Fact-esque

Everything’s Coming Up Roses!

From the Desk of Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s Big Chief in Charge of Bragging, Boasting, & Corporate Victimization:

Hey, kids! Well, our policies may be hurting the country and 99% of the people in it but we’re doing GREAT!!!

We made $5.3bn in earnings for common shareholders, a widely used measurement, from July through September, up 36% from the same period a year ago.

Earnings for common shareholders includes expenses for making payments to preferred shareholders. Without those expenses, net income would have been even higher, at $5.7bn.

Either way, we blew away analysts’ expectations. Earnings were $1.40 per share, far exceeding the $1.21 predicted by analysts polled by FactSet, a provider of financial data.

Revenue rose 6% to $25.1bn, beating expectations of $24.4bn. Earnings were helped because the bank set aside less money for bad loans. It set aside $1.8bn for potential loan losses, down 26% from $2.4bn a year ago.

In other words, using our employees in Congress, we have shifted much of the burden of our debt onto the country itself, so much of it in fact that we can now claim huge profits despite losing all those $tens of millions$ through bad judgment and outright greed.

This proves we were right all along and that my heavy investments in our legislative department were worth taking.

OK, so people hate us. Who cares? We’re rich.

Now, we’re still seeing a high level of souring mortgage loans and expect high default-related expenses for a while longer. And OK, homeowners are still struggling under mortgages they can’t afford. We’re making money and that’s the bottom line.

So chin up and down the hatch! We’re right on target.

Jamie

Mo-Do Dodo

You know that it’s all unraveling when even Maureen Dowd is figuring out that the Democrats are just Republicans with less money.

W.’s administration played up Al Qaeda ties, exploiting 9/11 to invade Iraq, which the neocons had wanted to do all along. The Obama administration sidestepped Al Qaeda ties in the case of the Libyan attack to perpetuate the narrative that the president had decimated Al Qaeda when Osama bin Laden was killed, and to preclude allegations that they were asleep at the switch on the anniversary of 9/11. Better to blame it all on a spontaneous protest to an anti-Islam video on YouTube.

It’s remarkable that President Obama, who came to power abhorring the manipulative and duplicitous tactics of the Bush crowd, should now be vulnerable to similar charges.

You know you’re in trouble when Donald Rumsfeld is the voice of reason.

Uh-huh. Or when you catch Democrats pulling the same shabby tricks as Cheney & Co. When MoDo catches on, the only ones who could still be out of the loop work for Fox News.

The Democrats are so deeply into the tank to corporate interests that this so-called “election” is little more than a Hobson’s Choice: vote for Romney, we lose; vote for Obama, we still lose but it takes a little longer.

Maybe it’s time for Roosevelt/Kennedy Democrats to take a stand at last against the Nixon/Reagan Democrats and vote for somebody – anybody – else. Third party candidates are suddenly looking a lot less impossible. I mean, since the Nixon/Reagan Dems are in charge, what exactly is left to lose any more?  

Where Have We Seen This Before?

I must admit that I'm having difficulty with this Dominique Whosis thing. On one hand, it does the heart good to see the head of the often-criminal IMF perp-walked in handcuffs and denied bail. 'Bout time somebody in the predatory globalized financial community was. On the other hand, the whole thing smells of the Julian Assange take-down. A socialist who imposed severe restrictions on Greece's out-of-control aristocracy as part of the price for bailing the country out after decades of right-wing authoritarian thievery and brutality toward its own citizens, economically and otherwise, Strauss-Kahn's appointment to head up the International Monetary Fund made a lot of rich and powerful people very angry.

And what do r-and-pp do these days when they're angry? They have their opponents arrested on some trumped-up sex charge. The French think it was a setup, and S-K's lawyers say they can prove he was somewhere else at the time of the alleged incident having lunch with his daughter.

Even if he was, it doesn't matter. He may be innocent but the damage has already been done, and that's what's important. This wasn't mere revenge. The r-and-pp are under attack in France for the resource rape and outright thievery we've become so familiar with in this country, where they routinely steal the State treasury blind, ignore inconvenient laws, and demonize anybody who notes, however mildly, that we're all getting screwed. S-K was probably going to be the next president and he isn't awed by the majesty of money, having so much of his own. In fact, he's been downright snippy to the r-and-p.

Now S-K's potential populist run against right-wing authoritarian French President Nicholas Sarkozy is history. Even in open-minded France, he's done. Thus the candidate most favored to win against the "deeply unpopular" Sarkozy has simply been removed from the board. That doesn't make the election a slam dunk for Nicky but it probably makes it a fight instead of a walkover.

How convenient for you-know-who.

Makes you wonder.

Candidate Gingrich Wants a "Conversation" About Medicare

Is Newtie Gangrene actually running for president this time instead of pretending he is as a way of boosting his new book or his lecture fees (which has always before turned out to be his real agenda)? Seems it may be so given that yesterday he backed off his long-term support for privatising Medicare and attacked the House Pubs' plan as "too radical".

The Rich Win. Always

It occurred to me when I was reading a book on the beginning of the Civil War that we, us ordinary shlubs, have been under the thumbs of the rich since the beginning of what we are foolishly pleased to call "civilization". From the very beginning of socialized tribal life, the guy with more cows, more otter skins, more chickens, thought he should be the one to tell everybody else what to do - mainly to give him all our cows, otter skins, and chickens. Sure, they've thrown us a few bones now and again, especially after we took a few of their heads off with swords and clubs, but basically they've kept the goodies for themselves and thrown us scraps.

For several thousands of years.

Now they want us to like it and their media plebes explain it all with logic that makes Alice in Wonderland seem like algebra.

Socialism - It's Not Just For Crackpots Any More

Socialism. It's scary just to say it, ain't it?

You might think that's a Bad Thing. I mean, hasn't everybody been shying away from terms like "liberal" and "progressive" and "socialist" because we've been taught they represent frightening, evil people and anti-American values? But in fact it's a Good Thing, and the reason is simple.

IOKIYAR, Meet IOKIYAC

As we are all now well aware, there is a split in the nation's system of law and morality: if you're a conservative Republican , committing fraud is a standard business practice and adultery is justified by your patriotism; if, otoh, you're a liberal Democrat, playing golf is tantamount to treason and visiting foreign countries, however briefly, makes you a terrorist.

But there is another split less noticed but potentially even more insane. Apparently, Xtianist fundie zealots have decided that suicide bombers should be creatures of admiration...if they're Xtian.

[T]he Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which has long sought to position itself squarely in the evangelical mainstream, promoted Christian rap artist Tedashii as well a song from Tedashii's new album--with lyrics declaring that Christians should be as dedicated as suicide bombers.

"Now we gotta start making WAR. Now we can start saying NO to the fleshly impulses that Jesus was paying for. Now we can start taking the lead, just like the Dalai Llama, and start going all out, just like a suicide bomber." - from Christian rap artist Tedashii's song Make War

Given that some soldiers now training at Bragg may be one day be killed by suicide bombers, the BGAE's promotion of Tedashii's song Make War seems especially striking.

Uh, yeah....

This is disturbing on two fronts, first for itself and second for its source. Graham's group used to be a MOR, centrist evangelical organization not given to the extremes of the religious far right. It would seem that even they have begun to kowtow to the militarist Xtianist nonsense of the LeHaye/Rapture wing of fruitcakes. The far right looooves it some war, especially when it can be fought through innocent 3rd parties and poor kids who would otherwise be swelling the ranks of discontented unemployed and sucking up welfare money that should by rights be going into bankers' stock portfolios, so it is profoundly worrying that they're gearing up to play "Xtian jihadist" as if it was an Xbox game.

Even worse is the assumption that their terrorism would be godly and justified whereas if Muslims do it, it is Satanic and disgusting. It means that this whole "Law and morality doesn't have to be consistent or fair, they just have to be on my side" thingy that conservatives have been pushing for 3 decades has finally begun to reach into every avenue of their lives and thought (if you can call what they do "thinking"). They now believe that even the most horrendous of acts is OK if they do it.

We've been saying for some time that this was all going to get very ugly. It just did.

Our Plutocracy

In case you had any doubts, this is a plutocracy (Via Avedon):

 

The financial world is tres concerned that after 30 yrs of outsourcing, globalizing, union destroying, automation, and stock-friendly lay-offs, there isn't much left in the way of employees. (Via FDL's Blue Texan)

Fantasy Politics

I don't suppose I need to ask how this qualifies as "moving to the center". Especially when you consider the latest poll results. It doesn't, of course, except on Wall Street and inside the Village Bubble where life is beautiful all day long and all you have to do is smile.

What seems to be happening is that the elite corporate rich have decided that the best way to keep their oligarchy viable is to keep us busy playing Fantasy Politics, which, like fantasy baseball or fantasy football, means getting invested in the game and players on the board without actually being able to affect the outcome of anything real. The Fantasy Elections declare the winners but the policies don't actually change because the plutocracy that's running things doesn't want them to.

By confusing the meaning of "center", a candidate can talk "populism" when s/he runs, then vote for the very corporate policies s/.he opposed once s/he has won while fighting off accusations of hypocrisy and opportunism. None of it matters anyway. It's just a game with politicians standing in for tight ends and centerfielders.

IOW, Fantasy Politics is the new Roman circus - a spectacle of misdirection with no meaning whose use is to keep us entertained while the Imperial Senate arranges for the monied aristocracy to loot whatever is left in the country worth looting. The media does its part by pretending shit like this is "news", and the rest of us do our part by pretending it matters.

It doesn't, any more than trading your catcher for a pitcher matters in fantasy baseball. It's all a ruse. Of course, it's not all that entertaining once the stakes are removed and you realize it doesn't matter but they're betting you'll be so fascinated by the game that you won't notice it's fixed. And given recent history, which of you would be prepared to bet they're wrong?

If that sounds to you like the response to Scott "Herbert Hoover" Walker's "Off with their heads!" moment in Wisconsin isn't raising my hopes for a Wake Up! call by much, you're right. It doesn't. It's heartening but has all the unfortunate earmarks of a blip: if Walker backs down (and he's under pressure from his own party to do so) everyone will celebrate a victory and go back to sleep patting each other on the back.

Can we use Wisconsin to spread the Word? Yes, but there's a price.

For the right's agenda to succeed, the rest of us need to keep sleepwalking down the ramps to the Potterville that awaits us.

When we snooze, we lose. It's time to wake the fuck up.

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S Dak Elimination Solution & Probable Blue Dog Compromise

The Brilliant Minds in S Dak have come up with plan to eliminate all abortions that is breathtaking in its simplicity, almost elegant. Make it legal to kill the doctors who perform them.

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus-a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

But this, one may say, is only the beginning. American eliminationists have long been searching for a way to get rid of anybody who doesn't fit their ideal image: white, rich, preferably male, and very very conservative. The answer that S Dak has just put forward solves the problem of legal eliminationism, which it hasn't been - legal, that is - up to now. Murder has never been acceptable and genocide has been an ugly word ever since Hitler, so the problem has been how to frame the mass murder of non-conservatives in a legally acceptable way. S Dak's "protectionist" framing solves this problem by neatly dove-tailing into the protectionist framing that justifies the Second Iraq War, the destruction of civil liberties since 9/11, and the looting of the economy by Wall Street.

Randian Libertardianism and Traffic Lights

Since none of us get anywhere these days espousing intelligent, workable, rational solutions to our deadly problems, and seeing as how the Randian views of the batshit crazy Right (BCR) are so much easier to pursue what with their not having to provide any sort of proof that any solution they propose has any connection whatever with what any one of us not born with a silver spoon thrust through their cerebral cortex would consider reality, not to mention that their simplistic and/or fantasy solutions are far more welcome in the Halls of Power than our own practicable and successful but unfriendly-to-the-rich ones because we would require them to cease stealing everything they can get their grubby, grasping little hands on and put some sort of limits on their greed, I figure if you can't beat em join em.

Now, given that the Corporate Right has seized on the Randian "idea" that govt has no right to tell anybody what to do as a way of justifying their claim that it doesn't have the right to tell corporations they can't kill us no matter how profitable it is, I've been looking for an issue of unwarranted govt intervention in our freedoms which the BCR has overlooked, and I think I've found one.

Traffic lights.

Business First. Also Second, Third, Fourth....

President Barry O, continuing confused on his role wherein he apparently thinks he's president not of a nation but of a corporation that helps other corporations to screw consumers, has decided that with the economy everywhere but Wall Street in free fall and banks foreclosing on homes they don't own, the real problem is...too much govt regulation. (Via Blue Texan at FDL)

The Myth of Christmas

Reprinted from 12.24.06 – And it will continue to be printed every year until the O’Reilly-originated “War on Christmas” BS ends. There’s no antidote to lies except truth.

This would be the time, if ever there was one, to reflect on the meaning of Christmas, but before we can do that to any purpose we need to clear away some of the dead wood by exploding a couple of the myths that have built up around it since the holiday became popular in the late 19th century. Chief among these is the legend that Christmas is Christian, or even religious.

Panic on Wall Street

The Masters of the Universe on Wall Street are shivering with fear, something M's of the U rarely experience, certainly not more than 3 or 4 times per each 4-hr day. Is this because:

1. They have finally realized that the endgame of the economy-theft they've organized will be a disaster for the planet as a whole?
2. Their economic forecasting models are predicting a massive stock slump next year?
3. They can't add?

The answer is, indeed, number 3.

"I'm sorry, what?"

The Culture of the Rich

So our democracy is finally dead after 235 yrs, replaced by the corporatist plutocracy the rich have always wanted. Our old level-seeking, middle-class-directed economy is no more, replaced by a plutonomy aimed at filling the needs of the rich and ignoring everyone else. Is that as far as it goes? Unfortunately, no.

Unsatisfied with simple control of all the money generated by the society on which it feeds, the plutocracy has been using a sizable chunk of its wealth to pay for propaganda to help "reorganize" the role and goals of the whole culture. Since this is the culture in which we will be living for the foreseeable future, it probably behooves us to start learning and internalizing its rules.

Liberal Ideas Aren't "Fringe"

In 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson, not the most liberal of liberal FDR Dems, fought the right-wing poor-bashers by saying stuff like this in speeches all over the country (this excerpt comes from a speech he made in North Carolina on May 7):

Right here in North Carolina, the State where I stand, poverty has left its mark. Some people say that if these Americans are poor, it is their own fault. I have even heard others say that God ordains poverty for the poor. Well, I don't believe them, and I don't believe God believes them either.

Just a small comment: I know God doesn't believe that nonsense and I doubt that anyone beyond the 19% of the braindead population that follows the likes of Ron Paul and Glenn Beck believes it, either. So it isn't, like, "fringe" thinking. It's, like, "mainstream" thinking. So what we need, clearly, is a political party that won't run from reality like it was a bad smell. Ideas?

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Third Parties: Not Just for Fun Any More

At Norwegianity, Mark Gisleson thinks we have to vote Democrat. The argument he makes is weak but it's the only one there is.

They [Republicans] want us tired. They want to create outrage fatigue so we'll stay home on November 2. Fuck you if you don't vote this year, and fuck you twice if you don't vote for Democrats (with very few Blanche Lincolnesque exceptions).

It's not a vote for Obama or the stunted solutions of the Wall Street enabled moderates. It's a vote to kill off the idiocy once and for all. Until the 20% hard right is discredited and humiliated, they will continue to be the "he" in he said/she said.

This amounts to little more than the fluff-diving fear-mongering David Axelrod piled on Susie Madrak the other day. David Dayen reports Axelrod this way: (Links via Avedon)

Axelrod tried to bring Madrak in on common goals. "Let me say this. I really believe this is the most consequential time in our lifetime… We are in a struggle, we are in a fight. We don't have to agree, but we all have to lock arms and move forward here."

He then pivoted, kind of making it sound like both sides need to lower the temperature. "Saying we shouldn't be involved in intramural skirmishes, I couldn't agree more. And that goes on both sides… I'm not lecturing you, I'm speaking to everyone involved on our side. There are big things at stake here. The nature of progressive thought is that we go at it, we trade ideas, and that's as it should be. But we have to come together."

In other words: "SCARY SCARY REPUBLICANS!!!!! SCARY!!!!!!!!"

The Rich Need Our Help - $$$ Addiction

No, this isn't another one of those tongue-in-cheek attacks on the rich that have become so fashionable lately, what with them making such horse's asses of themselves. (Via Mark G) I actually have come to believe that rich people really do need our help, not just because it would prevent them from eating us alive but because it's the humane response, the right thing to do.

New Liberals = Old Conservatives

David Sirota is having a little difficulty telling the difference between Neoliberal economic policies and the kind the GOP has been pushing for decades. (Via Norwegianity)

In simplistic, Lexus-and-Olive-Tree terms, the neoliberal economic argument goes like this: Tariff-free trade policies are great because they increase commerce, and we can mitigate those policies' negative effects on the blue-collar job market by upgrading our education system to cultivate more science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) specialists for the white-collar sector.

Known as the bipartisan Washington Consensus, this deceptive theory projects the illusion of logic. After all, if the domestic economy's future is in STEM-driven innovation, then it stands to reason that trade policies shedding "low-tech" work and education policies promoting high-tech skills could guarantee success.

Of course, 30 years into the neoliberal experiment, the Great Recession is exposing the flaws of the Washington Consensus.

Yah think?

David's concerned about the latest neoliberal scam - that the unemplopyment situation can be fixed if we just reeducate and retrain "yesterday's workers for today's jobs" or some shit - but while it's important not to fall for yet another BD excuse for keeping everything as tilted toward their rich friends and Republican soulmates (and their rich friends), wehat's cranking my case is the Orwellian notion that there's anything liberal about neoliberalism.

Obama's Labor Day Kabuki

Everybody, it seems, wants to believe Obama isn't a corporate puppet sell-out. Bob Herbert, who has been very tough on Obama's willingness to give Wall Street anything it wants while refusing Main Street more than the absolute minimum of what it needs, "finally" hears what he's been wanting to hear for a long time.