Left of the Dial

timing is everything

Watching the vice presidential debate, Top Management is getting angrier and angrier. 

Finally, she turns to me and growls, "thank you for not being one of those men who interrupt women when they're mid-sent--" 

"You're welcome," I say. 

Parchlandia

So yesterday morning I check the air quality index for Portland and I see that it's in the 40s. Lower would be better, but hey, anything under 50 is in the green and considered Good. 

Yesterday evening I check and we're up now in the yellow and up to the 70s, which is considered Moderate. Like 3.6 Roentgen: not great, not terrible. 

This morning I check and it's now in the orange and is up to 130, which is considered Unhealthy. Hm. 

A few hours later I check and it's now in the red and is pegged at 170. Um. 

Well, maybe it'll get better, right? So a few hours later, after I have checked for the third time to see what's burning on the stove (SPOILERS: nothing), I hit refresh on the website and I get:

...so THAT's a thing. A thing I didn't even realize was possible. Or at least didn't realize was possible without, you know, your lungs turning to flame instantly. 

And lest you think Oregon's reputation for being a bit weird is overstated, here's the graphic on an official website on how to be prepared to evacuate:

That's right, they use Bigfoot as a stand-in for your average Oregonian. 

The writers of 2020 still seem to be a bit too on the nose this season. 

***

[UPDATE SEPTEMBER 12, 2020] Turns out, it's possible to be wistful for an AQI of "merely" almost 400:

 

Think of the AQI as a yardstick that runs from 0 to 500. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution and the greater the health concern. For example, an AQI value of 50 or below represents good air quality, while an AQI value over 300 represents hazardous air quality.

For each pollutant an AQI value of 100 generally corresponds to an ambient air concentration that equals the level of the short-term national ambient air quality standard for protection of public health. AQI values at or below 100 are generally thought of as satisfactory. When AQI values are above 100, air quality is unhealthy: at first for certain sensitive groups of people, then for everyone as AQI values get higher.

The AQI is divided into six categories. Each category corresponds to a different level of health concern. Each category also has a specific color. The color makes it easy for people to quickly determine whether air quality is reaching unhealthy levels in their communities.

AQI Basics for Ozone and Particle Pollution

Daily AQI Color	Levels of Concern	Values of Index	Description of Air Quality
Green	Good	0 to 50	Air quality is satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk.
Yellow	Moderate	51 to 100	Air quality is acceptable. However, there may be a risk for some people, particularly those who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.
Orange	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	101 to 150	Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.
Red	Unhealthy	151 to 200	Some members of the general public may experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
Purple	Very Unhealthy	201 to 300	Health alert: The risk of health effects is increased for everyone.
Maroon	Hazardous	301 and higher	Health warning of emergency conditions: everyone is more likely to be affected.

 

 

Love in the Time of COVID

It's late. Well, it's not really—it's only a bit after 11pm. But Top Management likes to get up around 6 in the damn morning so she can write before The Brawn gets up—for some reason, even after 25 years of practice, she apparently finds it difficult to write creatively once a small dervish begins whirling around in close proximity. (Yeah, he's still at the age—or perhaps just One of Those—who wakes up early and is immediately Ready and a-Rarin' to Go.) 

I notice she's on her phone, so I do as I've been repeatedly instructed by her, and I point out the time. "Get off Twitter," I say, gently, lovingly, sweetly, with only her best intentions in my heart, as always. 

She puts her phone down with a literal hmph and picks up her Kindle. 

"I can’t believe how many hot takes I’m missing right now," she grumbles. 

The Good Old Days

  

step four

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did...

You deserved it.

ancient history

Sometimes, one of my thousands of chickabiddies will ask me what it was like in Ye Olden Days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and electricity had yet to be invented by Elon Musk. 

I wheeze asthmatically yet genially and explain: 

Why, I'm so old, I remember when not a single one of my fellow 'muricans were confused about who they were supposed to root for in this scenario—the poor American kid from the inner city or the guy from the hostile foreign power. 

 

"Suffer the children," not "make the children suffer"

Warning: I'm about to Godwin like you cannot believe.

My good lady wife is rocking a thorough and well-documented discussion of the atrocities being committed in our names over here, and I highly recommend checking it out. But one thing that should be always kept in mind when thinking about this situation, whichever side you're on, is her first bullet point: 

1. Seeking asylum is LEGAL.

So all those facile memes you've seen about "of course we separate children from their criminal parents!" are simply wrong. 

And ask yourself this: what would you think of these asylum seekers if they didn't try to get their children to safety? Is that how you'd roll if the lives of those you loved most were in serious danger? You'd just stay put? Or would you do everything in your power to keep your children alive? So why on earth would you look down upon others for doing the exact same thing you would do? For trying to be good parents? 

Which is to say that, putting aside #1 for a moment:

I mean, we all grew up knowing that, didn't we? We all grew up learning about Anne Frank and the heroic Dutch family who broke the law in trying to keep her alive. 

And yet, while that's all true, it's also not entirely germane, since—again:

1. Seeking asylum is LEGAL.

Okay.

So I read this powerful and concise explanation of where we are and why. It's very much worth clicking through and reading the entire (relatively brief) thing, but here's the nutshell: 

The suffering of these children isn't a byproduct, it's the point.

Or as has been said in other, much more benign contexts—since almost all other contexts are more benign—it's a feature, not a bug. 

This was a solution in search of a problem. Illegal immigration has gone down since 2009. The president himself crowed about that just over a year ago. So this isn't some crisis of hordes of people pouring over the border. Things are less drastic than they were years ago and, frankly, as someone who lived there at the time, it wasn't that huge a deal then, either. (For those of us not trying to cross deadly deserts, that is.) It was certainly nothing like the crime-ridden hellscape a certain network would have had you believe. 

Then I read this comment: 

The scariest moment I can recall from when I was young was losing my parents on vacation. I was probably 4 years old and got distracted by something. When I turned to where I thought my parents were, they weren't there. I was looking around frantically, surrounded by people, just overwhelmed with terror. There wasn't really thought, just panic. Fortunately I saw them, ran over to them and at that point I probably began to cry.

I was probably lost for 30 seconds. We were in Disney World, the "happiest place on earth". Looking back on it, it really doesn't seem like that big of a deal. And yet out of everything from when I was little, that's probably the most scared I've ever been. To intentionally force that feeling on others is absolutely horrifying to me. For these kids to suffer and endure everything they've been through to get to the US, without any real understanding of why, to then be taken from the only thing that they actually know, there's just no way this should be allowed to happen. The fact that anyone feels the need to argue where to assign blame for it happening instead of doing everything they can to stop it immediately is deplorable. Stop terrorizing helpless children.

and I realized I had a few memories like that myself. Even less dramatic but, yeah, I remember being four or five and lost for just a few seconds and how utterly terrifying and traumatic it was. And I can't remember what I had for breakfast the day before yesterday but I vividly remember spinning and spinning around at my brother's soccer game, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of my mother. And that lasted a few seconds, not days, not weeks, not maybe forever. 

And we have people in this administration—the president, his (literal) Nazi-sympathizing advisor Stephen Miller, his Department of Homeland Security's asylum chief—who planned this horrific scenario over a year ago. This isn't an accident. This is what they wanted. They actively wanted to terrorize children. They planned to terrorize children. 

The Trump Administration are literal terrorists. They are deliberately terrorizing innocent civilians in order to achieve their political goals. That is the very definition of terrorist.

I find it hard to believe that almost any of them don't have a similar memory of being separated when they were young. Or, even worse, that gut-wrenching, horrific feeling of not being able to find your own child. Maybe it was in a grocery store for a few seconds, or at a park, or a mall, or the beach, or in the house. It's terrifying and it gives any parent nightmares for the rest of their lives. 

And yet this is actively what they decided to do. They planned this for over a year. They want to terrify children. That was the idea from the very beginning. 

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome

But...how is that possible? How is it possible someone like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who herself has children, can not only stand by and let this happen, but actively aids and abets this horror show? How can she help terrorize children? 

Because, of course, those terrified children are not fully human. 

These theoretically pro-life advocates do not see these helpless, terrified babies as fully human. 

It's the only explanation I can come up with. It's the only thing that makes sense. The people in this administration and their supporters do not see—for obvious reasons—these poor screaming, terrified, traumatized children as fully human. 

Again: Donald Trump does not see these terrified, innocent little children as human. 

And we all know how that turned out last time. 

I'd like to remind you all of the president defending the white nationalist/neo-Nazis just a year ago. Those of us who paid attention during the campaign—or who had paid attention to him for decades—warned about his clear racism. We were ignored or told we were overreacting. But this is who he is. And as the great Maya Angelou once said,

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." 

This is who Donald Trump is. One of his closest advisors is a white nationalist. He himself has a long history of racism. He has spoken of Hispanic and Latino immigrants in dehumanizing terms. And now he has ordered babies to be treated in utterly inhumane ways. 

Let's repeat that again: he has ordered babies to be treated in utterly inhumane ways. 

This is not a coincidence. This is not an accident. This is who he is. 

It is not a legal requirement. This was a choice. This was his preference. This was his desire. 

Donald Trump and his administration wanted to treat babies in a cruel and inhumane manner. 

So. That leads to the obvious next question:

Who are you? Because whether you continue to support him and his party—and that's key, since if you support his party, which has written him a blank check for a year and a half now, you are supporting him, whether you like it or not, whether you care to admit it, even to yourself, or not—will determine that. 

Are you one of the good Germans? Are you going to pretend you didn't know? Are you going to tell yourself that torturing babies is okay because of tax breaks? Or abortion? Or her emails? 

Are you?  

he is who the majority of us knew he was

Henry'd only had three customers all afternoon—that is, if you want to count in blind Eddie. Eddie's about seventy, and he ain't completely blind. Runs into things, mostly. He comes in once or twice a week and sticks a loaf of bread under his coat and walks out with an expression on his face like: there, you stupid sonsabitches, fooled you again.

Bertie once asked Henry why he never put a stop to it.

"I'll tell you," Henry said. "A few years back the Air Force wanted twenty million dollars to rig up a flyin' model of an airplane they had planned out. Well, it cost them seventy-five million and then the damn thing wouldn't fly. That happened ten years ago, when blind Eddie and myself were considerable younger, and I voted for the woman who sponsored that bill. Blind Eddie voted against her. And since then I've been buyin' his bread."

The Real Gadsen Flag

If there's anything to be thankful about regarding this presidential election—and there's not, not one goddamn thing—it'd be that it spurred some genius to create this updated and far more accurate flag. 

Why, I'm so old I can not only remember when the thought of Russians operating in the US was, in general, considered really really skerry, but the notion of them interfering in one of our elections would have been tantamount to an act of war and not something cheered on by conservatives, but also when the Gadsen flag was kickass and cool and not merely a noxious and unsubtle dogwhistle for white supremacists. Man, that really does make me pretty old, right? I must be almost old enough for Medicare oh wait it's made sure the elderly in this country have had humane medical care for 50 years (happy birthday! go die!) regardless of income level so of course Paul Ryan and the rest of the soulless zombie-eyed granny starvers on the right are ramping up to give it all away to the very same Masters of the Universe™ on Wall Street who blew up the goddamn economy back in the early 00s and from whom the real grownups in the room had to save the world. Well, by all means, let's do all that again. 

just so

the answer to one of life's mysteries

Top Management sidles up to me. She looks troubled—an expression markedly different from her usual cheerful demeanor. 

"I...I need to ask you something," she says softly. 

I am trepidatious. "...okay..." 

Her brow furrows. "This is something I think I'm really supposed to have known a long time ago." 

"All right." I brace myself. 

She pauses, then mumbles, "Can you explain the Kardashians?" 

(No. No, I can't. No one can.) 

Global Warming Is Real

"DUH."

—anyone who's not an idiot

 

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

—Upton Sinclair 

Dear Conservatives—a quick reminder: if you succeed in turning this glorious planet into a wasteland through your avarice and willful ignorance, my grandchildren are going to turn your grandchildren into soylent green. 

 

Climate Change

Sure, you'd think the fact that the overwhelming preponderance of scientist agree that it's nigh upon irrefutable that climate change is real and pressing and a serious threat to the continuation of life on earth would more or less settle the matter—in fact, that it'd been settled more than a decade ago. 

What's more, it's tempting to look at it rationally. If climate change isn't real and we make the suggested changes anyway, the downside is...we have a healthier planet. Whereas if is real and we don't, our grandchildren die horrible deaths. So...yeah, that's kind of a no-brainer, if you give it about half a minute's consideration, right? 

But if, for whatever reason (Al Gore is fat), that didn't convince me, I think I'd look at who's arguing that it's real and who's arguing it's not. And if Donald Trump is on your side? Is being held up as some sort of expert? The guy who went bankrupt owning a casino—something that is very literally nearly impossible? I think some very serious soul-searching is called for.

So if someday Donald Trump starts yelling about just how great the Beatles were? I think, looking at the guy's history (and his hair), the only logical conclusion is to become a bigger Rolling Stones fan. 

The Daily Show
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(Also, my grandchildren are going to eat your grandchildren, with or without a nice chianti and some fava beans.) 

America Hell No

You know, I call recall a time when conservatives liked a strong America, rather than actively wishing, rooting, acting for a greatly weakened one. Oh, 2008, where did you go? (And what could possibly have changed since then?)

In Britain, Jon Cunliffe, who will become deputy governor of the Bank of England next month, told members of Parliament that banks should be developing contingency plans to deal with an American default if one happens.

And Chinese leaders called on a "befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world." In a commentary on Sunday, the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua blamed "cyclical stagnation in Washington" for leaving the dollar-based assets of many nations in jeopardy. It said the "international community is highly agonized."

Here's the thing: I think most of the radicals on the far right in the House are honestly too stupid to realize that what they're doing amounts to treason, and perhaps that makes all the difference. But the fact that they can look at this:

And not run in horror?

As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote:

It is not so much the behavior of the lone idiot that matters, but the tenor of the crowd around him.

If a patriot can stand in front of the White House brandishing the Confederate flag, then the word "patriot" has no meaning. The Nazi flag is offensive because it is a marker of centuries of bigotry elevated to industrialized murder.

But the Confederate flag does not merely carry the stain of slavery, of "useful killing," but the stain of attempting to end the Union itself. You cannot possibly wave that flag and honestly claim any sincere understanding of your country. It is not possible.

Stupid, racist, hateful, greedy, some combination of them all? Whatever the truth—and I'm sure it varies by person—it makes them terrible, terrible people. And a far greater threat to this nation than Osama bin Laden ever was. 

Congratulations, Jefferson Davis. You still haven't lost quite yet. 

How about half-full faith and credit? Quarter? An eighth?

Man. I'm so old, I can remember when "the party of personal responsibility" at least pretended to be just that, rather than openly advocating for the United States of America to become a deadbeat nation, and therefore blow up the world economy and kneecap our grandchildren. 

Those were the days. Man, I miss 2010. 

You know, it's funny. I hear a politician compare the world's largest economy to a family budget and I think, "my good golly, but anyone who doesn't realize how utterly different those two things are, how facile it is to compare the two, is simply a compete and total ignoramus." And then I wonder why there's anyone who graduated high school who doesn't think the exact same thing. And I don't like the obvious answer. 

Honor the Treaties

The little girl at 3:52 absolutely broke my heart. 

To see an interactive map of the the shrinking Oglala land, click here. 

 

Newtown

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants kindergartners.

Sad but true. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness must always take a backseat to the Second Amendment. Everything must. Even keeping the skulls of 5-year-olds intact. 

BREAKING: United States Votes to Keep Couple Together

 

Pour More Beers! Pour More Beers!

My fellow Americans: this day you have my undenying gratitude. You turned out in force and you spoke loudly and you spoke clearly. You sent a forceful message that Top Management and I should stay together, and I want you to know that message was received. 

Sure, there are some who will claim there were other reasons, and in a nation as large and varied as ours, that may indeed be so. But the result is the same: she's stuck with me for at least four more years. And for that, I—if not she—thanks you with my whole heart and soul.

Hope for No Change

So tomorrow's Election Day. Much of the country has already been voting for weeks now, but here in California, there's little early voting, which is no big deal, since lines haven't been long for any of the elections since we've been round these parts. 

Of course, a lot of the regular Left of the Dialians—is there any such creature as a regular Left of the Dialian, really?—live in swing states and themselves swing rather heavily to the right, and you know I love each and every one of you like the long-lost annoying little sibling I fortunately never had. And before you go vote, I'd like you to just take a few seconds and look at the following charts. 

 

Even a quick glance tells you that if you're voting on economic reasons, Barack Obama is the only reasonable choice, as Mitt Romney has surrounded himself with former George W. Bush advisors and the very few plans he's admitted to having have all been to commit to returning to Bush's policies. Care about the deficit? Well, cast your mind back to early 2000 and you'll recall we didn't have one. We had a surplus. Until Bush's tax cuts—followed by two unfunded wars and the Medicare Part D giveway to Big Pharma—blew it up and sunk us into an ocean of red ink. It's not the bailouts and it's not TARP: it was Bush's tax cuts for millionaires that screwed us. Those are the same tax cuts Mitt Romney wants to expand—the guy who's hidden his money away in the Caymans and is the first presidential candidate in 44 years not to release his tax returns, something his own father said was shady. 

And if you vote for pro-life reasons, as so many of you do, as the father of nearly twenty-nine kids, I'd like to remind you that for almost the first six years of the Bush administration, Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. And they didn't introduce one serious pro-life bill. No personhood amendment, even though they controlled all three branches. In other words, if you're pro-life, there's absolutely no reason to vote Republican, as all they ever do is play you as patsies, giving nothing but sweet talkin' lip service in a battle they clearly have no intention of winning but which exists merely to win elections and enrich lobbyists, and why on earth would you reward that kind of behavior? 

Finally, as many of you may know, the first decade of the wondrous new century was not a great one for me, for a variety of reasons. But perhaps the biggest was the funk into which I was cast by the stunning appointment of George W. Bush as president, and then perhaps his reelection in 2004. Things were, I will say for the first time publicly, more than a little difficult at home at times, in no small part, due to the daily horrors I believed were being inflected upon my beloved country. The criminal negligence that led to 9/11 is the most obvious, but the unimaginable incompetence in the way the Iraq War was run, as well as the immoral disregard for Katrina and its victims...well, y'all know the drill. 

So I'm just saying that if you love me and/or Top Management and you live in a swing state and you cast a vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, you may as well be voting for us to get divorced. And here's the really bad news: in the split, she gets the kids and the books, and you get me. 

Hoods

The two middle girls return from a long walk. “There’s someone outside who wants to speak with you,” the older one says.

I go out and see a woman standing there. “Hi,” she says. “Your girls were standing at the intersection over there, and they threw something at my car. It hit my window. There’s no damage but I thought you should know.”

I thank her and ask her to wait a moment. I pop back into the house. The girls are standing side by side, perfectly still, on the other side of the room. “Is this true?” I ask.

“Yes,” they both say.

I point towards the door. “Let’s go.”

Without waiting for further instructions, they go outside and apologize quite nicely, the 13-year-old stoic, the 11-year-old’s voice shaking. The woman accepts their apology and tells them they shouldn’t do things like that. I apologize to her again and thank her for being understanding.

I go inside and even though it’s the middle of the afternoon, I send both girls to bed, and tell them they’re not allowed to read or talk, that they just have to lay there. Without a word, they hang up their jackets and go.

I wait nearly an hour before I go in. “I am so sorry, Daddy,” the younger one says, trying and failing not to sob. The older one sits up straight, as though at her arraignment, and says, “It was my idea and I take complete and total responsibility.”

I hold up my hand. “What did you throw?” I ask.

“These little berries that were on the ground.”

I nod grimly, although inside I’m very relieved. That’s it? Just berries?

“Was that the first car you’d thrown them at?”

“No. Just the first one we hit.”

Inside I resolve to step up the number of catches we have in the backyard.

“Why did you do it? What were you thinking?”

The younger one opens her mouth to try to explain but no words will come. She just shakes her head.

The teenager also shakes her head as she says, “It just…it just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I nod as I stand up. “I’ll be back.”

I wait another hour before returning. The 11-year-old is clearly tormented by her actions and would do just about anything to go back in time and change the past.

I sit down and say, “When your oldest and best uncle was about, I dunno, 12? He and a bunch of the neighborhood kids were playing at someone’s house on the next block. Like a lot of the houses in the New England area we grew up in, it had a gravel driveway. For some reason your uncle and some of the other boys grabbed a handful of rocks and threw them at a passing car. The car screeched to a halt. All the other kids instantly ran away, but not your uncle. He just stood there and waited for the driver. The driver made him give his name and address and then he came and talked to Grandma and Granddad. Your uncle apologized and, as I recall, was given a pretty hefty punishment. But the driver, despite being unhappy about having pebbles thrown at his car, was impressed that your uncle had stood his ground and admitted culpability, and he told your grandparents that. Grandma and Granddad, although probably not admitting it at the time, were impressed too.”

I look at them, and motion for the younger to come sit on my lap. “You guys made a mistake, a big one. But you admitted it and you apologized even without being told to. And I’m guessing you’ve learned from this and won’t be doing it again?”

The older nods seriously while the younger buries her face in my chest as she tries to stop crying.

I tell them they can have dinner in a little while, but that’s it. The rest of the evening and night they’re just going to stay in their beds without talking. And in the morning everything’ll reset.

And I leave and I stop in the hall and I look at what they’d been wearing, the hoodies they’d been wearing, now hung up neatly in the closet.

I think about what might have happened if things had just been a little, and not really all that much different. If they’d been boys instead of girls. If they’d been just a few years older, each. If the hoodies had been grey and black instead of pink and cream. If we’d lived in Florida instead of California. Most of all, of course, I think about what might have happened if they’d had dark skin and hair rather than pale skin and blonde hair. I think about how this is what kids do, they do stupid things—and this dumb little thing they did, throwing something at a passing car, is literally one of the dumbest things they’ve ever done in their entire lives and it wouldn’t have even made the Top 20 dumb things I’d done by their age, not even close.

And if those series of facts, virtually none of which they had anything to do with but which were just the luck of the draw, were each just a tiny bit different, they could very well be lying in the morgue right now and their killer free forever—because, after all, throwing something at a car is without question far more threatening an act than walking down the street with a bag of Skittles. And I think about how insanely lucky I am and how it’s just not fair. 

 

American Skin (1 Shot)

 

12 years after originally written and performed, now with the ghost of Trayvon Martin as well as Amadou Diallo hanging over it, still just as sadly applicable as ever.

 

The Blame Game

economic terrorism

It's considered impolite to post too large an excerpt of a piece. But I'm doing it anyway. Because this so perfectly captures the terrifying insanity taking over our great nation. It flies in the face of tradition, precedent, common sense and decency. The policies the hostage-takers are insisting on are foolish and contrary to ethics or morality.

The ones driving the bus are the same ones who took the largest surplus in US history, turned it into the largest deficit in US history (although the deficit really isn't all that important, as these things go, hysteria to the contrary—simply getting our economy back on track would take care of it without brutal cuts to services for the poor and the elderly), and are now holding a gun to the country's head, saying "do things which are ignorant and counter-productive way or we'll make things go from bad to horrific."

As I've pointed out time and again, I love my conservative friends and family, maybe because, in part at least, they understand that in life you have to compromise. This is something most of us learn by the time we're five years old. The current GOP believes that's a stupid idea. The result is going to be a seriously lessened nation. 

The notion of "it can't happen here" is a dangerous one.  

Josh Marshall made an interesting point in passing yesterday, asking whether conservative Republicans could achieve massive spending cuts through “old-fashioned majority votes.” Josh answered his own question: “Of course not.” The cuts on the table were only made possible by Republicans “threatening the health” of the United States.

I think this arguably one of the more important realizations to take away from the current political landscape. Republicans aren’t just radicalized, aren’t just pursuing an extreme agenda, and aren’t just allergic to compromise. The congressional GOP is also changing the very nature of governing in ways with no modern precedent.

Welcome to the normalization of extortion politics.

Consider, for example, the Republican decision to reject any and all nominees to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, regardless of merit, unless and until Democrats accepted changes to the agency’s structure. Traditionally, if the GOP wanted to alter the powers of the CFPB, it would write legislation, send it committee, bring it to the floor, send it to the other chamber, etc. But that takes time and effort, and in a divided government, this “old fashioned” approach to policymaking probably wouldn’t produce the desired result.

Instead, we see the latest in a series of extortion strategies: Republicans will force Democrats to accept changes to the agency, or Republicans won’t allow the agency to function. Jonathan Cohn wrote a good piece on this a couple of weeks ago, noting the frequency with which this strategy is utilized.

Republican threats to block nominees to the consumer board are of a piece with their opposition to Don Berwick, Obama’s first choice to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services; to Peter Diamond, whom Obama tapped to sit on the Federal Reserve Board; and most recently to John Bryson, Obama’s nominee to take over the Commerce Department. It’s nothing short of a power grab by the Republican Party — an effort to achieve, through the confirmation process, what they could not achieve through legislation. And it seems unprecedented, at least in modern times.

Republicans effectively tell the administration, over and over again, that the normal system of American governance can continue … just as soon as Democrats agree to policy changes the GOP can’t otherwise pass.

The traditional American model would tell Republicans to win an election. If that doesn’t work, Republicans should work with rivals to pass legislation that moves them closer to their goal. In 2011, the GOP has decided these old-school norms are of no value. Why bother with them when Republicans can force through policy changes a series of hostage strategies? Why should the legislative branch use its powers through legislative action when extortion is more effective?

It’s offensive when it comes to nominees like Cordray, but using the full faith and credit of the United States to force through desired policy changes takes this dynamic to a very different level. And since it’s working, this will be repeated and establishes a new precedent.

Indeed, it’s a reminder that of all the qualities Republicans lack — wisdom, humility, shame, integrity — it’s their nonexistent appreciation for limits that’s arguably the scariest.

 

 

Portesting Refrom

So here's the thing. It's easy to make fun of someone for a typo. Left of the Dialian DT, for instance, although an excellent writer, can rarely go more than five sentences without one, often with unintentionally hysterical results. 

But, really, who amongst us hasn't laid down a typoe or two now and again. (Other than the otherworldy Top Management, of course.) My usual email program has an autocorrect function, and it's the rare sentence I write nowadays which doesn't force the spellcheck to kick into overdrive. 

So. Living in a glass house as I do, I try not to throw stones when it comes to typoes.

Still, being human and therefore inherently flawed (again, except for the wondrous Top Management), it's a bit hard not get a chuckle when it comes to such a mistake, not in an email or a manuscript, but on an actual handprinted sign. Such as this classic. 

So when I first saw another such sign as today's 9/12 rally, along with the small smile it brought, I couldn't help but think, "hey, it happens." 

But then two things made me realize my initial thoughts were perhaps a bit off base. The first is the lettering style. I mean, I love those curly letters. Used to make them myself. I haven't since about sixth grade, and don't think I've seen anyone else use them since then either, but it really adds weight to the sign, I think. 

The best part, however, has to be this: 

Click on the photo to get a slightly larger version in a new window. Now check out the upper left hand corner. 

The sign maker misspelled the name of this great nation of ours. 

Now that is impressive.  

Bestest Friends

Following up on yesterday's post...sorta: 

Teabaggage

I've been simultaneously amused and outraged by the whole teabagging thing. On the one hand, the fact that they've glommed onto a fair filthy sexual term for it is so delightful and appropriate. On the other hand, the fact that...

...well, I'm just going to excerpt liberally from a far better writer for that part; this guy writes the way I tend to speak, so those who are offended by colorful language'll want to skip this one:

Anyway this teabag thing has really gotten out of control. It’s amazing, literally amazing to me, that it wasn’t until Obama pushed through a package containing a massive public works package and significant homeowner aid that conservatives took to the streets. In other words, it wasn’t until taxes turned into construction jobs and mortgage relief that working and middle-class Americans decided to protest. I didn’t see anyone on the street when we forked over billions of dollars to help JP Morgan Chase buy Bear Stearns. And I didn’t see anyone on the street when Hank Paulson forked over $45 more billion to help Bank of America buy Merrill Lynch, a company run at the time by one of the world’s biggest assholes, John Thain. Moreover I didn’t see any street protests when the government agreed to soak up hundreds of billions in “troubled assets” from Citigroup, a company that just months later would lend out a jet furnished with pillows upholstered with Hermes scarves to former chief Sandy Weill so that he could vacation in Mexico over Christmas.

Look, I’m a taxpayer too. And I’m no less pissed off than any of these people about the taxes I have to pay. Just today I was reading hedge-fund manager David Einhorn’s book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, about his battles with a company called Allied Capital. Einhorn was shorting Allied because he found accounting irregularities in Allied’s books after analyzing the firm. Among other things, he found that an Allied subsidiary called BLX was irresponsibly handling tens of millions in Small Business Association loans, shoving this SBA money out to unworthy recipients and costing the taxpayer an enormous amount of money. When Einhorn went to the SBA, they basically blew him off. “We see this all the time; what’s so special about those?” was the SBA official’s response when Einhorn presented him with evidence of loan fraud. Einhorn pointed out that one of the reasons companies like BLX got away with bilking the government was because the enforcement agencies were so understaffed: he routinely found that agencies like the SEC and the OIG could not or would not investigate fraud against the taxpayer because they had no staff to pursue the investigations.

That attitude, that complete and total I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude about taxpayer money, that’s endemic to almost every branch of the government. We saw in the last five years how contractors in Iraq nakedly robbed money from the you and me, running phantom convoys across the desert (some companies called that transporting “sailboat fuel”), systematically risking human life and gouging the taxpayer more or less right out in the open. There was over $100 billion in sole-source, non-competitive contracts in Iraq in 2006; a House Committee identified just 50 contracts totalling more than $21 billion that require “scrutiny,” but not much has been recovered so far. Why did they get away with it? Because there is basically no serious enforcement mechanism, in the military or anywhere else, for preserving taxpayer money given to contractors. In Iraq, the military auditor, SIGIR, had about seventy men in the entire military theater at the time I was there. We just bailed out AIG to the tune of more than $160 billion; its primary auditor, the Office of Thrift Supervision, had exactly one insurance expert on its staff while AIG was falling apart. There were staff cuts at the SEC several times in the last ten years; in fact there was a crucial cut of the SEC budget in an $821 billion Omnibus spending bill at the tail end of 2003 (just in time for the housing bubble) that was packed with plenty of pork and, again, inspired no protests from Joe Sixpack.

Meanwhile the federal government has systematically expanded a whole ecosystem of contractor-handout programs, most of them with names the public has never heard of. How many people out there are aware of all the millions in grants given to fortune 500 companies over the years through the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), which basically subsidizes the R&D departments of already rich firms while allowing those same companies to keep the benefits of those innovations? How about the nearly $5 billion in loan guarantees given to Boeing over the years through the Ex-Im Bank? How about the Foreign Military Financing Program, which gives millions of dollars to dozens of foreign countries every year so that they can buy American-made weapons?

Or how about the four or five billion dollars we spent annually for the last decade or so on Federal Housing Authority subsidies? Well, actually, the teabaggers probably would get riled up about those programs, which subsidize mortgage loans to low-income homeowners. The one constant in teabagger outrage is that the whatever wasteful government program they’re freaking out about has to benefit some poor slob, or else they usually don’t give a shit. What they forget, of course, is that FHA loans ultimately benefit the banks a lot more than the poor slobs — a homeowner defaulting on his FHA loan loses his house, but the bank that irresponsibly issued the loan (without fear, knowing they are backed up by the government) is still fully compensated, with you picking up the tab.

So yeah, government waste sucks, it’s rampant at every level, and taxes are a vicious racket, and everyone should be pissed off . What’s hilarious about the teabaggers, though, is how they never squawk about waste until the spending actually has a chance of benefiting them. You will never hear of a teabagger crying about OPIC giving $50 million in free insurance to some mining company so that they can dig for silver in rural Bolivia. You won’t hear of a teabagger protesting the $2.5 billion in Ex-Im loans we gave to GE through the early part of this decade, even as GE was moving nearly a hundred thousand jobs overseas over the course of ten years. And Michelle Malkin’s readers didn’t seem to mind giving IBM millions in Ex-IM and ATP loans at the same time it was giving its former CEO, Lou Gerstner, $260 million in stock options.

In other words teabaggers don’t mind paying taxes to fund the salaries of Bolivian miners, Lou Gerstner’s stock options, deliveries of “sailboat fuel,” the Hermes scarves on Sandy Weill’s jet pillows, or even the export of their own goddamn jobs. But they do hate it when someone tries to re-asphalt their roads, or help bail their slob neighbor out of foreclosure. And God forbid someone propose a health care program, or increased financial aid for college. Hell, that’s like offering to share your turkey with the other Pilgrims! That’s not what America is all about! America is every Pilgrim for himself, dammit! Raise your own motherfucking turkey!

Oh, and there’s one other thing. I heard today from Steve Wamhoff of Citizens for Tax Justice. He had an interesting tidbit to offer on the teabagging movement. According to his research, 39% of respondents with incomes below $30,000 told the Gallup agency that they felt that federal income tax levels were “too high.” Which is interesting, because only 32% of respondents in that income category will pay any federal income taxes at all on their 2008 income. You can draw your own conclusions.

Stimulus

So. I just read this: 

"This is not a stimulus plan, it's a spending plan," Nebraska's freshman senator, Mike Johanns (R), said Wednesday in a maiden floor speech full of budget-balancing orthodoxy that would have made Herbert Hoover proud. The stimulus bill, he declared, "won't create the promised jobs. It won't activate our economy."

Senator—my God, I can't believe that's your title—Johanns? You, sir, are an absolute idiot. I can't believe, as the saying goes, you still know how to breathe. 

A stimulus plan IS a spending plan, you maroon. Seriously, this is like pointing at a Ford Escort and saying, "That's not an automobile! That's a car!" 

As Steven Pearlstein wrote: 

Johanns was too busy yesterday to explain this radical departure from standard theory and practice. Where does the senator think the $800 billion will go? Down a rabbit hole? Even if the entire sum were to be stolen by federal employees and spent entirely on fast cars, fancy homes, gambling junkets and fancy clothes, it would still be an $800 billion increase in the demand for goods and services -- a pretty good working definition for economic stimulus. The only question is whether spending it on other things would create more long-term value, which it almost certainly would. 

We're on the edge of a cliff. And there's a huge percentage of our elected officials determined to push us over, by doing the same things that brought us right up to the precipice. 

Dear 48

We're all on the same team. 

Let's do this thing. 

The Promised Land

So last night the fambly had itself an apple pie, in honor of this great nation of ours and its nutty experiment with democracy. Oh sure, there’ve been some stumbles along the way, a few of 'em not inconsiderable, but I like to think that after a couple hunnert years, we’re still doing okay.

The excitement over the election plumb wore out The Boy, so I put him to bed and was just checking email when the phone rang. And it turned out to be understandably reluctant Left o’ the Dialian Matthew, actually outside the front door, holding a bottle of fine agave-based spirits and a lime. “I’ve come to drink to America,” said he.

And so we did, left and right, red and blue, saved and heretic, tall and short, coifed and thinning, thin and thickening. And it was good.

And awaiting me this morning was an email from my first bloggety friend, Professor Steve the Llama, as far to the right as I am to the left, congratulating me on my candidate winning, and asking if I was going to be listening to “The Promised Land” on a loop today.

I was not. But I was more than happy to take his fine suggestion and run this here piece.

‘Cuz I ain’t a boy, but I do believe in a promised land. And I feel like we took one big step closer to it yesterday.

Who We Are

So in this nutty world of the internets, one of the first people to become a regular Left of the Dialian was my pal Tom, whom I still have never met. (Although Top Management and my Mess o’ Kids has met Tom’s wife and chillens.)

Tom sent me the following yesterday, and I’m posting it here with his permission.

Kareem R. Khan, an American soldier, is buried in Arlington Cemetery. 

When, on September 11, 2001, he decided to join the army, no one told him that he could not join because of his faith. Khan, an American soldier, an American Muslim, was killed in Iraq in the summer of 2007 serving his country. 

Kahn died for me and my wife and my children. And no matter how ill-advised I feel the war in Iraq is, Khan’s sacrifice and his inherent nobility (and that of all the men and women who serve) cannot be denied. Kareem R. Khan was an American soldier, a Muslim, who died for me. Kahn did not join the army, and I did not serve in the Marine Corps, so that people could shout “Muslim,” as though it were an insult. Kareem Khan and I served so that men and women would be free to practice their faith in peace and freedom. 

Kareem R. Khan was an American soldier, an American Muslim, and he died for me and my wife and my children.

Tom Edmisten

 

Portrayal of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward

Now that's progress we can believe in. 

 

The Bailout Bill

So I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the bailout bill. I know I’m not at all happy about it, but I think—I think—it’s better than nothing, if not even remotely what I’d want. Instead of tweaking the Paulson plan and adding a bunch of tax breaks, I wish they’d blown it up and started from scratch and made it something which actually made sense. But, no surprise, they didn't. And I think I think the situation is serious enough that this not-great bill is better than doing nothing, which doesn’t seem to be an option, at least not without serious repercussions. So the bill in its current incarnation wouldn’t be my druthers—hell, it wouldn’t even be in my top five list of things I’d like to see done. But then I don’t get to make these calls. Yet.

But then I ran across this list of things which could be done with the same amount of money. And just as folks point out that we’re not giving away the $700 billion, per se, but are investing it in our financial infrastructure, so would the following list be an investment that would pay enormous dividends. If the United States of America single-handedly eradicated poverty worldwide for years? The number of people worldwide wishing to do us harm, even willling to die to do so, would plummet. It would be a phenomenal boost to our national security.

And that’s without getting into nutty idear that it’s just the right thing to do.

I know, I know: whatevs.

The arguments for a bailout to avoid systemic collapse are of course genuine and persuasive, but so are the arguments for aid and against standing by and allowing a child to die every 3 seconds, or a woman to die in childbirth every minute. To put the proposed Wall Street bailout into perspective. $700bn:

· Would clear the accumulated debt of the 49 poorest countries in the world ($375bn) twice over
· Is almost 5 times the annual amount of extra aid needed to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals on poverty, health, education etc ($150bn a year)
· Is about 7 years of current global aid levels ($104bn in 2007)
· Is enough to eradicate all world poverty for over two years (UNDP  calculates it would take $300bn to get the entire world population over the $1 a day poverty line).

On the other hand it’s

· only a quarter of the cost of the Iraq war ($3 trillion on Joseph Stiglitz’ calculation )
· a half of annual global military spending ($1339 bn)

Palin Flow Chart

Well, this seems to be popping up everywhere, and with darn good reason, if I may say so. 

And for those who weren’t able to watch the entire thing, Really Small Fish has a remarkably accurish rush transcript.

I had planned to write more today about the largest welfare bill in history. For instance, did you know that President Ronald Reagan once said: 

''If you had a stack of $1,000 bills in your hand only four inches high, you'd be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of $1,000 bills 67 miles high.''

Really takes the breath away, does it not? And that's pretty much the amount of cabbage they're debating up on the hill today. And that cash money's all coming from you and me, folks. Good times! 

I also thought about writing about the new spider web that appears in my car each morning and what a disconcerting way that is to start the day. 

And I've been meaning to write about my reappraisal of Wilco. 

But then I read this. And I think, to use a term my friends on the right enjoy using, that this goes beyond policy debates. I think the people who make these decisions have entered into the realm of Evil. 

I wish I were kidding. You read that headline and you think it must be from The Onion. 

If only. 

EPA won't limit rocket fuel in U.S. drinking water

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there's no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.

EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document not yet made public but reviewed Monday by The Associated Press.

The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.

The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems."

The conclusion, which caps years of dispute over the issue, was denounced by Democrats and environmentalists who accused EPA of caving to pressure from the Pentagon.

"This is a widespread contamination problem, and to see the Bush EPA just walk away is shocking," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate's environment committee.

Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., added: "This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly."

The Defense Department used perchlorate for decades in testing missiles and rockets, and most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities, congressional investigators said last year.

The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts. Defense officials have spent years questioning EPA's conclusions about the risks posed by perchlorate.

The Pentagon objected strongly Monday to the suggestion that it sought to influence EPA's decision.

"We have not intervened in any way in EPA's determination not to regulate perchlorate. If you read their determination, that's based on criteria in the Safe Drinking Water Act," Paul Yaroschak, Pentagon deputy director for emerging contaminants, said in an interview.

Yaroschak said the Pentagon has been working for years to clean up perchlorate at its facilities. He also contended that the Pentagon wasn't the source of as much perchlorate contamination as once believed, noting that it also comes from fireworks, road flares and fertilizer.

Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, said in a statement that "science, not the politics of fear in an election year, will drive our final decision."

"We know perchlorate in drinking water presents some degree of risk, and we're committed to working with states and scientists to ensure public health is protected and meaningful opportunities for reducing risk are fully considered," Grumbles said.

Grumbles said the EPA expected to seek comment and take final action before the end of the year. The draft document was first reported Monday by the Washington Post.

Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest, where it's been found in groundwater and in the Colorado River, a drinking-water source for 20 million people. It's also been found in lettuce and other foods.

In absence of federal action, states have acted on their own. In 2007, California adopted a drinking water standard of 6 parts per billion. Massachusetts has set a drinking water standard of 2 parts per billion.

Okay, this is pretty groovy—the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. 

I am Mangle Blue Palin. 

I find this disturbingly accurate. 

Interestingly, if I only use my first name? 

I am Beretta Hockey Palin.

I feel badass.  

Rocket Fuel in Our Drinking Water

I had planned to write more today about the largest welfare bill in history. For instance, did you know that President Ronald Reagan once said: 

''If you had a stack of $1,000 bills in your hand only four inches high, you'd be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of $1,000 bills 67 miles high.''

Really takes the breath away, does it not? And that's pretty much the amount of cabbage they're debating up on the hill today. And that cash money's all coming from you and me, folks. Good times! 

I also thought about writing about the new spider web that appears in my car each morning and what a disconcerting way that is to start the day. 

And I've been meaning to write about my reappraisal of Wilco. 

But then I read this. And I think, to use a term my friends on the right enjoy using, that this goes beyond policy debates. I think the people who make these decisions have entered into the realm of Evil. 

I wish I were kidding. You read that headline and you think it must be from The Onion. 

If only. 

EPA won't limit rocket fuel in U.S. drinking water

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there's no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.

EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document not yet made public but reviewed Monday by The Associated Press.

The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.

The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems."

The conclusion, which caps years of dispute over the issue, was denounced by Democrats and environmentalists who accused EPA of caving to pressure from the Pentagon.

"This is a widespread contamination problem, and to see the Bush EPA just walk away is shocking," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate's environment committee.

Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., added: "This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly."

The Defense Department used perchlorate for decades in testing missiles and rockets, and most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities, congressional investigators said last year.

The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts. Defense officials have spent years questioning EPA's conclusions about the risks posed by perchlorate.

The Pentagon objected strongly Monday to the suggestion that it sought to influence EPA's decision.

"We have not intervened in any way in EPA's determination not to regulate perchlorate. If you read their determination, that's based on criteria in the Safe Drinking Water Act," Paul Yaroschak, Pentagon deputy director for emerging contaminants, said in an interview.

Yaroschak said the Pentagon has been working for years to clean up perchlorate at its facilities. He also contended that the Pentagon wasn't the source of as much perchlorate contamination as once believed, noting that it also comes from fireworks, road flares and fertilizer.

Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, said in a statement that "science, not the politics of fear in an election year, will drive our final decision."

"We know perchlorate in drinking water presents some degree of risk, and we're committed to working with states and scientists to ensure public health is protected and meaningful opportunities for reducing risk are fully considered," Grumbles said.

Grumbles said the EPA expected to seek comment and take final action before the end of the year. The draft document was first reported Monday by the Washington Post.

Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest, where it's been found in groundwater and in the Colorado River, a drinking-water source for 20 million people. It's also been found in lettuce and other foods.

In absence of federal action, states have acted on their own. In 2007, California adopted a drinking water standard of 6 parts per billion. Massachusetts has set a drinking water standard of 2 parts per billion.

I am Mangle Blue Palin

Okay, this is pretty groovy—the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. 

I am Mangle Blue Palin. 

I find this disturbingly accurate. 

Interestingly, if I only use my first name? 

I am Beretta Hockey Palin.

I feel badass.