Is It Over For Grover?

In a front page story Tuesday titled For Tax Pledge and Its Author, a Test of Time, the NY Times meditates on the prospects of Grover “Poopy Head” Grover following the decisive defeat of the GOP in the 2012 presidential elections.

The article begins thusly:

Next to the oath of office, it has been perhaps the most important commitment that Republicans in Congress can make. It is called simply “the Pledge,” and its enforcer is such a fixture in the party that he is known simply by his first name, Grover.

But the pledge and its creator, Grover Norquist, a 56-year-old conservative lobbyist, have never before faced a test as they do now. The federal deficit stands at $1 trillion. The social safety net continues to grow — and, in the case of Medicare and Social Security, remains hugely popular. And unless the two parties can agree on a fiscal plan before Jan. 1, hundreds of billions of dollars of tax increases will go into effect automatically, meaning that Congress does not even need to act for taxes to rise.

The combination means that Mr. Norquist, whose long record of success is a rarity in Washington, finds himself in a tricky spot. Some top Republicans, including Speaker John A. Boehner, are saying they now agree with Democrats that the government must collect more tax revenue. Others have gone so far as to break with Mr. Norquist publicly.

By Mr. Norquist’s count, 219 House members — enough for a majority — and 39 senators have committed to the pledge. But some of those members who signed on, many of them years ago, have started to back away, apparently leaving him several votes shy of the majority he would need to block any tax increase.

The last broad-based tax increase the Rethugs supported was 22 years ago, signed into law by George H.W. Bush.  So it may be a bit early to write his political epitaph.

For instance, mid-term elections like the one coming up in 2014 historically favor the losers of the previous presidential election. And Citizens United will continue to pump ungodly amounts of money into GOP campaigns. Presumably, the 43 billionaires who supported Mitt Romney will know better than to naively dump all their money on political hucksters like Karl Rove and Dick Armey.

Nonetheless, exit polls from Nov. 6 show a growing majority of voters supporting tax increases on the rich to help bring the deficit under control and to preserve vital safety net programs for the poor and middle class. While I don’t believe I’ve ever before quoted John McCain clone Lindsey Graham favorably, he did state the obvious when he told the Washington Post:

“The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

Hear that, Poopy Head?

The Next Plateau

IT IS AS IF you climbed with difficulty and reached a plateau where you could rest and consolidate your gains for awhile and gather strength through an inner, eternal voice. You go on and up with so much less dross until you reach another plateau;  you arrive a little weary, but with the most wondrous sense that you are stronger;  …

The Austerity Bomb

Citizens of Milan react to austerity measures enforced by the EU and IMF 

In his NY Times blog Wednesday, Paul Krugman suggests replacing the misleading moniker “fiscal cliff” used to describe the US government’s fiscal situation, with the more accurate term “austerity bomb”:

Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo seems to have been the first to use the phrase “austerity bomb” for what’s scheduled to happen at the end of the year. It’s a much better term than “fiscal cliff”. The cliff stuff makes people imagine that it’s a problem of excessive deficits when it’s actually about the risk that the deficit will be too small; also and relatedly, the fiscal cliff stuff enables a bait and switch in which people say “so, this means that we need to enact Bowles-Simpson and raise the retirement age!” which have nothing at all to do with it.

And it can’t be emphasized enough that everyone who shrieks about the dangers of the austerity bomb is in effect acknowledging that the Keynesians were right all along, that slashing spending and raising taxes on ordinary workers is destructive in a depressed economy, and that we should actually be doing the opposite.

Meanwhile, in Europe, which has had much more austerity in aggregate than we have, grim new industrial production numbers and a worsening unemployment crisis…

About Europe. Z Communications provides a roundup of this week’s mass protests:

Europe’s Mediterranean rim trembled on Wednesday as violent clashes broke out following the largest coordinated multinational strike in Europe ever. In the hope to stave off decades of austerity, precarity and unemployment, European labor unions united for the first time since the start of the European debt crisis to organize strikes and protests in a total of 23 EU member states, with millions of workers walking off their jobs and marching on parliament buildings across the continent. Bloody street battles ensued across Spain, Portugal and Italy.

In Italy, over 300,000 protested in over 100 cities as workers observed a 4-hour stoppage in solidarity with Greek, Spanish and Portuguese workers. In Milan and Rome, scenes of street “guerriglia” were witnessed as thousands of students clashed with riot police, bringing traffic to a standstill and leading to dozens of injuries. In Sardinia, industry minister Corrado Passera and Fabrizio Barca, minister of territorial cohesion, had to be evacuated by helicopter after angry protesters besieged a meeting and started burning cars all around them.

In Naples and Brescia, thousands of students occupied railway tracks; in Genoa, the entrance to the ferry port was blocked; in Florence, Venice, Trieste and Palermo, banks were smeared with eggs and banners unfurled from monuments; in Padua clashes broke out between students and police; in Bologna 10.000 students took to the streets and attempted to march straight through a line of riot police; and in Pisa protesters occupied the leaning tower, unfurling a banner that read “Rise Up! We are not paying for your Euro crisis!”

Deficit hawks in the US, including the Bowles-Simpson Catfood Commission and former investment bank manager Pete Peterson‘s Peter G. Peterson Foundation (Peterson’s personal worth is estimated at $3 billion), will be in for a rude awakening if they succeed in enforcing an austerity regime on US citizens (who, unlike their European counterparts,  are armed to the teeth and remember  Network‘s Howard Beale.) Besides being unnecessarily cruel in its effects on the poor and middle class, it also make zero economic sense in the short and medium run, as Krugman never tires of explaining. Something to keep in mind every time your hear self-dealing fiscal scolds piss and moan about the debt that they created but want others to pay for.

Z Com concludes:

And so Southern Europe continues to tremble on its very foundations. As smoke rises from the streets of Madrid, Lisbon, Rome and Athens, one thing is becoming ever more clear: the question is no longer if but when the social explosion will hit. The outrage is building up, and with unemployment rising, austerity deepening, and a generation of Europeans increasingly disillusioned by state intransigence and outraged by police violence, such an outburst of popular rebellion seems ever more inevitable. All it will take is a spark.

Coming to a continent near you.

McCain Displays Advanced Obama Derangement Syndrome

McCain’s revenge.

Mitt Romney’s Fevered Dreams: #3

A Romney Adviser Flippantly Characterized Romney As “Shell Shocked” After His Historic Loss

Obama’s Rape Camps


Fux News continues to provide a platform for Teh Crazy

Less than three days following the GOP’s thrashing at the polls, Obama Derangement Syndrome is reaching new heights, signaling a psychotic break among reality denying Wingnuts.  Of all the lame excuses for their loss, this one takes the prize— thus far.

Buzzfeed reports:

Michael Graham, a radio host appearing on Fox News today said the Obama campaign wanted to convince voters if you were a female and vote for Romney you would be put in “rape camps.”

The only thing crazier than that would be for Karl Rove to claim the reason Romney lost was because Obama suppressed the vote.

Oh, wait—

Karl Rove explained his view of why President Obama won, on Fox News, via Dylan Byers:

Rove argued that Obama won with a smaller popular vote and a smaller margin of victory than in the 2008 election against Sen. John McCain. Instead of expanding voters, Rove argued, Obama “suppressed the vote” by demonizing former Gov. Mitt Romney and encouraging people not to vote.

“President Obama has become the first president in history to win a second term with a smaller percentage of the vote than he did in the first term,” Rove said.

“But he won Karl, he won!” Fox News host Megyn Kelly interjected…

Sorry, Megyn, Karl is irretrievably trapped in his own personal Phantom Zone of self-delusion. He’s so used to demonizing his opponents and stealing elections that the shock of suddenly being thrust into the reality based community he scorned has left him with nothing but soulless projection.

Big FAIL.

But life will become a burden of existence unless you learn how to fail gracefully. There is an art in defeat which noble souls always acquire; you must know how to lose cheerfully; you must be less of disappointment. Never hesitate to admit failure. Make no attempt to hide failure under deceptive smiles and beaming optimism. It sounds well always to claim success, but the end results are appalling. Such a technique leads directly to the creation of a world of unreality and to the inevitable crash of ultimate disillusionment. 

—The Urantia Book