happy about that. Race to the Top forces states to compete against each other for a few extra federal bucks, with most of them (and their unionized teachers) coming up losers. With Democrats like Obama, who needs Republicans?

Paul Ryan's response for the Republicans was described by the pundits as "measured," mostly because he didn't sound nearly as crazy as Michelle Bachman, who also delivered a speech last night. It was carried only by CNN — even Fox wouldn't touch it — so it follows that almost nobody saw it. I watched it, though!

Bachman gave what I guess is her standard Tea Party stump speech. Her delivery reminded me of the teacher's pet running for class president, and her remarks were addressed to a space somewhere above the viewer's head and off to the left. Dick Armey, whose group arranged her appearance, should have hired technicians who know where to place the teleprompter.

Frankly, it all makes me sick. There is nobody speaking for the poor, the unemployed, the exploited, the underwater, or the foreclosed. Anybody too young to remember Lyndon Johnson has no experience of liberal government, and so what passes for liberalism today is anything that wouldn't have qualified as fascism in the 1960s.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm starting to feel more and more sympathy for the Tea Partiers. They're totally ignorant and working against their own self-interest, but they've got good reasons to be angry — even if they're entirely ignorant of what those good reasons are.