The Liberal Mob

9-NINE-NEIN

2011-11-16T18:53:00.000-08:00

We have been pretty quiet here at the Liberal Mob for the past couple of months. I assure it is not because we no longer yearn to provide you with our obvious liberal biases in the form of “wannabe” journalism. Alas, we are all full-time students and have had little time to devote to you, our tens of faithful readers. Let me disclose right of the bat that the title of this post is a bit misleading. So if you clicked on this blog post in the hopes of getting an in-depth explanation/analysis of republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s tax plan, stop reading now.

Unfortunately, thus far Mr. Cain himself has been unable to fully articulate how the plan will work. So I am currently unable to do an anlysis on it. I have recently been informed by Mr. Cain’s campaign that as a liberal voter I am incensed that there is an “articulate” African American Conservative candidate. So I would be unable to give an unbiased analysis anyway. I have been further informed by teh Cain campaign that, as an African American voter, I have been brainwashed by Barack Obama. So I guess that means that my analysis of anything Herman Cain says or does really doesn’t matter. Anyway...

With just under one year to go until the 2012 presidential election, political junkies such as myself are hearing the same narrative form much of the political punditry over and over again. The general consensus among the “experts” is that it will be incredibly difficult for President Obama to make a strong case for his reelection campaign when it comes to the economy. That brings us to our first "9". The main argument here is that with a 9% unemployment rate the chances of Mr. Obama having anything that resembles a good approval rating during the election are remote. Any they may be right. But I think it is important to take a closer look at the actual numbers from previous election years and see if there is in fact a discernable correlation between national unemployment and mounting a successful presidential election campaign.

Before delving more deeply into this it should be noted that most modern U.S. presidents do win a second term in office. I was born in 1982, and President George H.W. Bush is the only one of the four presidents in my lifetime that has lost an attempted reelection bid. To go even further back, my parents were both born in 1952, and all but two sitting presidents who ran for reelection in their lifetimes were successfully reelected (Carter and Bush #1). The number is actually three if one were to count President Gerald Ford who ascended to the Presidency through the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon. So Mr. Ford may be an anomaly as he was never successfully elected president and did not even serve one full term as President. Essentially, when he fell down the stairs that one time his chances were pretty much zero. (I love how he immediately tries to start shaking hands as if nothing happened. He should have added in the long stair at the staircase as if to suggest that there was something wrong with the stairs. That’s what I would have done.) Anyway, let’s look a little more closely at the numbers....

The United States department of labor provides monthly unemployment statistics going back to 1948. In that time there have been 8 elections featuring an incumbent U.S. President. Ford, Carter and Bush #1 were the three losses with national unemployment rates were at 7.7%, 7.5% and 7.3% respectively during the month of October immediately preceding those elections. There five winning incumbents over that time period were Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush #2, with unemployment rates of 6.1%, 7.8%, 7.2%, 5.6% and 5.4% respectively. But here is the kicker: In each case where the incumbent won reelection the unemployment rate had actually increased during their first term (the one exception being Bill Clinton where the unemployment rate decreased from 5.6% to 3.9%). Under Eisenhower it increased from 4.3% to 6.1%, under Nixon it increased from 5.3% to 7.8%, under Reagan in it stayed virtually the same going from 7.4% to 7.5%, and under George W. Bush it increased from 5.4% to 6.8%.

One big take away, is that in each case there were a number of complex factors that contributed to the unemployment rate that may not have had much to do with the sitting incumbent president or his policies. When Barack Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate was around 7%. But in January 2009, the American Economy was shedding an astounding 750,000 jobs per month. The unemployment rate reached an astonishing 10.1% later that year in October. It has remained virtually flat throughout 2010 and has recently taken a modest dip down to 9%. Will President Obama be able to effectively make the case that the jobs being lost when he was sworn in are in no way reflective of his policies? The economy has seen positive job growth for almost two years. But the job growth is terribly anemic and barely keeps up with natural population growth as new workers attempt to enter the workforce. It is undoubtedly going to be a tough environment for the president who will essentially need to make the case that it takes more than 3 years to recover form the worst recession in over 80 years. To put it into perspective, the 8 million jobs lost in the 2008-2009 recession are more than the total number of jobs lost in the five previous national recessions.

In short, the unemployment data does not allow one to conclusively take a stand as to whether the unemployment rate will be the deciding factor (or eve one of the biggest ones) in the 2012 elections. This is why I find it strange that must pundits keep saying otherwise. I am certainly not prepared to assert that it will seal the deal one way or the other. I do think the punditry may be correct that the public will hold Mr. Obama responsible for the unemployment rate, despite the aforementioned statistics. But what the beltway seems to be missing is the second and more important “nine”.…the 9% approval rating of Congress. This congress has a dreadful and historic unpopularity. Yes, the American people are frustrated at the sluggish economy. Yes they are chomping at the bit to voice that frustration at the polls. But as Colorado Senator Bennett recently pointed out, the Congress has a lower approval rating than Paris Hilton, communism, the IRS, and BP (during the Gulf oil spill). And by the way, it is 35 - 40 points lower than the President’s approval rating at this time in every major poll. The president will no doubt get his share of the blame for a weak economy next November. But what will be interesting to watch is how the average American voter will react to a “Do nothing Congress”. The White House is certainly going out of its way to drive this point home.

So that brings us to the third “Nein”. The 112th is an utterly dysfunctional Congress that seems unable to say “aye” to anything. One has to go back to the 1860s to find a less productive Congress in terms of the number of bills that have been signed into law. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in over 900 days because they are unable to sidestep republican filibusters. And the new house majority (that won a landslide election in 2010) has yet to propose a jobs bill during this session. I realize that the vast majority of highly partisan voters already have their minds made up on whether or not they will vote for or against Obama (regardless of who his eventual opponent turns out to be). But I have to think that the moderate independent voters will not be too happy with a House of Representatives that has focused on legislation such as: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, Protect Life Act, Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, Respect for Marriage Act, etc. when they vowed to focus on "creating jobs".

I will be the first person to predict that the 2012 election will most likely be close. But I am not ready to say that the unemployment rate will doom Obama to defeat. If the average American voter wants to punish incumbents for the high unemployment rate and sluggish economy, it seems to me as if the 535 member s of the 112^th Congress will be just as vulnerable if not more so than the President.

Thanks for reading and contact me with your thoughts!
Scott.theliberalmob@gmail.com
or email the whole mob at liberal.mob@gmail.com

In Memory of Jack Layton

2011-08-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

Jack Layton, 1950-2011.

Jack Layton was only a man. That is clear. But he was a very rare sort of man, and a very rare sort of politician. He was sincere in a way that few in his profession ever are. He was optimistic and forward-looking. He was a man who garnered the respect of his political opponents in a way that would be nearly unfathomable in America. (Indeed, it was nearly unfathomable in Canada.)

But sadly, he was indeed only a man. Mortal. His death on Monday may not have been a shock in light of his long-running battle with cancer, but it was depressing nonetheless. And now we are left to reflect on what is missing from the world as a result.

What Mr. Layton accomplished in his last eight years was stunning. Here was a mind that was able to manage political acumen of the highest order without sacrificing personal warmth and kindness. And indeed, much of his politics was shaped by that basic human decency that so many members of his profession lack. His politics were simple: do what you can to make the country, and the world, a better place for people to be in. And really, who can't admire that?

But yes - the accomplishments. Elected to head the NDP in 2003, few could have predicted the party's meteoric rise under his leadership. Yet now - thanks in large part to Mr. Layton - the NDP stands as the official opposition, with more seats in the Canadian Parliament than ever before. Jack Layton's time as party leader was nothing short of an absolutely monumental success.

There is more to take from Mr. Layton's career than just that, though. American and Canadian politics aren't too different, after all. And the NDP is a party much like what many American liberals think the Democratic Party should be. Progressive keystone policies like universal healthcare, union support, progressive taxation, minority rights, environmental protections: Layton's NDP went to bat for these things time and again, with vigor and without fear.

In America, many Democratic politicians would fear a backlash at the polls were they to campaign like that. And yet the NDP was instead rewarded with its largest share of the Commons ever. This isn't an accident. People genuinely do like these sorts of policies. There's plenty of polling to suggest that. But while our "left-wing" politicians cower and hide from their own platforms, Mr. Layton was a fearless and tireless advocate for Canadians.

Sadly, even that sort of political bravery and acumen could not stave off cancer. No sunny disposition or basic decency can cure the sick by itself. A man who was always fighting hard for the people who counted on him, in the end lost his own fight. Thus we are deprived of one of the few truly reasonable and good political figures of our time.

Canada, and the world, will miss Jack Layton. That goes without saying. But I hope, at least, that his passing causes liberals and progressives outside Canada to reflect on what they can do to make the world a better place. And just maybe, we'll learn to fight just as hard as Jack.

Daddy Issues: The Reality of China’s Challenge to the United States

2011-08-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Michele Bachmann needs to learn a lot of things. First off, among those members of the Republican Party who can read books, her approval rating hovers tenuously between Rick Perry and genital warts. Slightly less immediately, she needs to know that puns are the absolute lowest form of humor… on Earth. And making any sort of puns relating to President Hu Jintao’s name is an exquisite means of saying “I am not, and will never be, by any definition of the words, an intentionally funny person.” I didn’t think anything could make Michele Bachmann’s already groan-inducing remarks at CPAC all the more objectively more painful when she was able to stop talking about lightbulbs long enough to touch on the subject of China, and how they hold a “vast amount” of American debt. Bachmann insisted that, “Hu is your Daddy.”

This was apparently funny enough to the crowd that it became worth repeating four months later at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans. And this fear of China has been parroted throughout both parties. The recent sea tests of a People’s Liberation Army Navy aircraft carrier have prompted commentators to say that China’s new aircraft carrier and, “growing” “naval” “power,” is a means of broadcasting their own superiority, especially when juxtaposed with the recent, and apparently egregious cuts made to the defense budget of the United States of America. This same budget, for the record pays for ten more aircraft carriers than the Chinese have. Also, China’s “new” aircraft carrier is in actuality a decommissioned Soviet tub that was sold to Macao to serve as a casino. Apparently, the next boogeyman of the seas is a floating Bellagio, that has half the armaments of many smaller American ships and is from an era in which we thought Rick Astley was in any way a respectable performer. My point is, that if you buy into anybody’s rhetoric about a future invasion, or being “owned” by the Chinese, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, you’re an idiot.

Now, there’s the notion that the People’s Republic of China “owns” the United States, and could – through the sale of our treasury bonds create everything ranging from stock market crashes, to the rapid devaluation of our dollar, to the total collapse of the American economy, to the eruption of the supervolcano in Yellowstone.

The truth is, that when you owe someone a thousand dollars, they own you. When you owe someone a billion dollars, you owe them. The truth is given to a much greater extent when you consider that the Chinese, own about two trillion dollars of the US debt. Now, the last Chinese stimulus, directed at local infrastructure maintenance package taught us that the Chinese are not willing, or legally able to spend foreign money on domestic problems. I guess it might help Rand Paul and Michelle Bachmann sleep a lot easier knowing those damned Chi-Comms aren’t paying for their Commie bridges with ‘Murkhin dollars, which could be spent on giving flags to orphans or… killing Chi-Comms. But what it does is forces the Chinese into a situation where their debt can only be spent in other countries. The problem is, there’s no very well developed European bond markets, and China’s shrunk most of its holdings in Korea and Japan in the last decade, mostly so they could spend more money building up their holdings of American debt. In other words, by their own machinations, the Chinese have literally no other options than to invest in the States.

Whenever we hear rhetoric coming out of Xinhua, calling out America for its “addiction” to debt, and “irresponsibility” we can rest safely in the knowledge that it is just that: rhetoric. If the Chinese truly thought their money would not be returned, and they had literally two trillion dollars that could go, and be spent nowhere, the Chinese response would be truly apoplectic. If there was any possible means that we would have defaulted, we would have seen measures much sterner from the Chinese than a second-tier editorial from Xinhua calling us “irresponsible.”

At the end of the day, it’s not as though we have nothing to fear from the Chinese. But, Hu, Xi, and Wen will not wind up being our daddies, and the thought of Chinese overlords remains little more than a good video game storyline, or a RonPauloompa’s wetmare. What the United States Government can do to prevent much more real threat of jobs, rather than debt-dollars going to China is to make every available effort to foster job growth within the United States, and keep a watch on the amount and quality of items purchased from the People’s Republic. At this point in time, the Chinese need us, in equal degree to which we need them. With the correct measures in place, the United State’s may be able to show some tougher love towards “Daddy” in the future.

By: Travis Nemme, Contributing Conservative

Koreablog

2011-08-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

From the most recent fizzled flashpoint in November 2010.

It is once again the most wonderful time of the year:

The US and South Korea have begun a joint military drill to improve combat readiness on the Korean peninsula. The annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise brings together 530,000 forces in Korea and abroad, using computer programmes to simulate war situations. North Korea has reacted furiously to the exercises, which run for 10 days.

For the uninitiated, this happens every year in August or September and has for decades, although the name of the exercise has changed. Every year, South Korea and the United States perform large-scale exercises. Every year, North Korea responds like a seven-year-old would. Is this year any different, or is there something else here?

The North Korea situation is in fact quite complicated at the moment. No one is really a hundred percent sure what North Korea's leadership situation actually is right now, for starters. Kim Jong-il might still have a lot of influence, or he may not. Kim Jong-un, his son, might already have de facto control, or he may not - all we know for sure is he is probably the chosen successor.

Things are tense in North Korea right now. The economic and food situation is frighteningly bad. Flooding and other environmental disasters have murdered an already-crippled agricultural industry, and North Korea simply doesn't have much else to hang its hat on. In fact, they might not even have hats. They have tried in recent years to generate a significant tourism economy, interestingly. It isn't the move you'd expect from a closed society like theirs. It also isn't working, because, let's face it - given the choice to travel to most places, where are you really going to decide to go?

Honey, I like my vacations to be somewhere with electricity, okay?

Inter-Korean tensions are a problem too. The two states exchanged artillery fire in November near a disputed island, and March 2010 saw the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan, a South Korean warship. While neither of these incidents have turned out to be the flashpoint many fear, it is still worrisome.

It isn't all bad news, of course. North Korea wants to rejoin the six-party talks regarding its nuclear program, which is a good thing. And they haven't broken the world yet. They are, however, still a nuclear-capable state with high profile territorial and diplomatic disputes, and need to be watched to some extent.

So are things different this time? Is this the year where our annual exercise lights the match that burns up to war? Probably not. North Korea is in a fairly fragile position given the recent famines. But presenting a threat has worked fairly well for them - or at least for the regime - for quite some time, so they will continue to do so as long as it is to their advantage. Kim Jong-il is not truly crazy, more than likely; his apparent insanity makes him seem less frightening and allows him to get away with things.

Also, on the matter of keeping the peace, the cult of personality Kim Jong-il (and his father before him) has built helps. He is smart enough to know that outright war would result in outright annihilation. He and his line would lose power. The statues, murals, paintings, all of the glorious monuments to his reign would disappear. That is something it seems he is very unwilling to risk.

Fear not, then. It is summer, and North Korea is pitching a fit. Really, nothing is out of the ordinary. But it's always a good idea to keep tabs on them...just in case.

Science: It Works

2011-08-16T00:13:00.000-07:00

In light of the fact that the past week or four have been politically asinine, I thought it would be nice to take a detour from our usual musings on politics, economics, and whatnot. I’ve chosen instead to focus my attention today on a topic that has never once let me down like ridiculous budget deals and underwhelming elections so frequently do, and that topic is science. In just a few short weeks, we’ve had announcements of mind blowingly important discoveries ranging from water on Mars to an almost unbelievable cure all for viruses that doesn’t seem to be possible. With this much progress taking place it’s hard to believe that these magnificent scientific developments aren’t on the front page of all of the important blogs and newspapers.

On 10 August 2011, researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Lab announced that they had developed a technology that could essentially cure all viruses. This new technology has been tested on the common cold, the swine flu (I’m sticking with the laymen’s name, but you can call it H1N1 if you want), a stomach virus, and twelve other viruses. According to Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist at the Lincoln Laboratory, “in theory, it should work against all viruses.” This means that the technology, known as DRACO (double-stranded RNA activated caspase oligomerizers), could potentially wipe out HIV, HPV, Herpes, Ebola, Smallpox, SARS, etc. I’m no scientist, but if you’d like to see one describe how this works, read the article above; or you can take my word for it that this is absolutely brilliant.

Elsewhere in the scientific community, scientists working for NASA/JPL and the University of Arizona have announced the discovery of potential flowing water on the surface of Mars during the warmest months. As anyone who is familiar with junior high-level science knows, this is a truly monumental landmark find. In the search for extra-terrestrial life, the existence of free flowing water is thought to be essential. This means that the possibility of actual life being discovered within our lifetimes is actually conceivable. Earth, Mars, possibly Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, all have at least water ice, and potentially liquid water. The odds of finding other life in the solar system, not on Earth, now seem to be climbing rapidly. Even if that doesn’t happen, this will still make it easier for humans to explore and colonize space. If you’re wondering why human space exploration is important, look here.

These epic discoveries, and others like them (including stopping the spread of cancer in an afflicted patient, solar-powered electronic tattoos to monitor patients’ health in hospital, and the discovery of the darkest exoplanet known to man) truly outline what humans are capable of when we’re not dealing with absurd post-modernist politics. And isn’t it nice that we have a federal government to help invest in these things!

Keep On Rockin' in the Third World!

2011-08-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to convey to people here in the United States the severity of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Somalia. When the average American hears that there are people starving to death somewhere in Africa it comes as no surprise. We have heard this so many times throughout our lives that we have come to expect it and sadly, to even accept it as an inevitability. It is for this reason that we here at the Liberal Mob have blogged about the situation taking place on the Horn of Africa a couple of times in recent weeks. First about the Failed State status of Somalia and how it compounds and worsens the ecological and humanitarian crises taking place there, and later why the United Nations & the International community had trouble responding quickly and decisively declaring a famine.

As of today, the United Nations has declared famine in 5 regions of Somalia. The majority of these areas have seen little or no rainfall in two years. Eighty percent of local livestock have died and there is no local agriculture. The majority of the famine victims, over 30,000 of them, are under the age of five years old. There are no domestic government social programs of any kind available for the millions of Somalis that are suffering. It has been argued by me that this nightmare crisis unfolding in the Horn of Africa region is not a "typical" humanitarian crisis. The ecological crisis (in the form of climate induced drought), the failed state status of the Somali government, regional and international terror organizations present in the area, piracy, smuggling, warlords, ongoing armed conflict, etc. exist in a combination that the international community and aid organizations have never had to deal with before.

This unprecedented combination of problems presents the international community with a sort of bellwether on its ability to respond effectively. These sorts of crises will likely become increasingly common in the 21st century and so we must gauge how adept the world is at not only responding appropriately but also preventing them from occurring in the first place. The drought in Somalia and the rest of the Horn of Africa region is not entirely preventable. But the famine, terrorism, armed conflict, piracy, etc are.

The most frustrating thing is that extreme drought is largely cyclical and predictable. Even in under developed regions droughts can often be mitigated to an extent that precludes famine. But due to 20 years of instability, there was no formal drought response plan, nor was there any meaningful government preparation in place. The extremely limited resources that the Somali government does possess are allocated to combatting Al-Shabaab and other militant factions and anti-government warlords. This further compounds the ability of the United Nations and other international aid organizations to effectively respond because Somalia has not been able to invest in infrastructure. Many donor nations had also cut foreign aid to Somalia in the years leading up to the drought due to the political instability and ongoing armed conflict, further setting the stage for famine to occur.

The United Nation World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) have been largely unable to get desperately needed supplies to the people who need it the most. Further, the WFP admitted today that it is investigating theft of food and medical aid by Al-Shabaab and other militant forces. BBC World News was reporting last week that the Refugee camps in the Somali Capital of Mogadishu were essentially raided by forces who allegedly killed and injured civilians to do so. The weakened interim Somali government, currently being supported by 9,000 African Union peace keeping troops, has warned that the Mogadishu is littered with land mines courtesy of the Islamic militants who have largely abandoned the city. Most of the mines are on the main thoroughfares preventing aid organizations from getting supplies into the city and to the refugees camps. Those who have managed to escape Somalia itself are greeted by circumstances not much better. The Refugee camp at Dadaab, Kenya (the largest in the world)was designed to hold no more than 90,000 refugees. It has swelled to 440,000 people.

So what can the International Community do? What could or should America do? After all, we sent troops to Somalia in the early 1990's and it turned out to be a disaster. There are no easy answers here and there is essentially no possibility that the crises will not worsen and that thousands or hundreds of thousands of people will die. What we can do is stop being apathetic toward it. And what we must do is recognize that we are directly and indirectly contributing to it.

Our use of energy is effecting the climate and changing drought, flood, storm, and various other weather patterns. Our totalitarian form of agriculture has given rise to a global system where there is enough food produced to feed all of humanity yet millions go hungry. Our global economic system exploits billions in the third world so that first world inhabitants can live in relative comfort. We contribute to worsening the often dysfunctional and volatile geopolitical landscape exacerbating armed conflicts, economic instability, degradation of social and political institutions, and leading to failed governments and ultimately failed states.

Yes, the United States has, does and will continue to be a world leader when it comes to aid, supplies and human capital being contributed to the most desperate regions of the world. But the 21st century will present us with new and complex problems that our 20th century solutions can not solve. We have entered an era of unprecedented interconnectedness. As the world super power we must embrace a new role for a new century. No longer can we attempt to mitigate the effects of humanitarian crises and global instability. We must learn to eliminate their causes. If the current catastrophe on the Horn of Africa is an indication of how the global community is prepared (or unprepared) and willing to respond, the 21st century will see disease, death, starvation, war, and economic and social collapse on a global scale that surpasses anything humanity has ever had to deal with. The Somali famine is a test. As of now, we are failing.

Scott

The Liberal Mob

Why Perry Is Dangerous (And Also a Nut)

2011-08-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

The rare Texan Loon (R-TX) in his natural habitat.

There has been a lot of concern about Rick Perry as of late. Most of this centers around the prayer rally he hosted just prior to announcing his candidacy. There was commentary on this from all the places you'd expect. There was also some from places you might not, too.

Perry's religious views and religious grandstanding, though, are less of a big deal than other things. What is a big deal is his idea of how government works, and how America should be run. To put it simply: Gov. Perry might believe in a thing called "The United States of America". But it seems evident that he doesn't believe in a United States of America. It is a key distinction, and one with major consequences.

Let's go back in time a couple years first (no flux capacitor required here). In 2009, Perry famously attacked federal government overreach, and disturbingly claimed:

"There's a lot of different scenarios. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Plenty of bloggers and reporters took this as declaring the legitimacy of secession. And maybe that's exactly what it was. But it's more important to explore the ideology that produces this sort of statement.

The sum total of that ideology seems to be that very few things that the Federal government does are legitimate. Social Security, most regulations, the minimum wage, labor laws, and so forth are unconstitutional and not in keeping with our founding principles. What the Federal government actually can do according to Perry isn't exactly clear.

Ordinarily one would invoke the general welfare and necessary and proper clauses of Article 1, but he rejects the general welfare clause as having anything to do with...well, anything really. This reading of the Constitution is rather interesting, since it ignores basic things like "what words mean". Perry has a vision, though, and it's one that doesn't involve the Federal government needing to do anything.

His solution to everything is to leave it to the states instead. And that applies to pretty much everything. It's not hard to see how this could fail like the Hindenburg. Independent Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and so forth would be a disaster, given the ease of moving between states. The burdens would be placed on states with the most friendly policies to beneficiaries, while people would live most of their lives elsewhere.

Indeed, we've already seen what happens in Perry's vision, as Klein points out: credit card companies are regulated differently in different states. Therefore they set up shop where regulations are lax, and screw the rest of us from a distance. We would see the same with everything else: banking regulations, for example.

If Perry had his way, the nation would look radically different. Of course, we've seen it before, because we've done this song and dance once already. What Perry describes isn't too different from how things functioned under the Articles of Confederation. Then, we did not have a Union; we had a loose network of trade agreements and mutual defense. If you remember your history, then you remember how spectacularly it failed. Its failure led, in turn, to the Constitution that Perry so reveres yet understands so badly.

Under Perry's system, things like Social Security and Medicare would be almost impossible. Environmental regulations would be pointless. Labor laws would be shattered. Civil rights gains, won hard with blood, sweat and tears, would be broken. The advances of the 20th Century, in other words, would be gone. Undone. Destroyed by a man who thinks secession is a reasonable idea to throw around, and that a central government doesn't serve any purpose.

Perhaps that is the point. And so we are left with no choice but to see Perry's ideology as hopelessly reactionary, feckless and terrible for everyone. Perry thinks that we can have a 21st Century America - the standard of living, the economic engine, the superpower-ness - without the things that allowed that America to build itself. It's an un-United States, with nothing to hold the states together. This vision is wrong and insane, of course, but being wrong and insane doesn't seem to stop any Republicans these days.

This is why Perry is perhaps the most dangerous and offensive of the Republican field. He knows exactly what he wants to do, and how it needs to be achieved. He has a real vision for what America should be, and it is a vision where the parts make no whole. The problem, though, is that it's of an America that does not exist, never existed, and should not ever exist. Perhaps he will never make it out of the primaries. That would be good. But if he does, then anyone who enjoys living in a first world, 21st century nation needs to ensure Perry loses.

Insurgencyblog

2011-08-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

The remains of a police station struck by the FARC in Colombia.

I know we've been quiet for a few days here at the Mob, but sometimes we find that there's nothing much new to say about anything; either there's no real new news, or everyone else has already said what we would want to say. It can happen to anyone. And sometimes what you need when that happens is to just dig a little.

So in the process of that digging, I turned up this. It seems like the FARC in Colombia is starting to be a big problem again. And that opens things up for some discussion of why insurgent/terrorist/militia groups are able to remain in existence for so long in some places, and how nations often fail to combat them well.

Let's catch up on FARC first: in recent months they have killed a highly-ranked police official, and the first link details a more recent killing of soldiers in a couple different firefights. Of course, they've been operating for decades, and this sort of behavior from them is nothing new. It's sort of their thing.

But what is much, much more interesting is FARC's transition from their more traditional setup. Now, it seems, they are attempting to hide out amongst the civilian population and do most of their damage through stealthier, more modern insurgency and guerilla tactics. FARC being the Cold War dinosaur that it is makes this shift feel like watching your dog learn how to drive a car, somehow. This, in turn, requires Colombia to perform an appropriate shift in counterinsurgency tactics.

This seems to be working better for FARC than Colombia so far, which is unfortunate for everyone. Attacks are up, and appear to be more successful than in years past. Furthermore, Colombia's traditional strategy of targeting FARC leadership seems to be having little positive effect, instead causing them to work more closely with Columbian gangs (who are not exactly nice people either).

Counterinsurgency is a tricky thing in general, and it's especially so when dealing with such an old and entrenched group as FARC. The old school of insurgent and terrorist thought - such as with the Basque ETA back in the day - works under the idea that in order for a terrorist group to succeed at their stated aims, the best method is to make things worse enough, and drag the opposed government down far enough, that things can't get better. When that happens, the population might just turn to the terrorists instead of the authorities.

This means that there is a limit to what a government can do. Using excessive and frequent force can further entrench terrorists and increase their popular support; Colombia has had this issue in the past. The unfortunate part for Colombia is that intelligence/law enforcement methods have not been effective for them either. Colombia's justice system has fairly notable corruption issues, and slim resources to work with. What's more is that President Santos seems to be promising little in the way of support.

That leaves only the third method for Colombia, which is development. If the goal of terrorists is to make things worse, then the government has to be able to make things better. Santos - and Uribe before him - have attempted to create "consolidation zones" in areas with significant FARC influence in order to help provide basic services. Apparently this is not going well either, though, as they've failed to provide those services consistently.

If Colombia is ever going to overcome FARC - and that's a very important thing for them to be able to do - some things need to happen. They need to avoid "incidents" involving their military as much as possible. They need to engineer some serious reforms for their justice system, so they can start successfully prosecuting large numbers of FARC members and those that support their activities. And they need to start raising the standard of living.

Assuming they can do that, FARC will over time lose relevance. Of course, there's no guaranteed way to break the back of a terrorist or insurgent network overnight. But over time, these groups quickly fade once their purpose and relevance has passed. They may not go away for good - groups like the IRA and ETA prove that - but those groups are a shell of their former selves, and not even remotely the threat they once were. If Colombia can to do the same to FARC, the world will be a better place.

Standard & Very, Very Poor

2011-08-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, and into today, there has been much sound and fury about Standard and Poor's downgrade of the United States' credit rating to AA. Unfortunately for S&P (or fortunately for the rest of us), it turns out that it is signifying nothing. It is now left to the rest of us to wonder: what is happening here, what does it mean for us, and what does it mean for S&P?

What is happening here seems to be, first off, that S&P has made some serious errors. Earth-shattering errors, the kind that if we're lucky they might never recover from. The downgrade was based on a number of factors, but one of the main ones was that the amount of deficit reduction was insufficient to slow what they saw as a rapid climb in debt-to-GDP ratios. As it happens, though, their projection was based on the wrong baseline metric. This equates to about a $2 trillion dollar discrepancy, otherwise known as "antihistamine money", since it is not to be sneezed at.


Note how much quicker the climb is under the original, flawed estimate.

But really, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Ezra Klein does a better job than I ever could on this one, pointing out all the contradictions in S&P's report. For example: S&P claimed that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would allow for an upgrade in the outlook of our credit rating. Yet, their revised estimates, after fixing the $2t mistake, account for significantly more savings than the Bush cuts would have. Surprising no one, though, S&P kept their downgrade in place. At least they're committed to something (i.e. being terrible at their jobs).

It gets even more damning, too, as Klein points out:

Similarly, they have previously explained that while a $4 trillion deal could have saved our credit rating, a $2.4 trillion deal — which is what we got — was insufficient to stabilize the debt. But since their original calculations misplaced $2 trillion, the deal and the correction should have added $2.4 trillion + $2 trillion to our bottom line. That, again, is more than $4 trillion.

That S&P - responsible in their own way for the subprime mortgage crisis anyway because of their frightening eagerness to rate crap mortgages as AAA - would make this sort of mistake is not surprising. It is also not surprising that they would double down on it. After all, the downgrade really isn't about the economic ability of the United States to pay its debts. That would be ridiculous. It is more about the political ability to do so, which might be the only thing they got right in this whole thing. Don't believe me? Take it from them:

More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

Amusingly, it might not actually matter. Sure, stocks are dropping, but that started before the downgrade. But demand for U.S. Treasury Bonds is as high as ever, and in fact bond prices ticked up slightly. Interest rates, in turn, also dropped slightly. Rather than abandon all faith in the safety of Treasury bonds, investors have reaffirmed that faith in spades.

It looks like the upshot of all this is that rather than lose faith in the United States, investors are losing faith in S&P instead - an idea echoed by none other than Warren Buffett. Standard and Poor's probably had this coming as a result of their role in the financial crisis, of course. I'm not going to shed any tears if they lose a little prestige. But there really is no other obvious answer to what happened here: they downgraded themselves instead of the United States.

The funniest part is that their analysis of our political system isn't actually wrong. A week ago, we were within hours of an outright default. And it happened because a sizable portion of Congress is apparently made up of nine-year-olds, rather than those 25 and over as we all thought was required. S&P's mistake - well, aside from the terrible math - was conflating that with everything else, and going too far in pursuit of making a political point. And that's an error they might not ever recover from.

Things Fall Apart

2011-08-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

We've covered the protests and crackdown in Syria before, of course. But things are quickly escalating well past where they were last week. Things have gotten worse in a hurry, it seems. So it's recap time.

Long story short, the protests have not abated. In Hama, according to the BBC, state forces have been using tanks against civilians. In response, it seems as though anti-Assad sentiment has intensified, especially in and around Damascus. There are reports of state forces demolishing buildings, and burning crops. Quickly, this is becoming more than just a crackdown, but a series of reprisals.

President Assad has promised reforms, of course. At this point though it seems too little, too late. As long violence is still being used against peaceful protestors, the Syrian government undermines its reform credentials with opponents of the regime. And indeed, with the level of violence that we have seen so far, it's unlikely that we are going to see a peaceful resolution. Either Assad is going to "win" and break the back of the protests, or he is going to have to leave.

In its usual way, the international community has indicated its preference and seems to be putting pressure on Assad to "do the right thing". Close allies such as Turkey have already started to move away from Syria. Even Russia, now - of course a bastion of goodwill for the democratic wishes of any people, naturally - has made its wishes fairly clear:

Russia, traditionally an ally of Syria, also joined the criticism, with President Dmitry Medvedev saying Mr Assad would "face a sad fate" unless he urgently carried out reforms and reconciled with the opposition.

Man, if Medvedev says you're in this kind of trouble, then it's pretty much game over, isn't it?

Given the current state of things in the world, it's unlikely that any sort of intervention is on the table here, what with Libya still fresh. And the level of violence so far seems to indicate that Assad does not intend to go down easily, or ever. He has gone all-in now. If he loses, if he allows the protests to "win", he has no future in Syria...or anywhere. I'm sure he knows this. So, he is committed to going down fighting, unless given a way out.

So, if we can't go and just get rid of him, then the United States - and the rest of the global community - need to be creative. Someone needs to give him that way out, some nice exile somewhere or something. Some way of allowing him to save a little face, make a "graceful" exit, and make it look like he is trying to save the nation from civil war. It may not be possible, but it's worth trying.

Otherwise, we're going to be seeing some nasty stuff out of Syria for a long time. Because short of going in directly, there's not much else we can do but sit on our hands. Sanctions, asset freezes, oil embargoes...these things will make continued defiance painful on Assad's part, but also on the Syrian people. And it won't help force Assad to leave; he's far too committed to this course now without being presented with a "clean" way to leave.

Syria cannot move forward while he stays. If we can't remove him by force, and he won't remove himself, we need to offer him a way to be removed at less cost to himself. But this is for sure: one way or another, Bashar al-Assad has to go.

Where Do We Go From Here?

2011-08-04T15:34:00.000-07:00


The title asks a question, so here is a picture of The Question.

The last few weeks have, with good reason, worried liberals and others. Once again, we have seen the only political party that even attempts to speak for any of our concerns fail horribly. The debt ceiling debate was an inherently winnable policy fight on a number of different grounds. While the ultimate deal (as we noted in its aftermath) is better than we could expect considering how badly the Democratic leadership failed, it still amounts to a loss in terms of the debate. It legitimizes Republican bad economics. It legitimizes "austerity". None of this is particularly good.

Given all that, it's worth taking a moment to figure out how the Democratic Party can recover strategically from this sort of a failure. It's a good question. Fortunately, there are answers.

As it happens, with Congress going into recess, the President has an opportunity to reshape the debate. It seems that he already planned to do that as well, as he's scheduled a tour of the Midwest, allegedly to discuss the jobs issue. With Congress in recess, all eyes will be on the President for a while. In a real way, this is nearly the beginning of the 2012 campaign season for him. The next couple weeks are a good opportunity to set up and retool for the campaign in the wake of a fairly significant defeat.

If what we get is the Campaign version of the President, rather than the actual President of the last year or so, then this tour could re-energize some of the base and create a groundswell of support for spending on jobs. This is important both in terms of fixing the economy, but also politically. People are still worried about high unemployment and the dearth of good-paying jobs, and for good reason. With Congress quiet for a while the President can stake out a position as being more serious about jobs than the Republicans in Congress. More important, a return of Candidate Obama could see more pushback against failed and outright wrong Republican policy ideas.

Now, some of that of course depends on the White House and President Obama realizing the position that they are in. While they have handled some things decently, the recent debt ceiling fight does call the President's policy goals and overall political judgment into question in a way that previous events have not. Given the alternative (a hypothetical President Perry, President Bachmann or President Romney), we need to hope that the President is able to seize this opportunity and show more of the acumen we thought we could expect.

That's all just about the Presidency though. While ensuring that the White House stays out of the hands of the GOP is a worthy goal, there are other considerations. The Senate picture is not pretty, and of course the House is currently in GOP hands. It would be a Pyrrhic victory to re-elect President Obama but have neither house of Congress. So there needs to be some focus there if there is to be a hope of defending any sort of sanity in the national political structure.

Of course, it seems like the President is more than capable of taking care of business on the campaign trail, and is outfundraising...well, everyone. That makes the course of action obvious for liberals annoyed with the President. There are going to be plenty of Congressional candidates out there who need your help, time, and money. So give it to them instead! That would be a lot more productive, and have a better chance of success, than trying to primary President Obama.

It doesn't just stop there either. There are local races and concerns too. More involvement from liberals in city and county party organizations can, over time, push the center of the party further left. In turn, that will push the realm of "acceptable" and "sensible" policies along with it. That's a long-term goal of course, but it needs to start sometime.

Overall, the failure in the debt ceiling deal really underscores how much work there is for liberals to do right now. We've seen what happens when Republicans try to "govern" (hint: they don't). And we've also seen what happens when the party that tries to represent us acts like everything is business as usual (hint: they fail). There are opportunities to fix things, though, and we need to take advantage of them. And if we're lucky, and we try to do more, then as 2012 approaches just maybe we'll see the Democratic party start to do the same.

Or maybe we're all screwed. But at least we can think about a way out. And maybe it'll work.

House Undivided

2011-08-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Nearly seven months after being brutally shot in an assassination attempt, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords returned the floor of the United States House of representatives to vote "aye" on the bi-partisan agreement to raise the nation's debt limit. The seeming unwillingness of the political parties to come together and the bitter vitriol surrounding the debt limit debate has diminished the confidence of the American people in the political process in Washington D.C., perhaps to an all-time low.

By contrast, Rep. Giffords (D-AZ) has been emblematic of compromise and bi-partisan pragmatism since first being elected to the House in 2006. Since beginning her tenure, she has been praised by her colleagues and her constituents alike for her willingness to reach across party lines to pass meaningful legislation. So it was only fitting that she did for a few minutes today what nobody else has been able to do in the 112th Congress of the United States of America: unite the House of Representatives.

A steady applause grew throughout the House chamber as Representatives, staff, press, and members of the public seated in the overhead gallery realized that the Congresswoman had entered through the East doors to cast her vote. Rep. Giffords was assisted by an aid as she voted and was surrounded by House members and greeted by a minute long standing ovation after casting her vote. She smiled as she gave a brief wave before leaving the chamber after a few remarks from House Minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schulze (D-FL).

Gabrielle Giffords said in a statement today that she has watched very closely as the debate surrounding the debt ceiling has unfolded and she has been deeply disappointed with what has been going on in Washington. She also added "I strongly believe that crossing the aisle for the good of the American people is more important than party politics. I had to be here for this vote. I could not take the chance that my absence could crash our economy." As the Congresswoman continues on her brave journey towards recovery, let us hope that her colleagues will head her words and follow her example to work together to solve the nation's problems in a constructive manner. Although compromise and agreement are toxic words in Washington these days, Gabrielle Giffords reminded us today that they don't have to be. And in a time when our nation faces uncertainty and growing problems of unprecedented complexity, Congresswoman Giffords proved to us once again that if we want to succeed as a nation, compromise is the only pathway to success.

Gabby Giffords might never be exactly the same as she was before the tragic shooting in her hometown of Tucson, AZ. But through her bravery and sacrifice she reminds us that each and every one of us is part of something that is bigger and more important than ourselves. Through her unwavering courage she proves to us that the flame that is the American spirit still burns as bright as ever. And so long as we are privileged to have a people like her serve our nation that flame will never be extinguished. So thank you Congresswoman. Thank you for not only fighting for your own life but for fighting for all of ours too. Thank you for your courage, grit and determination to rise again and serve your country with such grace, civility and honor. Your commitment to public service is the embodiment of the American spirit.

Our Long National Nightmare Is Finally Over

2011-08-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

It appears to be the beginning of the end for this round of debt ceiling talks. The House has now passed a plan, and the Senate should shortly do the same. This bill will presumably be signed by President Obama as well. Finally, we can stop dealing with this stupid, stupid manufactured crisis and move on to other things. So the real question is: what's in this (hopefully final) deal, and what does it mean? It seems to me that while this deal is bad, it's...somewhat less bad than it could or should have been.

The deal is similar to the McConnell Plan, which we discussed here at the time. There are some new wrinkles though. The deal will raise the ceiling immediately by $400 billion, and then the President can request another $500 billion, subject to a Congressional "vote of disapproval" which does nothing. These increases are accompanied by around $900 billion in cuts.

Then, there will be a bipartisan committee of both houses of Congress, which will be tasked with finding another one and a half trillion dollars in savings, more or less. Essentially, we get to go through the Catfood Commission madness again, though it's possible that some revenue increases could come out of it. If the commission fails, or Congress rejects its recommendations, or the President does not sign an eventual bill on those lines, $1.5 trillion will automatically be cut, except half of it will be from defense and half mostly from entitlements. This step will in either case include a raise of $1.5 million to the debt ceiling.

So, for starters: we avoid blowing up the economy, and without anything insane like a Balanced Budget Amendment or anything else. And there are other nice things. The cuts are almost entirely backloaded, which means we will mostly avoid massive cuts right now, while the recession lingers. And as Nate Silver points out in the previous link, the farther out the cuts are, the easier it is to counter them with new policy changes. So it's entirely likely that many cuts will never really take effect, assuming that 2012 is kind to Democrats.

Also, many of the cuts - especially in the trigger - are to defense. This is a big victory in some ways, although redistributing defense cuts to domestic spending would be preferable to just reducing it as part of overall cuts. However, if we have to accept a deal with significant amounts of cuts, it's easier to swallow one where a large percentage is from defense. I agree pretty strongly with Silver here:

If you’re a Democrat and you must accede to $1.5 trillion in cuts — and that’s literally the situation that Democrats will find themselves in if the deal passes through Congress — it’s going to be hard to do better than this $1.5 trillion in cuts. They are very heavily loaded with defense cuts, while containing few changes to entitlement programs or to programs which benefit the poor.

There are other benefits too. Medicaid, Social Security, and many low-income and veterans' programs are untouchable in this deal. Also, the Bush-era tax cuts will still expire as planned in the current deal unless the commission replaced them with other revenue increases. So either way, we will eventually see some actual revenue solutions instead of just spending cuts.

Now, this is far from a good deal overall. Cutting spending in a recession is like asking a person with anorexia to stop eating so much. It completely ignores any rational understanding of economics. Given the current political realities though, and combining those with the failure of President Obama and the White House to resolve the crisis sooner or negotiate in a normal way, this seems like the least painful deal we were likely to get.

The sun will come up tomorrow, and we will still have a functioning economy and a functioning country. We may have a broken political system in the exchange, but there's still hope for fixing it. In the meantime we at least avoid a worse crisis for now. No one on the left should be happy with this deal. I'm certainly not. But any anger should be directed where it really belongs: the Tea Party - and their brinkmanship - that brought us here.

So this is it: the last time The Liberal Mob has to discuss the debt ceiling. Ever. Unless this happens again, in which case I will probably cry.

From: A Concerned Student To: Speaker Boehner

2011-07-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

A College Student's Letter to Rep. Boehner

(This is a letter from http://anonitiger.blogspot.com/ and has been posted to this blog with permission from the author)

Dear Rep. Boehner (or rather the unfortunate intern who must first read this…),

I am not a member of the 8^th district of Ohio, but I do reside only a few hundred yards south of I-275 and the line that divides your district from that of Rep. Chabot’s. Many of my closest friends and relatives are members of your district and voting constituents who are deeply concerned with the debt ceiling issue that is currently playing out on Capitol Hill. In writing this letter, I hope to voice their concerns and offer you a rational argument to resolve our current crisis. Moreover, I am providing you with a warning of what will happen to you if you refuse to listen to my reason.

First of all, I would like to express my frustration with the current membership of Congress on this impasse, which is rooted more on ideology and political bipartisanship than any actual attempt to resolve our financial crisis. Quite frankly, all of the plans that have been proposed by Congress so far will further our recession and damage our economic reputation. However, much more so than Senator Reid’s plan, the Republican proposals have been entrenched in flawed logic and political blackmailing. First of all, considering the original House bill “Cut, Cap, and Balance”, any reasonable person would consider this to be to be an immature and overly simplistic measure that assumes that it is possible to set spending limits as a percentage of GDP over the next 10 years with no consideration for the future economic and social landscape of our country. Moreover, forcing a “balanced budget” amendment to be passed with the stipulation that “tax increases be approved by a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress” [H.R. 2560, Title III, Sec. 301] is reckless and endangers the ability of the government to function during periods of necessary spending, which outside of wartime efforts, have occasionally arisen throughout US history. I am sure you realize the perils associated with this, which is why you have drafted your own bill modifying the balanced budget requirement but also putting into play a two-step approach that would require another evaluation of the debt ceiling and spending cuts in the near future. This bill is clearly politically charged, is not an honest effort to address our debt crisis, and, as S&P recently warned, may very well result in a downgrade on US credit ratings. Of course our country must strive towards a balanced budget, but trying to pass an amendment that requires it and doing it at this exact moment is irresponsible. Moreover, we both know that such amendments have been brought in front of Congress almost on a clockwork basis since the 1980s and never have there been, nor will there be in the near foreseeable future, the sufficient 2/3 votes to pass this to legislation. Stop pretending as if this is a viable solution to our economic woes when you are aware that it is simply a distraction for political gain. Furthermore, the stipulation that this must be a two-part measure is clearly a tool to hold our President hostage so that he appears weak and is held accountable for our country’s financial troubles through the next election. The Senate realizes this and that is why they have pledged to vote against this bill. The fact that it was scheduled to go to a vote in the House yesterday anyways is an indication that this was never a serious bill, but, rather, an attempt at offsetting blame if no agreement can be reached by the Treasury’s deadline. I find it reprehensible that you are wasting our time and lowering investor confidence in the market by pushing through a non-viable bill that, even if it were to pass, would do nothing to help our economy.

The critical flaw in the majority Republican approach is the assumption by many members of your party that cutting spending without any increased sort of revenue will somehow allow us to pay off our debt without causing a grave amount of damage to our economy. In the short term, it is clear that by cutting government spending, you are essentially taxing American families in the form of removing public services and public sector jobs, which are held by nearly 1 in 10 Americans. In theory, the private sector should absorb this shock over time by creating new jobs and services for these individuals, and lower tax rates on businesses and wealthy Americans should encourage job creation. However, there is very little evidence to prove that tax cuts or low tax rates encourage investment during a period of slow economic progress. If the market is stable and seeing steady growth, then it is possible to see some correlation, but only speculatively and assuming the initial top bracket tax rate was high to begin with (>50%). This is clearly not the case in our current economic situation. In fact, the single largest expenditure of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which you and other Republicans so often claim “failed”, came in the form of $288 billion in tax breaks for most Americans and companies. If this measure did not serve its purpose, then why are we continuing these tax incentives? Moreover, the Bush-era tax cuts, which had been meant to stimulate the economy post-9/11, show very little evidence of producing any form of sustainable growth. The truth of the matter is that investors are not likely to move their assets in the market when it is unstable and volatile as it is today with the current political and social landscape, not just here in the US, but across the world. Unfortunately, no amount of tax incentives will correct this situation.

I know that the common argument for lower taxes producing growth in the private sector is based on the economic success of Reagan’s policies in the 1980s. However, you cannot separate the policies from their historical context. Please let me provide you with a brief economic history lesson to show you that, during a period of recession or slow growth, any plan that decreases spending without offsetting the effects through revenue, or vice-versa, is destined to fail. When Reagan first took office in 1981, the world was still suffering from the effects of the oil crisis of 1979. It had been the worst period of recession since the Great Depression and soaring interest rates were beginning to place many nations across the world in debt. In the US, however, domestic oil reserves and the deregulation of oil prices in 1981 gave us a buffer that helped to curb inflation and lower interest rates. Reagan’s famous tax reforms came in the way of lowering the top bracket tax rate, which had been 70%, to 50% through the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. After a period of increasing debt and no end to the recession, however, he offset these lower tax rates by increasing taxes elsewhere, in the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 which closed tax cuts and loopholes and, according to former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett, is effectively “the largest peacetime tax increase in American history." In doing so, Reagan kept the effective revenue from taxes consistently around 18% of GDP throughout his presidency. Therefore, the illusion of tax cuts had much more to do with raising confidence in the market than any actual cuts in revenue. Moreover, the 1980s saw the weakening of the Soviet Union, the beginnings of the modern technology age, and neoliberal economic reforms in many developing nations that increasingly provided the US with new raw materials and opened up new markets. All of these things did a lot more to reassure investors and provide financial growth and stability than any effective tax cuts. Furthermore, although he enacted cuts to many social programs, Reagan actually increased government spending, with the public debt effectively doubling during his tenure as President, mostly due to defense spending. In so doing, he stimulated the economy in the classic Keynesian sense. But even if I am unable to convince you that Reagan’s tax cuts were not effective to the extent that most people think, then maybe Reagan’s own economic model can convince you that lower taxes are not always the best solution to economic problems. Based around the ideas of economist Arthur Laffer, Reagan triumphed the Laffer curve, despite having no mathematical basis, as being the motivation behind his tax policies. However, the only thing that the Laffer curve does is exemplify that there exists a maximum utility due to tax rate elasticity and, therefore, there should exist some effective tax rate that maximizes government revenue. This tax rate is not specified though and could be greater or lower than our current rate, so there does exist a theoretical justification to raise taxes in Reaganomics.

I understand that you are opposed to Keynesian economic theory on the grounds that the free market and unrestricted trade will resolve the market. However, lower tax rates can in fact be extremely harmful. It is the same mistake made by Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, in the 1920s, when lower tax rates did not lead to expected economic growth. Rather, when the stock market crashed, these low tax rates intensified the effects of the Great Depression and led to huge deficits. Near the end of his presidency, the Congress under Hoover changed courses and enacted the Revenue Act of 1932, which raised the top tax bracket rate from 25% to 63%, the largest peacetime income tax increase in history. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt became President and enacted New Deal expenditures that turned around unemployment and boosted private sector confidence. Unfortunately, the crashing of the US stock market had such far-reaching ramifications that, despite signs of a recovery, it was almost inevitable to avoid the greatest war and the greatest tragedy in human history. I do not want to have to ever live through such a period in my lifetime. This is why I ask that you be reasonable and not make our current situation worse. In both Reagan’s approach and FDR’s policies, government spending grew and deficits rose before there was any effective drop in unemployment and a reversal in economic trends. In general, I do believe that, during periods of economic security, government spending can and should be reduced, there should be a nearly balanced budget that allows for some growth, and deficits should be effectively paid off. However, during periods of economic uncertainty, government expenditure is necessary to keep panic from setting in while people regain confidence and can sustain growth. This is the basic premise behind the Keynesian approach. Whether you agree with that premise or not, one thing does seem clear from history, cutting taxes and cutting government spending freezes growth and is not an effective solution to a sluggish economy. If you disagree with me, then I ask you to give me just one historical example where this approach has worked and I will reconsider my point of view. If you are unable to find one, then I urge you to reconsider yours.

The solution to our economic problem is to raise confidence amongst the American people, which is nearly impossible for Washington to legislate and depends much more on the natural development of affairs. This must come from the American people themselves and private enterprise. There are some measures that can be taken that may help boost confidence, raise revenue, and reduce spending, some of which have been proposed by Republicans, some by Democrats, and, many, have not been proposed at all probably due the risk of political outfall. In order to truly address this country’s financial concerns and even have a chance at reducing the deficit, you must look beyond party lines and, in some cases, even public opinion, and consider the problem from a utilitarian point of view to at least understand the causes and effects. Whether to act on these principles, however, is a completely different matter. I could go into these ideas quite extensively, but in the interest of space, I will not get into it here. If you would like to hear my opinions and suggestions, I would be glad to explain them to you in another letter.

However, to my main point, much more so than any measure Congress can pass to restore the economy, you are much more capable of wreaking havoc on financial markets and sending us back into a recession by destroying confidence amongst American and foreign investors. If the market volatility in recent days is any indication, a major fallout could be only days away. You know this is the case and yet you continue to try to appease ignorant members of your party. The fact that you can not even get them to vote for your plan just proves that the majority of them are not fit to be in Congress. To be honest, I am very much disappointed with the Republican Party at the moment. The current Republican Presidential nominees that I have seen so far, save Ron Paul, are completely inept in logic and some of the most disingenuous hypocrites I have ever seen. Almost any of them as President would be incompetent at the position and, in some cases, I would argue that it could be dangerous. I am quite certain that even you are aware of this. Where are the morally upstanding and sincere Republicans of a previous generation? I am sure that some of them are still out there, but they will likely not run in this election because they realize that they do not have any solutions to our economic situation and they do not want to inherit the problems that President Obama now has to deal with. Rather, they will wait until the country stabilizes to run in a future cycle. As a senior member of the Republican Party, you should be outraged and appalled by the conduct we have seen so far in Washington. As a leader within this Party, you should not bend to their will, but, rather, stand as a symbol for what Republicans once stood for not too long ago. Even George W. Bush, whom I disagree with on most issues, I think was a sincere man that attempted to do what he thought was right for this country and, for that, he does earn my respect. However, I can hardly respect many of the current members of Congress. They constantly misrepresent facts, slander their fellow Congressmen and the President, breed a rhetoric of hate and isolationism, are inconsistent in their arguments, and do not recognize their own ignorance. All of these things only help to demoralize Americans and breed an aura of mistrust across our nation. When people are unable to trust one another, confidence is low and individuals will not be prone to making investments, so the economy will continue to sag. The ideology of these members of Congress and the way that they choose to express themselves is causing irreparable damage to our country. I am sure that almost any informed citizen recognizes this. Unless you are somehow not aware of the world outside of Washington, the Republican Party is quickly losing credibility amongst the American citizens. I can almost assure you that this whole affair in raising the debt ceiling has sealed the fate of the Republican Party in 2012. If you want to save your political party and even have a chance in 2016, I urge you to distance yourself from this insanity. Rebuke this irresponsible and ignorant ideology of no compromise and sticking firm to party lines. The whole idea of bipartisanship is outdated and, as our current situation shows, a clear obstruction to the public well-being. You should vote on what is best for our nation, not what is best for yourself. You know that Senator Reid’s current plan has met with all of your demands of no tax hikes and severe spending cuts, yet, you refuse to accept it because it did not originate from a Republican member and does not appease a great deal of the members in the House. I know that you are afraid that by giving in to this plan, the Republican Party will come out looking weak. However, at the moment, it is quite clear that the Republican Party is weak. Be a leader and renounce your fellow Congressmen for being an obstruction to government and an impediment to making our nation stronger. Yes, your Party will be divided and you will lose the next presidential election, but you will save this country from a catastrophe and restore faith in Republicans.

I am going to hold you accountable for your actions. So if there is no agreement on this issue come August 2^nd, or if the agreement that is eventually brought to pass is clearly a tool for political leverage that was unjustly passed, I will do everything within my power to make certain that you will not be elected to office next year as, in my opinion, you are incompetent to lead. If you do not think I am capable of this, I will provide a brief synopsis of my plan so that you take me seriously. First of all, apart from directly sending you this letter with all of my contact information, I am anonymously distributing it to various media outlets so that people become aware of this pledge and you are pressed to arrive at a decision. If you fail to do so, I will make my identity known publicly and I will start a campaign against you. First, I will use my connections at many of the local universities (UC, Xavier, UD, Wright State, Miami) to rally students to my cause, which should be fairly easy to do seeing as my generation is the one that could suffer the most knowing that our futures are on the line. Organizing through facebook and college e-mail lists, I will set up rallies to meet these students and teach them the facts of this situation along with a little bit of basic macroeconomic theory. Once I garner sufficient support and feel as if this base is well informed, we will start canvassing the neighborhoods of your district to try to sit down and talk with individual constituents. Judging from a quick glance at the 2010 census, I estimate that there are about 250,000 homes in your district. Over the span of a year, I am fairly certain that we could reach out to at least 100,000 of these households on a personal basis. Obviously, we will attract the attention of the media, so my message will be widespread and I am certain that almost all of your constituents will at least be familiar with my agenda. I realize that you have had support in the 8^th district since 1991 and have always, save twice, won by an overwhelming two-thirds majority. This may give you some comfort that the majority of your constituents will never elect a Democrat. In this respect, you may be right, but I do not plan on endorsing a Democrat, or any other candidate for that matter. Rather, my hope and the advice that I will give your constituents will be to nominate and vote for an independent or, rather, another similarly aligned Republican, but at least a person of higher moral caliber who will do the right thing when our country needs it. As mostly moderate individuals with socially conservative view points, these constituents will see through the deceit, ignorance, and self-serving attitude that has caused this mess and will be more than inclined to throw you out of office. Of course, this does not have to be the case and you still have time to prove that you are capable of acting responsibly in the next few days. I strongly urge you not to test my resolve on this matter.

Honestly, I do not want to do this or waste my time on politics. But when the actions of Congress are endangering the livelihoods of every American, it is my duty to act on the behalf of my friends and family. Please do the right thing. You claim to be a Catholic and, as a Xavier grad, you should be familiar with the Jesuit dogma of service for others that highlight the principles of Jesus’ teachings. Now is the time to act in the best interests of your fellow Americans and leave party lines aside for the greater good. I implore you to ask yourself whether or not your actions are motivated mostly by the outside pressure of special interest groups and your fellow congressmen or whether you are acting out of your own moral sense of duty. I believe that, deep down, you are a good man and you know right from wrong. About a month ago, I heard you speak at the Ohio State graduation. I thought you gave a great speech and embodied the spirit of hard work and cool headedness that has been the classic staple of Republicanism since the days of Lincoln. A few nights ago, I saw you speak following President Obama’s address to the nation. Your speech had no substance, misrepresented facts, and was clearly pandering to certain members of your political base. I understand that you are under extreme pressure from some of your fellow Republicans and many Americans to unwaveringly hold fast to certain ideals. If you are to distance yourself from these certain members of your party and, as Senator McConnell and other Republican senators have noted that they may be willing to do, side with Senator Reid’s plan, you will likely get a lot of flak from your fellow members of the House and many people will call you a coward and a disgrace, but you can rest assured that you have proven to be the decent man, and, as such, the mostly moderate, reasonable members of the 8^th district of Ohio will understand your actions and will reward you in the next election. If you stand your ground and the US credit is downgraded, you, as a representative of your fellow Republicans in the House, will go down in history as being the root cause of a double dip recession, or, worse, a depression, that may well last another decade or more. You know the responsible thing to do, so now is the time to do it.

I hope to never have to write to you again.

Thank you for your time,

A concerned college student

7/29/11, 8:50 AM

I Have To Talk About the Debt Ceiling Again, Don't I

2011-07-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

And yet, unfortunately, this is more than likely not even close to the end:

House Republicans on Friday narrowly approved legislation authorizing a limited increase in the $14.3 trillion debt limit in exchange for more than $900 billion in spending cuts. The 218-210 vote occurred nearly a full day after it was originally scheduled as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to revise the legislation to win enough conservative support to carry the House.

The problem, of course, is that the bill is considered to be unpassable as-is in the Senate. Similarly, Sen. Reid's plan in the Senate is in roughly the same situation, only in reverse. There are a lot of things that need to be hacked out in between both houses of Congress right now, and only a few days left to do it in.

Speculation seems to indicate that the way forward to reconcile them is likely to be some sort of automatic trigger to cut specific programs, if other cuts had not already been passed by then. The idea seems to be that this will encourage quick movement on entitlements and taxes. Which, I suppose if guaranteeing massive cuts to vital programs is your bag, then it's a great idea.

As we've discussed in this space before though, it's a terrible idea, especially now. With consumer spending still lagging badly, unemployment and poor job creation persisting, and a general lack of any way out of that crisis right now, slashing spending is an atrocious idea. It's especially bad if it targets programs like Social Security, or if it targets Pell Grants, unemployment benefits, or anything else that is generally geared towards the lower and middle classes.

Unfortunately for us, it seems almost inevitable that we are either going to hit the ceiling (and thus not be able to spend any money at all on a lot of programs), or cut essential services in order to strike a deal. Revenue, of course, was never really on the table. I get the feeling that some members of Congress don't know what revenue actually is, or if they do, they think it's something you magically get when you cut taxes. The Laffer Curve, of course, was always really a hypothetical; otherwise there would be a mathematical optimum tax rate that was actually known and we could just go with it. That such a rate appears to be unknown in voodoo economics circles underscores the uselessness of such theories.

What we're left with is a debate that is essentially insane. In order to prevent economic collapse, we are forced to choose from a series of plans that will at best entrench the recession further, and at worst...create an economic collapse. Ideological concerns have firmly trumped any sane sort of economic theory, perhaps even permanently. And we're all worse off for it.

So if you're angry about impending Social Security or Medicare cuts, if you're worried about whether you'll ever be able to get federal student loans again, if you're a veteran expecting your benefits to be given out and afraid that the government you fought for is going to renege on their agreement with you...there might not be a way to stop it. There could be a way to fix it again after the fact though. As soon as 2012, in fact, you could help prevent this kind of thing from happening again, and pave the way for it to be fixed after the fact.

If that appeals to you, then this is what we do: let's get every Republican thrown out of office when the time comes.

I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire: Part 1

2011-07-28T17:20:00.000-07:00

It is not uncommon to hear Americans complain about the United Nations (UN) and the participation of the U.S within it. These critics, very often, simply don’t get it. They don’t understand the reasons why the UN was created and what the goals of the institution are, and it is vital to understand those reasons in order to understand the United Nations.

The short answer is that the UN was created to ensure that humankind would never again have to endure a global conflict on a scale equal to WWII. Some may not care for that answer, but many of those are too young and far removed to understand why preventing that kind of conflict was such a priority after the war. What was so horrible about World War II?

This.

The unjustly murdered lie in mass graves at a Nazi concentration camp.

And this.

The Rape of Nanking.

And this.

The firebombing of Dresden.

This is what total war looks like.

Woman and children sit amongst the rubble of a destroyed home during the Battle of Britain.

This is what the leaders who created the United Nations were afraid of, and it defies rational explanation in words. In six years, the world lost about 60 million people to about 78 million people, equaling 3.17-4% of the total world population at that time. To give you an idea of what this would be like in today’s world, in numbers, it would be like eliminating all of Tokyo, all of Moscow, New York City, and Chicago. In percent of today’s population, wiping out 3.17-4% would mean 190,200,000-240,000,000 people or nearly ⅔ of the entire United States population. WWII destroyed entire cities, ripped families apart, and ravaged entire continents. It was out of this quite literal apocalyptic hell-scape that the need for a global forum to debate humanity’s problems arose.

And so, the world’s leaders had to find a way forward, in cooperation if not necessarily in harmony. They knew the stakes if they failed. And what they came up with is not perfect. And it is easy, given the institution’s various failures, to forget that the UN represents the ongoing fundamental human outreach towards international peace and cooperation. It is the embodiment of the need for a joint cooperative approach to solving universal problems surrounding commerce, communication, transportation, security and much, much more.

The United Nations remains the single world body with mechanisms specifically designed to address the social, economic, and psychological health of ALL human beings as well as address the physical health of the planet. Within the spirit of its charter, the UN is unique in that its agencies are geared towards all of human society and human endeavors. It is the primary, global vanguard of grappling with the complex geopolitical, social, economic, ecological, and security concerns surrounding the ever increasing number of global refugees. It is the only institution that has developed universal laws aimed at protecting the rights of the stateless in the event of the succession or dissolution of a country.

The process of building the UN is wholly pragmatic in nature because it is designed to mitigate practical and procedural objective tensions that are bound to arise from state-state interaction. The UN is far from perfect, but it creates an environment where nations of the world can engage one another in a peaceful substantive matter. It creates norms and customs for interaction between states. It promotes cooperation on issues of global concern. As Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary-General, said:

The UN is not in any respect a superstate, able to act outside of the framework of decisions by its member governments. It is an instrument for negotiation among, and to some extent for, governments. It is also an instrument for concerting actions by governments in support of the Charter. Thus the UN can serve, but not substitute itself for, the efforts of its member governments.

Over the next couple weeks, we here at The Liberal Mob will demonstrate exactly what the UN does on a number of issues. We will explain not just what it does, but how and why it works. Too much good comes out of the UN in order to let reactionary critics get away with outright untruth regarding what the UN is and does. And frankly, considering what prompted it to be created in the first place, it’s not unreasonable to say that human civilization’s continued existence throughout the Cold War and into the 21st Century is the greatest success of and testament to the monumental institution we call the United Nations.

Al-Qaeda 2.0

2011-07-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

Unlike most of the country, it was a fairly warm day in the state where I’m from on September 11, 2001. I was fourteen years old and about a month into my freshman year of high school. My grandfather’s 60^th birthday was approaching that October and we were planning to fly the whole family out to San Antonio, but my grandma is terrified of flying. I, being the aviation and space nerd that I am, had been trying to convince my grandma for weeks that flying is perfectly safe, even more so than driving, I had graphs and everything! I hated the sound and the incredibly rude awakening of traditional alarm clocks, so I had recently set my TV in my bedroom to wake me up at a certain time, and had it set to the Today Show because it was usually pretty upbeat.

Needless to say, when I woke up that morning there was nothing upbeat about the coverage. It was shortly after the first plane hit, and we still didn’t know quite what was going on. I was angry and cursed at the pilot for being dumb enough not to see the massive building in front of his plane, and proceeded to go take a shower. When I came back, the second plane had already hit, and I immediately felt like a dick for saying what I’d said before I got in the shower. I was worried about the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and other important areas being hit, and I felt helpless to stop any of it from happening. I saw the first tower come down right before I had to leave for the school bus, where I heard about the Pentagon & the second tower coming down over the radio. At this point, my fear of what else might happen turned to anger towards those who would do something like this, and I was ready to go punch a terrorist in the throat. I was mad that I was only 14 and couldn’t join the military and disgruntled with the response by adults everywhere telling me to just go about my business (how could I care about French tests & normal teenager things when people were trying to kill us?), so I joined my high school’s ROTC program, and on September 11, 2004 I finally took the oath of enlistment.

Since that fateful morning nearly ten years ago, we have been a nation at war. We swiftly identified the culprits of the attack, and sent our military to wipe them off the face of the Earth. It has taken close to ten years, and the lives of thousands, but we’re finally getting close to wiping out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. According to Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, “we’re within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda.” Al-Qaeda is an organisation that was largely designed around the charismatic personality and leadership style of Osama bin Laden, which is somewhat lacking as of late (perhaps because we killed him). In his place, now stands a man named Ayman al-Zawahiri. Those who have known Zawahiri have described him as arrogant, extreme, and even a jerk, and experts suggest that he will have a difficult time holding the fledgling organisation together if he cannot pull off another large-scale terrorist attack. Aside from his obvious personnel problem (that he’s not bin Laden), he must remain isolated, and can’t even use a courier system to communicate with his subordinates (because we caught his predecessor that way). Not to mention that many of the intelligence professionals who have spent the last ten years hunting for bin Laden are now hunting for him, and nearly killed him in an airstrike earlier this year.

It would seem then, that al-Qaeda is a thing of the past, but anyone who tells you that would either be lying or clearly misinformed. Al-Qaeda as we knew it on September 11, 2001 is effectively severely crippled, and could potentially be dismembered in its traditional sense in its main operating areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the near future if we hold our present course. However, in its place we will have an “al-Qaeda 2.0” so to speak. We already see al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Shabaab, the Pakistani Taliban, and others taking their place. We’ve cut off one head, and in its place, several smaller heads have sprung up. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that we are at war with an idea, and you cannot defeat an idea unless you can prove that it is no longer relevant or sustainable.

It is for this reason that our more recently adopted tactics of using surgical strikes in Yemen, as opposed to invading with 100,000 troops, and using the police, FBI, Justice Department, and Homeland Security to improve general security and prevent terrorist attacks are our best bet moving forward. These tactics will cost fewer lives and fewer dollars in the long run, and are less likely to propagate the conditions on the ground that cause people to want to become terrorists in the first place. It is still important that we finish what we started in Afghanistan through military action, diplomacy, and humanitarian aid, but it is highly unlikely that we will leave that nation with anything looking anything like a developing and sustainable future. However, more important than finishing our war in Afghanistan, we must remain committed to this less invasive approach at counter-terror operations.

Meanwhile...

2011-07-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

Is anyone paying attention to Syria anymore? I mean, I know that the debtpocalypse is approaching, and Libya is much more high-profile, but is anyone paying attention to Syria?

Because you should.

Syrian security forces have killed at least eight people in a raid on the town of Kanaker near the capital, Damascus, rights groups say.

The protests in Syria are a big deal. Syria's regime, under President Bashar al-Assad, is...well, let's just say that they're not exactly a stabilizing force in the region and leave it at that. Their link with groups such as Hezbollah is widely speculated, and numerous border issues and disputes with Israel remain. Internally, Syrian politics are somewhat Byzantine, and even though things might be "better" under al-Assad than previous generations, political dissidents and opponents are still routinely harassed and imprisoned by agents of the state. No "free-speech zones" here; just no free speech period.

That's what is happening now, of course. Like many groups in the region, the people of Syria have pretty much had enough of both the political and economic status quo. Like Libya and Iran, and unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Syria has used significant force against the protestors, who have numerous demands including democratization, legal reform, media freedom, and the end of al-Assad's reign. Like in for example Yemen, al-Assad has promised minor reforms, but nothing serious.

In the meantime, such as in the case of the raid at Kanaker mentioned above, the state continues to use serious force against the protestors. The opponents of the regime in turn seem to show no signs of giving up anytime soon. This is with good reason, since as many as 1,400 protestors may have been killed since the protests began in March. There is a feeling that too much has already been given up, and that the regime's ability to continue its oppression is breaking down.

The difficulties here for the United States are numerous. One, no matter what the result of the protests, there could be very significant effects on Syria's relations with Turkey and Israel, both U.S. allies. A victorious al-Assad may be emboldened; a newly democratic Syria could go either way. No one can really be sure. Secondly, the United States has much less leverage on Syria than it did with, for example, Yemen or Egypt. Bashar al-Assad has not been our greatest friend, nor we his, owing mostly to issues surrounding Syria's relationship with Israel.

There are also fears - amongst allies such as Turkey specifically - that the fall of al-Assad's regime could result in Syria fracturing amongst factional and sectarian lines. This of course would destabilize things significantly, placing an additional security burden on Israel and Turkey specifically. Things are already unstable enough in the region without an additional powder keg, after all. I mean, what could possibly go wrong if Syria fell apart? Surely nothing bad could come of that...

To date, the United States has shown some vague, tacit support for the goals of the protestors, but could and should do more. Intervention is a non-starter, of course, but the United States needs to seriously establish credibility with the leaders and general population of the anti-Assad movement. If the protests gain more traction, we should attempt to induce Assad to leave peacefully. If and when he is gone, we should then offer our full support to help Syria develop a new system and government for itself. Doing this is vital to ensuring that a post-Assad Syria does not fall apart. And given what it would mean if it did fall apart, this should be one of our primary priorities now.

14th Amendment Remedy?

2011-07-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

There are only six days to go until the United States government (voluntarily) defaults on its debt obligations. As this deadline grows nearer it seems that a bi-partisan solution to solve this self induced crisis is no closer than it was a week or two ago. Washington D.C. still finds itself at an impasse despite weeks of budget talks led by Vice President Biden, negotiations between Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and President Obama, the McConnell Plan, the Gang of Six bipartisan Senate plan, the House Republican Cut, Cap, and Balance Bill, the new Boehner plan, and the Reid plan.

Even with all of the different plans to not voluntarily destroy the economy floating around we still have no concrete solution. So why aren't more of us asking ourselves why we're even putting ourselves this? Why now, for the first time in U.S. history, are budget negotiations being tied to the debt ceiling? The Congress should just do an up or down vote on raising the debt ceiling with no attached provisions (as it has done about 40 times since I was born in 1982). This is the best option at this point since it does not seem likely that any of the proposed plans will pass at this point. Let us briefly re-visit all of the masterful plans that have been crafted to avoid the self induced crisis.

Option one: The Biden talks that ultimately led to the deal that President Obama and Speaker Boehner were reportedly close to reaching is obviously a "no-go" at this point. Unfortunately, it looks like we are well beyond the point where any Republicans (House or Senate) will endorse a plan that the White House has a hand in crafting. This looked like a viable option for a number of weeks until it became clear that too many Republicans would not support the plan, causing Boehner to walk away. It revealed some cracks in the republican House leadership that made this plan too toxic for house republicans to support. This is more unfortunate for Republicans than the President because they were being offered the chance to make the biggest cuts to entitlements ever. A deal that the Republicans of just a decade ago could have only dreamed about. This plan was also not very amiable to Democrat leaders who insisted the cuts to entitlements and social programs were too steep.

Option two: The McConnell plan will not pass either. First, it failed to get enough momentum from fellow Republicans (especially, you guessed it House Republicans) because it gives the President the ability to raise the debt ceiling on his own. Second, It was rejected by the White House because it raises the debt ceiling in three stages between now and next summer, something the President said he will not accept under any circumstances.

Option three: The so-called "Gang of Six" plan out of the Senate. The president initially endorsed that plan at the risk of losing a lot of support from his own party, once again due to the massive cuts it makes to Social Security and Medicare, to the extent that some Progressives are calling for a primary challenger for Obama in 2012. The "Gang of Six" plan also looks like it cannot pass the Republican controlled House because it has provisions to raise revenues. Even though the President seemed willing to go farther with spending cuts than most democrats approve of, there are still Republicans who will not support any plan that raises any additional revenues at all. So it looks like this one is dead too.

Option four: Cut Cap and Balance out of the House of Representatives. This plan has no chance of passing the U.S. Senate and no chance of being signed by the President. So this one is out too.

Option five: The "New Boehner Plan". It remains to be seen, but this one looks like it might be dead on arrival. After three days, it is still unclear whether or not it even has enough Republican Support to pass out of the House of Representatives. Speaker Boehner is faced with a couple of quandaries here. First, it cuts about three times less than the plan he was originally working on with the President, and it cuts less than the Reid plan being worked on in the Senate right now (check out this explanation by Ezra Klein on how the Congressional Budget Office scored them). Second, Boehner may only be able to pass his plan with majority Democrat support both the House and Senate. A move that would further expose the cracks in Republican Party unity. Mr. Boehner may already be past that point as some Tea Party leaders are already calling for him to step down as Speaker.

Option Six: The Reid Plan. This one got a better score form the CBO than did Boehner's plan. It doesn't touch entitlements which has the White House and Democrats at ease with it, but but relies on reduced war spending to cut expenditures. It appears however that it would still be dead on arrival in the House because it has revenues increases.

So where does that leave us? How is the Congress gong to get a plan to the President's desk before next Tuesday? It is easy to be skeptical that it is even still possible at this point (I do not think it is). This has led to House Democrats and even President Clinton to call for Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment and simply raise the debt ceiling on his own if Congress fails to do so in time. I still hope the Congress will do its job and raise the debt ceiling (with or without provisions). In the meantime, the clock is ticking....T-minus Six days and counting.....

Why I Talk About Politics All The Time

2011-07-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

It is no secret to those who know me personally that I am a political junkie. When people see me, they will literally walk to other direction in fear that If they don’t, I will start talking to them about the debt ceiling or corporate influence on campaign finance or some other infernal thing that I‘d recently made me “cause of the week”. (Im that guy). This is not something that I am embarrassed or ashamed about. It may not be normal. It may not even be healthy. But there are so many complex issues facing our nation (and our planet) that it is literally impossible for me not to spend most of my waking hours thinking about them or studying them. As a matter of fact, I am completely baffled that most people do not spend as much time worrying about, studying and thinking about these problems too.

Most people that I know look at me like I have five heads when I ask them their opinion on campaign finance laws, or consumer protection, or reformation of the criminal justice system, etc. Certainly there are a lot of people who care as much or more about political issues than I do, and quite frankly many of them are doing a lot more about than I ever have. But why is it less acceptable for me to talk about politics all the time than it is for most people to never talk about politics at all (or even think about it for that matter)? This is a question that haunts me and it probably always will. I mean, wasn’t that the whole point of our revolution? Is that not what supposedly sets us apart from the “uncivilized” world? The fact that we can say and do and be whatever we want or petition our government for grievances when we see fit? If this is a government by and for the people, than where the hell are all of the people?

I am often critical of America. I routinely criticize our government, our justice system, our military actions, our economic system, our political system, etc. You name it and, chances are, I have at least a little bit of a problem with it could probably go on a ten minute rant about it if you allow me to. But why is that “abnormal”? Why doesn’t everyone want to do that? I hear a lot of people (especially these last couple of years) complaining about “greedy politicians” that only care about getting re-elected and “special interests” that only care about making money. But what do people expect? Government does not exist to hold itself accountable. That is what the citizenry is supposed to do. And we don’t. And only an informed citizenry can do it properly. And we’re not. Not only do I see a citizenry that is seemingly unwilling to hold government accountable, we are unwilling to take the time to hold ourselves accountable for holding up our end of the bargain. I would submit to anyone reading this: If you do not know your Congressman/Congresswoman or Senators' voting records than you have absolutely no right to complain about their job performance. If you do not know how much money we spend (or don’t spend) on healthcare, the military, entitlements, tax subsidies, education, environmental protection, or anything else that our government spends money on you do not have the right to complain about our budget. We live in a corrupt imperfect society with corrupt imperfect people in it. Yet somehow the vast majority of people in our country seem to think it is possible to not pay attention to what government does and somehow not get screwed over by the results. This is absolute lunacy! Our democracy is about more than voting it is about participation and accountability. I realize we live in a fast paced world, but I am unwilling to accept that each and every person cannot find one hour a week to look at the political system and figure out what is actually going on. If we do not force our government to work for us it never will. Don’t get me wrong, I get why people don’t pay attention. I realize that many of us have become angry, frustrated and disillusioned by the constant fighting in Washington. We are sickened by the knowledge that our government is beholden to special interests. We wretch at the thought that our votes won’t matter because all of the people we elect are indebted to lobbyists and corporations who paid for their campaigns. These things are devastating to us. And yet, almost each and every one of us colludes with these things that we despise through our apathy. We are failing ourselves as a country not because of who is in Washington D.C. or who is in the White House, or what lobbyist is paying off what politician. We are failing ourselves because we are not upholding our end of the contract.

We live in the world’s last remaining super power. We may not always hold that distinction. But, for now, we do. And with this position comes not only privilege but responsibility and obligation. The very way that we live our lives, the way we choose to consume or preserve resources, the way we vote, the way we protest, the pressure we bring to bear on our government, all have a powerful impact far beyond the borders of our great nation. We must not continue to suffer millions of our own people to be poorly educated, poorly cared for, corrupted from childhood, and doomed to apathy mediocrity. If we do, how can America continue to live up to its historic burden and responsibility of being a voice for the world’s voiceless? How can we inspire others to demand freedom if we are no longer able or willing to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves? I for one am unwilling to simply stand by while the legacy of my forbearers is not lived up to and honored. How easily it seems we have forgotten how many times our nation has been confronted with evil, and hardship and pain. How sad that we have forgotten that each time she has risen to become stronger than before. That is the collective American Dream. That dream slipping away has nothing to do with jobs, or economics, or banks, or political footballs, or elections or any of the other things that most of us have trained ourselves to ignore for fear of losing our minds if we do not. We do not need guns or assassinations or revolutions to reclaim the American dream from our dysfunctional government. We have the power of our hearts and our imaginations within us. And history tells us that this is all we need. This is the legacy that has been passed to us that can never be taken away by a Wall Street bank or a political party. Our ancestors proved to us that we are capable of anything that we put our minds to. We do them, ourselves, and the entire family of humankind a dis-service be refusing to live up to that legacy. I intend to use every fiber of my being to live up to it because that is what makes me an American, not a Pledge of Allegiance, not Mc Donald’s, or Google or the Space Shuttle. Our shared history, our depth of heart, and the enduring will to better ourselves through collective action and fortitude is what defines us. This are the inheritance that we were all given. So yeah, I do know that I annoy people when I talk to them about politics. But I will never stop. I feel like it is part of my duty as an American to do so. So, if you are reading this I implore you to ask yourself if you are living up to your part of our shared duty as Americans. And more importantly, what are you doing to encourage others to live up to theirs?

Twenty-Five Reasons Why I’m Not in the Tea Party

2011-07-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

1. I enjoy roads.

2. I know how to read and write because a public school taught me.

3. I can spell.

4. I want the government to inspect my food so it doesn’t kill me, make me sick, or turn me into a zombie.

5. When I’m old, I’d like to be able to afford to go to the doctor, and I want other elderly people to be able to do the same.

6. Because some day I’d like to be able to see Yellowstone National Park without it being covered by parking lots.

7. I have an adequate grasp of history, also thanks to public schools.

8. For an anti-taxation group, they don’t know anything about taxes.

9. Because I understand, like FDR did, that taxes are the dues that you pay to live in an actual civilised society.

10. I think it’s a good thing that corporations can’t force us to work an arbitrarily large number of hours.

11. I enjoy working in a place where I know that machines aren’t going to be randomly collapsing all around me.

12. I like when the government does things.

13. I don’t think that Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are smart.

14. I’m not a witch.

15. Because if I wanted to be a witch, I could since I’m not in the Tea Party.

16. I’m aware of diplomacy.

17. I’m also aware that the United States can’t do everything alone.

18. Because Blackwater USA already showed us what a private military would look like.

19. Because zombie apocalypses don’t stop themselves. The CDC stops them.

20. I’m writing this post on the Internet, and I understand how that came about.

21. Since I understand history because I went to a public school, as stated above, I also understand what the United States would look like without the Post Office (see the Postman). Hint: there probably wouldn’t be one; a United States, that is.

22. I like that there are air traffic controllers in airport towers.

23. Because, would you really trust a corporation in place of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association?

24. I believe that tea bagging is supposed to be consensual.

25. Because I write for a blog titled, “The Liberal Mob.”

Lost Transcript of Rep. Boehner's Actual Speech

2011-07-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

Good evening. I’m John Boehner, and you may remember me as the most orange man in America. I serve as Speaker of the whole House – of the members of both parties that you elect – but I try to pretend the Democratic members don’t exist. These are difficult times in the life of our nation, which is at least half the fault of my inability to deal with the raving psychos that inhabit my party.

Before I served in Congress, I ran a small business in Ohio, and my bringing this up only shows I don’t understand macroeconomics. I was amazed at how different Washington DC operated than every business in America, possibly because I didn’t understand an institution that wasn’t actually a business and wasn’t only for the benefit of the people that run it. Where most American businesses routinely borrow money on a regular basis, well I’m just going to ignore that fact and pretend that when the Government does so it is somehow wrong.

I’ve got news for Washington – the days of being allowed to actually have an economy are over.

President Obama came to Congress and requested business as usual – yet another routine increase in the debt limit – we in the House said, “not so fast.” Probably because we are insane. Here was the President, asking for the largest debt increase in American history, on the heels of the largest spending binge in American history. Of course, I’m going to ignore the fact that the President wasn’t really responsible for that part because I’m really only looking to score points here.

Here’s what we got for that spending binge: a massive health care bill that most Americans wanted but I’m going to say they never asked for. A stimulus bill that prevented an even worse recession, but that I am going to make fun of while staring at the ceiling. And a national debt that was massively out of control before the current Administration took office, but that I am going to blame the President for because otherwise I might have to hold a member of my own party responsible for something.

The United States cannot default on its debt obligations. The jobs and savings of too many Americans are at stake. That is why the ability of the United States to repay its debts is the perfect thing to go all Dennis Hopper on and hold hostage.

What we told the President in January was this: the American people will not accept an increase in the debt limit without significant spending cuts and reforms. Of course, the only way this sentence actually makes any sense whatsoever is if I further explain that “the American People” is my name for my penis. And over the last six months, we’ve done our best to convince the president to partner with us to do something dramatic to change the fiscal trajectory of our country…something that will redirect money away from those poor people and into the pockets of the people who paid for my re-election.

Last week, the House passed such a plan, and with bipartisan support. It’s called the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. It CUTS and CAPS government spending, ensuring that the recession will be even more entrenched for the least fortunate among us, and paves the way for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, which will prevent the government from ever doing things again. Before we even passed the bill in the House, the President promised he would veto it, proving he actually cares about doing his job more than I do.

I want you to know I made a sincere effort to look like I made a sincere effort to work with the President without ever actually working with him. I maybe even sobbed a little on camera. I made a sincere effort to bring pure, distilled, undiluted crazy to the masses. I gave it my all.

Unfortunately, the President would not take yes for an answer. See how clever I was just there, turning around a Democratic talking point? Look at me! Even when we thought we might be close on an agreement, Eric Cantor’s demands changed and I blamed it on the President. The President has often said we need a balanced approach, which I am obligated to oppose because I think Grover Norquist might castrate me if I imply that revenue is a thing the government can collect.

The President is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. Now is the time in the speech where my staff advised me to pretend to actually be human, so I will say: As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won’t be there for them and their kids unless significant action is taken now. The sad truth is that my party doesn’t want to compromise on anything ever, and we don’t even want those entitlement programs anyway, but I am going to say the problem is that the President wants a blank check even when he’s offering as much as $3 trillion in spending cuts.

You see, there is no stalemate in Congress – depending on what your definition of stalemate is. The House has passed a bill to raise the debt limit with bipartisan support, and I am counting on you to not understand civics in the hope that you will think one house of Congress doing a thing makes it legitimate. And this week, while the Senate is struggling to pass a bill that wasn’t conceived at the Mountains of Madness, we will pass another bill – because passing more bills obviously makes the idea better!

Obviously, I expect that bill can and will pass the Senate, and be sent to the President for his signature, because my magic 8-ball told me so. If the President signs it, the ‘crisis’ atmosphere that we created but that I am going to blame him for will simply disappear – along with our status as a first-world power. And along with our economy. The debt limit will be raised. Spending will be cut by more than one trillion dollars, and a serious, bipartisan committee of the Congress will blah blah blah I said bipartisan and committee and you guys aren’t even listening anymore. The individuals doing this work will not be outsiders, but elected representatives of the people, doing the job they were elected to as outlined in the Constitution, which I am only mentioning because I was told by Antonin Scalia that “Constitution” is a real magic spell of some sort.

This debate isn’t about President Obama and House Republicans…well, it is, because he isn’t a Republican, but I can’t admit that on national TV, can I? It isn’t about Congress and the White House…it’s about what’s standing between billionaires and their God-given right to 0.1% more profit.

You know, I’ve always believed, the bigger the government, the smaller the people. I’ve also always believed in useless platitudes. And right now, we have a government so big and so expensive it’s doing some nebulous bad things that actually have nothing to do with the size of government but I am going to scare you with. The solution to this crisis is not complicated; my party needs to learn macroeconomics, and possibly get some psychiatric evaluations for our members. There is no symptom of our government more menacing than our debt. Or possibly my tan. Break its grip, and we begin to liberate our economy and our future. I’m not sure if I’m talking about the government or myself and my tan there, and neither are you.

We are up to the task, and I hope President Obama will join us in this work. And Eric Cantor too, that might help.

God bless you and your families, and God Bless America. (Because we’re really going to need His help if I have my way.)

Live Together, or Die Alone

2011-07-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson said, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” While this may have been the case when Mr. Jefferson originally spoke these words, it is no longer the case that those are our only two options. Perhaps a more modern way of looking at it is that our government is the people, & it's time to stop being afraid of each other. The partisan divide has grown so wide in the United States that it’s easy to forget that we’re all supposed to be on the same team, and all supposed to be working together. I would even go so far as to say that the reason that our economic recovery has been so unbearably sluggish isn’t the failure of one policy initiative or another, it’s the failure of us to come together to fix the problem. The American people are too busy trying to secure their own advantage by any means necessary to even notice that doing so is only dragging them even further down.

The clearest example of our national division can be seen in our political discourse and our news media (especially recently in our debate about the debt limit), but it can be felt unmistakably across the entire nation. With sitting senators stating on the record that their most important political goal is to make sure that President Obama is a one-term president, and with talking heads in the news media denying blatantly factual information for their own profit, despite the looming and completely preventable economic disaster, an outside observer might hypothesize that we are a nation bent on self destruction. Our political leaders and pundits need to get it out of their heads that "we need to take our country back," because I’ve got news for them it didn't go anywhere. America is right here where she's always been. The only difference is that we, the American people, turned into greedy, narcissistic, vain, materialistic, junkies, & America's standing out in the rain, waiting for us to come back, singing, "Love Me as Though There Was No Tomorrow." Blaming our problems on the government is a convenient scapegoat and a crutch, and denies the true premise of our predicament, that the real problem is us.

I recently had a self proclaimed Christian Conservative tell me that he didn't like the concept of Medicare for all and unemployment insurance because some people are just lazy. He worked hard for his money, and he didn't want the government spending it for him. I'm not religious in any sense of the word, but I don't recall Jesus saying that only some people deserve to be helped. I also seem to remember the Constitution starting with, "We the people..." not, "Myself and my wallet..." It seems that we lack something to bring us together, a force of unification to give us a shared and uniquely American experience. We must find something to thread us all together because we're all we've got, and we can either live together or we'll die alone.

If we look back through our nations's history, we see multitudes of examples of Americans coming together. The one that stands out the most to me is WWII. The greatest generation became so great because they all sacrificed something for each other and for their common goal. Even if they couldn't fight in the war personally, they built planes and tanks, bought war bonds, dealt with rationing, & endured curfews and blackouts along the coasts. Our generation sends a tiny percentage of our populace to fight for us in far away lands while we sit at home and stuff our fat faces with processed crap. We complain about insignificant trivialities while watching mind melting and brain numbing rubbish like Dancing With the Stars, Jersey Shore, & Keeping up With the Kardashians. We hide behind "blissful ignorance" hoping that we won't notice our own cowardice and actually have to do something to make our nation and our world a better place. All the while, those crooked politicians that we all despise in Washington D.C. and our state and local governments bank on our ignorance and apathy. They plan strategies around it to see how much they can get away with without us noticing, and they feed their talking points to us through news media that no longer investigates the truth of their claims. We need to ask ourselves, "What good is a fancy car when there isn’t enough gas and the highways and bridges are decaying? What good is a new game console when the electrical grid can't handle the demand?" The problem is us, those of us who do nothing. It's time for us to wake up and do something because it is far better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. Ask yourself if you've made a difference in the world, and ask yourself if your life is about something. If the answer is, "no," then ask yourself why not?

Hysteria

2011-07-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Now that there is some time and space between the present and the recent Oslo attacks, it's worth revisiting some things and trying to figure out what we can learn. Why did Anders Breivik do what he did? What are the ramifications? I think it's important to start out by saying that this was without a doubt an act of terrorism, of course. But what does that mean, in this case?

We know now that Breivik's motives were totally political. As explained in court, Breivik believed that the "Labour Party has failed the country and the people and the price of their treason is what they had to pay." The site of the attacks at Utoya was chosen, then, because there was an annual retreat for young people involved with the Labour party there. Just as we have things like the Young Democrats or the College Republicans here, the Labour party had that retreat. So there isn't anything weird about that, no matter what Glenn Beck says. Not that anyone really wanted his opinion anyway.

Many current and former Labour officials - including current Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg - have attended the camp in the past. So it was an attack at the future of the Labour Party. But it was also a strike at Norway's liberal, open, and multicultural values in many ways. There are others in Norway like Breivik, although they are few; but the far right extremist and Neo-Nazi movements have existed there for some time. Breivik differs not in ideology from these individuals, but that he actually went ahead and did something like this instead of hiding behind a computer screen and saying how he wished someone would.

So it's fairly plain what Breivik was: a killer motivated by political concerns. That makes him a terrorist - that's what the word means, if it has any meaning at all. I know it might come as a surprise to some people in the United States that white, Christian people can be terrorists, but it's true! In fact there have been a lot of them, even organized, both here and abroad (like the early KKK, or the IRA). But since we think of these people as "like" the majority here in some way, we tend to have a hard time using the same word for them.

And of course that is what is happening, as detailed here by Adam Serwer at the Post; and it is particularly amusing considering how many of the pundits and writers so intent on demonizing Muslims are equally quick to reduce Breivik's actions to those of a lone madman. Money quote:

These bloggers are not directly responsible for the actions of Anders Behring Breivik. But make no mistake: Their school of analysis, which puts the blame on all Muslims for acts of terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremists, has been fully discredited — by their own reaction to the Oslo attacks. While it’s obvious that few if any of them will take this lesson to heart, the rest of us should — terrorist acts are committed by individuals, and it is those individuals who should be held responsible.

Of course, I suppose I can't blame them. Here's Think Progress with a nice summary of some of Breivik's influences. Hm, I can't imagine why someone like Pamela Geller might not want to be linked to someone considered a terrorist? Can someone help me out here?

No one can be held directly responsible for this except for Anders Breivik. That's clear. But we should realize that ideas and ideologies can have an effect on people. That should also be clear. Breivik didn't suddenly derive his twisted world view from nowhere. And as long as people traffic in hate, xenophobia and hysteria, these kinds of things will continue to happen.

25 Reasons Why I Call Myself a Liberal

2011-07-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

It is possible to debate quite extensively exactly what the definition of liberal is. This is because of the long history of definitions of the word as well as the many different uses for the word today. There is a rather “interesting” definition of liberal on Conservapedia.com that some of you may find entertaining/offensive (especially when you compare it to Conservapedia’s definition of conservative). But rather than get bogged down in semantics about what Liberal means, I have decided to prepare a list of what Liberal means to me and why I call myself one.

1. I think progress for people is more important than profit for businesses.

2. I think DDT is worse than bugs.

3. All policy and law within the United States should be based solely on the Constitution of the United States and nothing else. Although personal and religious beliefs should never be restricted, they should have no bearing on public policy that affects everyone.

4. I like Nancy Pelosi more than Michelle Bachmann.

5. I do not think that corporations should be extended individual rights and liberties while not being subject to the same criminal liabilities as individuals.

6. I think Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission is one of the most monumental failures in Supreme Court History.

7. Capitalism without any regulation leads to corruption, extreme wealth disparity, and increases the prevalence of poverty.

8. Mitt Romney’s passage of universal healthcare in Massachusetts was, in my view, a good thing not a bad thing.

9. I am open-minded enough to realize that someone who disagrees with me ideologically or spiritually is not my enemy and is not trying to destroy the country.

10. I went from saying global warming to saying climate change and later went from saying climate change to global climate destabilization.

11. I think that Exxon Mobil is more extreme than the Sierra Club.

12. I think that the war on drugs is a failed policy that is designed to misappropriate enormous amounts of tax dollars and unfairly target and imprison certain social groups by manipulating the criminal justice system.

13. Preventing industrial pollution and systematic poisoning of our biosphere is vital to the future health and well being of humankind.

14. I say humankind instead of mankind.

15. I do not think it is unpatriotic to use the metric system.

16. It is possible and practical to provide access to world-class education and quality healthcare to everyone.

17. It is my firm belief that the United States is suffering from a very un-American form of wealth redistribution. And it is going from the bottom to the top.

18. While the idea of abortions are deeply disturbing to me, they are a little bit less disturbing than the government telling me or anyone else what they can or cannot do with their body.

19. I don’t call super wealthy individuals and corporations “job creators” unless they actually create jobs.

20. I think that a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman would be literally legislating discrimination and bigotry into the constitution.

21. I don’t think I could ever learn more from Glenn Back and his chalkboard than I did from Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo when I was a child.

22. I actually think the big scary government should do things, namely govern.

23. I think that showing naked people on prime-time television would be far less offensive and damaging to society than showing people being murdered and committing violence on primetime television is.

24. I do not seek spiritual guidance or opinions from my elected officials. Nor do I care what their religious beliefs are, as long as they follow the rule of law (the Constitution).

25. I think that civil rights legislation, the end of slavery, the end of segregation, woman’s right to vote, Medicare, environmental activism, and anti-poverty programs are good things.

Have a great week everyone! Keep the comments coming!

Scott