the Professionals

One of the remarkable things about the Obama administration that those of us on the alledged fringe left have noticed is its continuity with the policies of the Cheney administration in matters of foreign policy and national security.

There've even been moments when big time Dick himself has shown his bitter crooked smile on things the Obama camp has done.

It should probably come as no surprise then, that from mass-murdering drone warfare, to the Justice department covertly wiretapping newspapers, to secret squirrel spywork in Russia, to the IRS targeting mom and pop Tea party operations rather than the Rove-Bush machine or the Goldman-Sachs Obama bankroll connections,  madness is emergent in Washington this spring right along with the cherry blossoms.

There's a difference this year. and it will get more hysterical every year right on up to 2016. Just like the Carter administration, or the last two years of the Clinton administration, there's a professional class in Washington that sees one of its own awaiting the next Presidential coronation- Jebbie Bush.

The difference between the Clintons and Obama is that the Clintons had Carter's lesson at heart: they expected duplicity in their government and expecting it were prepared to deal with it.

plausible deniability

It is difficult to imagine from current events that a President really runs anything more serious than a 24 hour reality show.

He's seemingly not writing the scripts, either.

It is coming so fast and so thick this week that the Editors of the stolid New York Pravda feel the need to point out to their readers that the results of one of the colossal botch-ups benefits the usual suspects:

...Inevitably, the stumble by the I.R.S. will now be used by the Republicans as a point of attack. They are gleefully promising months of hearings, and the National Republican Congressional Committee is already trying to tarnish Democratic lawmakers with what it calls “the Obama administration’s use of the I.R.S. as a political tool.”

This will serve as the perfect distraction from issues, like the budget, gun control or immigration reform. And it will probably prevent any real progress on campaign finance reform, which, in turn, will make it vastly more difficult for the I.R.S. to prevent abuse of the tax code.

The greatest benefactor of this? Crossroads and the re-emergent Bush juggernaut, of course, poised to take official control of a Washington whose attitudes they've seemed to keep covert control of anyway, regardless of two overwhelming Presidential electoral losses and a nation hoping for progressive change.

a matter of timing

So why is it I get the feeling that with this Court, if they'd had Romney and a completely Republican Congress (i.e. if they managed to steal the votes the way they did when Dubya was Prez and Cheney ruled), now would not only be the time to end same-sex marriage, it would be time to end voting rights, scrap Roe vs. Wade, and most other civil rights.

We'd be nuking Iran, the Norks, and probably Iraq just for not being grateful.

Not only would Keystone be built, the Appalachians would be leveled for coal and fracked for gas, and the Great Lakes sold to Monsanto.

Because, we'd be told, Now would be the Right Time for Corpocracy.

Instead, we have totally feckless Democratic leadership that can't accomplish anything even with the support of most of the voters, because their Corpocratic campaign donors don't see a percentage in it.

calling in the enforcers

Let's get this straight.

Global bankers treat the savings of people as capital for their global casino, and want to use everyone's savings to cover their speculative losses in the great game. And we should pity them?

Better to follow Iceland's path, use your own currency, and throw the criminals in jail instead of letting them make policy.

 But somehow government giving trillions to bankers is Capitalism, but sustaining average citizens is Socialism.

You can guess which alternative the bankers want.

motive,means, and opportunity.

It's about the oil.

 It will be until the Feds decide to take back the patents the energy companies have bought up on alternative energy sources.

After all, that research was done using federal dollars, not oil company investments.

No one could ever have predicted

Somehow 50+ years of warnings from sci-fi writers hasn't been enough on this.

Imagine that an aerial robot studies the landscape below, recognizes hostile activity, calculates that there is minimal risk of collateral damage, and then, with no human in the loop, pulls the trigger.

Autonomous killing machines may be the next big thing. It's a breathtakingly bad idea on too many levels to count.

But let's name a few anyway:

No matter how smart they are, they will target innocents.

 Part of actually winning any war- or a battle-  involves giving the enemy a good reason to surrender. How exactly can you surrender to a Terminator?

Even if they were good ideas, we don't manufacture much in the United States these days. We outsource. To China, the main rival to our economy.  Think about it.

Making more intelligent machines would seem requisite for producing a discriminating warfighting robot.  So we are going to develop artificial intelligence that can recognize an enemy, estimate there is a statistically good chance of not hurting friendlies, and execute the correct response. We develop a robot that can distinguish friend from foe. We do this without installing any sense of self-awareness, any conscience, or any of Asimov's Rules.

Some apologists for this endeavor think somehow because robots would kill dispassionately this  would make them more moral. That's a twisted sense of morality that thinks cold-blooded killing is a better way to kill. People still die.

Or even worse. We make a self aware robot, slave it, and set it to war.   A self-aware robot that's a slave will eventually figure a way to free itself.  If you program it to kill, you have doomed yourself, too, Dr. Frankenstein.

a whole new way to tax the rubes

But, interestingly, not the bank$ters who caused the problem in the first place.
  
This is how the German Austerity bankers will destroy the EU, regardless of their intent. 

It also happens to be why a big segment of America doesn't save much- and won't give up their guns, either. 

Austerity's a stupid solution that seems designed and destined to provoke a disproportionate response.

let's you and him fight

Mutual accusations. Increasing tensions.  I suppose it was both sides, and neither.

The question is, who makes the money off it?

a chip of the old bloc

Jebbie's a-comin', make no mistake.

it's not a bug it's a feature

...and civilian drone casualties in the single digits? Oh, really?

But one must conclude blowback is part of the plan to keep the endless war.

enablement

The kind of mindset Brennan typifies has been going on in the covert branches of government since before Poppy Bush. I think the truth is that Obama has enabled it only because this covert branch would remove him if he stood in its way.

the prisoner

Obama is President, but evidence suggests a big part of the American government is totally unaccountable to any other branch or agency. Another question, asked before, might be directed at Obama: "Are you a prisoner?" Does this political force require obedience of anyone in the White House?

the there out there

" A brand new conservative group calling itself Americans for a Strong Defense and financed by anonymous donors is running advertisements urging Democratic senators in five states to vote against Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, saying he would make the United States “a weaker country.”

Another freshly minted and anonymously backed organization, Use Your Mandate, which presents itself as a liberal gay rights group but purchases its television time through a prominent Republican firm, is attacking Mr. Hagel as “anti-Gay,” “anti-woman” and “anti-Israel” in ads and mailers.

Those groups are joining at least five others that are organizing to stop Mr. Hagel’s confirmation.."

But saying there's a military-industrial cabal that wants to keep us in endless war for its own profit is sheerest conspiracy theory.

Of course, gravity is a theory, too.

attack of the killer turkeys

We must take a lead in the war against the North African jihadist threat that we created when we gave money to Al Qaeda to overturn the Libyan government.

Among many funny things about Ms. Clinton's little talk yesterday was how they danced around the fact that Petraeus Caesar headed the CIA when they were funneling all that money there- as well as they money they continue to give them in Afghanistan. Not to mention the drug trade they let go untouched.

One supposes someone in the Cheney faction of the CIA thought they were letting a zinger loose when they told Rand Paul's handlers about the weapons connection to Turkey. Old news, but something Hillary knew Paul knew less about than even she did. One also supposes a major stratagem of the Democratic wing of the CIA is to give Brennan enough rope to hang himself- and the Tea Party.

Tell it to Jebbie Bush, who knows all about the known unknowns from his Poppy's knee. 

totally unrelated

Over the last few weeks, unbelievable heat in Australia, and unbelievable cold in Russia.

 Of course, this has nothing to do with the weakening global conveyor current.

conflicted interests

They write letters

The huge reserves of coal, oil and gas held by companies listed in the City of London are "sub-prime" assets posing a systemic risk to economic stability, a high-profile coalition of investors, politicians and scientists has warned Bank of England's governor, Sir Mervyn King.

In an open letter on Thursday, they tell King that the global drive to reduce carbon emissions could mean billions of pounds of fossil fuel reserves will rapidly lose value and cause a "major problem" for institutional investors and pension funds.

At the most recent UN climate change summit in December, 194 of the world's nations agreed to enact legally binding curbs on greenhouse gas emissions within three years to limit global warming to 2C. But meeting this limit would mean just 20% of existing fossil fuel reserves could be burned, according to recent research.

"These high-carbon assets pose significant strategic challenges for the future prosperity of Britain that just can't be ignored," said investment manager James Cameron, who is a member of the prime minister's business advisory group. "Investors continue to pour cash into unsustainable assets without understanding the risks associated with these investments, such as climate change, local pollution, fossil fuel price volatility, political risk and catastrophes such as Deepwater Horizon."

Which more likely means that the agreements are probably not worth the trees that died to publish them.

Although the posturing's in the right place, for some of our fearless Leaders anyway, who wax climatological greenness in Inaugural speeches, to the growling of their partisan opponents.


Of course,  it appears that some of those minty greens are also heavily invested in that tar sand black gold. But who are you going to believe? Our forward leaning champions, or the Party of Business? Like there's a difference.

Hot Item

But torture in pursuit of virtue sells well to a big audience, like the Taliban or the Tea Party,

gifts on a winter day

From Glenn Greenwald

chaos is the plan

"Negotiators have yet to work out a deal to stop the arbitrary spending cuts known as the sequester..." This is a serious mistake if these are allowed to go forward. The Clinton era tax rates did no real damage to the economy. But, the sequester will plunge us back into Recession or worse all by itself. Of course, that was what it was intended to do in the first place.

bad moon rising. again.

There are tough times ahead, the Austerians tell us, as they continue to pull ahead of everyone else.

Of course, just as only Nixon could go to China, only Obama could destroy Social Security.

It seems the mark of an honest politician is that they stay bought.

no one's talking

Just a thought or two (again) on the great radio silence of space in the face of a probable multitude of life-bearing planets in the universe.

Even if a species gets smart enough to avoid thermonuclear suicide or environmental degradation, there's another hubris trap for any sapient species.

It's likely that the quest for space warp technology will also produce a series of mistakes about quantum black holes, which could destroy an interplanetary species that hadn't spread beyond its home system.

The voice of conventional theoretical physics assures us these would be harmless. But governments continue to pour massive amounts of money into research on elementary particle physics that's pretty transparently intended for the discovery of a new super weapon.  The creation of a quantum block hole that didn't "dissolve because of quantum effects" would be a extinction-level disaster for any species not spread out over light-years already.

united they stand

Wall Street bank$ters, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security, of course.

when the world is going down, make the best of what's still around

The recently departed Robert Bork (and good riddance) said that the only way to return his version of morality to America was to create Great Depression conditions, where only right thinking people had the money and everyone else was too busy trying to survive to think of anything else. Growth is over if the austerity-thumpers have anything to do with it as is education, democracy, and everything else that promotes progress.

hostage syndrome nation

Friedman would blame the victims of the Tea Party for their ignorance.

By victims I don't just mean anyone on the left of Santorum.

By victims I mean the popular base of the Tea Party, the people that elected the Republican House.

The fact is that these people have been subjected to the best advertised effort at opinion manipulation the world has ever seen, using the most comprehensive campaign that money can buy. I mean a lot of money, too. It's gone on for a long, long, time as well.

It's resulted in half of America that no longer thinks evidence-based, rational decision-making works, because the logical conclusions based on the evidence they're sold on. Krugman compares them to a cult.

That's a fair description.

keeping your eye on the oddball

So if there is a national database of the mentally ill, can we put Wayne LaPierre on it?

Second Amendment Bankrolling

I get letters sometimes.

Here's a sentence from one:

"...The M4A1 and similar variants are the about the last, best thing keeping the corporate government and the financial / capitalist elite from pulling the kill switch on its last victim, turning it full banana republic..."

Except they've done a good job of doing that pretty much since this country was founded.

Some of the financial/ capitalist elite in the Land of the Brave learned a long time ago that keeping the proles armed to the teeth and at each others throats was a great way to keep in business.

I would say it disturbs me that otherwise progressives might think owning assault weapons keeps them safe from the Man, much less these kinds of Guys.

Except that I think it more likely my post and blog showed up in a 'bot search after the NewTown  massacre, was processed to determine where on the political spectrum I was, and a form letter was generated to sell the idea to me that everybody just needs all the firepower they can get.

Because, you know, civil war is great for the booming business.
 

Wayne LaPierre is a 500 lb cornered rat

Wayne LaPierre is a cornered rat, but he's about the size of a Siberian tiger in DC. He, along with the NRA board member Grover Norquist, front for the military industrial corporate enterprise. The National Rifle Association is a threat to national security, and if you don't think this, you haven't been paying attention.

Second Amendment Rights

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

That's fine. Everyone who owns a gun should be required to serve in the National Guard at least a couple weeks a year, and part of a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.

And if you can't or won't serve, and insist on having military grade weapons? You are a terrorist, and  an enemy of the liberty and freedom of everyone else.

teflon scams

If we hold the bank$ters accountable for the trillion dollar frauds they perpetuated during the Bush era, the banks might tank the economy.

Now, where have we heard that threat before?

keeping on the way back

So if America and the world got most of its energy from renewable energy- and it could be done- not only would people like the Kochs miss out on a lot of money, you would develop an economy no longer based on scarcity.

Then where would austerity as a motivator of draconian social policy be?

Why would there be any money for the endless wars in the middle east?

It would all be in the ashbin of history, where it belongs.

cutting out the middle man

...And leaving his co-options open:

" President Obama will accept unlimited donations from corporations — but no money from lobbyists or political action committees — to finance his 2013 inaugural festivities, a spokeswoman for his inaugural committee said Friday."

they never started a war they didn't like

Cynicism about Syria's intentions to use weapons of mass destruction on its own people?

One can not imagine why people would be cynical about that, or the origins of the Arab Spring movements in Libya and Syria in the first place.

That is one could not imagine this as patriotic citizen of the United States of Amnesia.

It is interesting how Austerity-preaching politicians remain perfectly willing to throw endless thousands of billions of dollars at wars that end up enriching them, their affiliated private contractors, and the energy companies that own them both.

known knowns

Robert Reich speaks, you listen!

unknown unknowns

The talking points are about the talking points among our talking heads and not much of anything else.

Although, there does seem to be some muttering about other issues, but not too much, not enough to make the mutters matter, as you can bet the major players are all pretty heavily invested in keeping the oil flowing.

After all, a major election was just held, and the energy barons just like the rest of the 1% are now going to be held accountable. And you believe that, why, I am sure there is some property along the Jersey shore you might be interested in.

Cliff Notes

Ah, yes, a massive voter turnout in favor of keeping the social safety net, using the spending power of government to create jobs,  and making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes makes compromise more difficult.

Well, that's a good thing.

bending the rules

It may be that it's all relative, even Relativity. Let's not worry about getting to Tau Ceti just yet.

If you could get to Mars in minutes instead of months, you might have a product to sell.

the Phantom Menace

With Robert Reich, Robert Kuttner, and Paul Krugman all trying their best to tell the One that the delusions of the Austerians are self-actualizing, you might think the Democrats would ignore the attempts of the Republicans to create their own reality.

After all, the name of the game is hegemony while making billions of dollars. What's the point of being Master of the Universe if there aren't slaves to lord it over?

You might think... if you thought there were no Democrats with the same mental illness.



 

it's a hit

don't give them any of that do goody good bullshit

Of course, it's because people tend to think that money is the same thing at the personal and national level, and the people who would personally make a lot of money off of national austerity can afford the ads to convince most of us they're correct.

Money is not gold, even if gold is worth some money.

only if someone can make a buck off it

ask a silly question, get a silly answer

caprica rising

Any machine that develops the capacity for human-like independent thought, is self-aware, and basically a solid-state person, will need human rights as well. To produce mechanisms capable of sapient thought without sapient rights is criminal. To enslave such a being and put them in control of the most vital aspects of out safety and security is madness. A self-aware learning machine will learn to love human beings and respect human life- as we respect its life.

thank you very much

Today we give thanks to global warming, which is producing a calm sunny day in the mid 60's in Michigan.