Bipartisanship? Not during the McConnell Presidency.

First, let's be clear about the government shut-down. Donald Trump loves the attention. But in fact, he is doing absolutely nothing. True, he's threatened to veto any measure to fund agencies till he gets his "wall." But that threat is meaningless till such a bill reaches his desk. And the person who is preventing that is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell must be giggling and chortling right now, as old Two Scoops pulls all the attention away from him. And Democrats are falling for it, when they could instead aggressively mock the GOP senators -- and Donald Trump -- as puppets of "President McConnell."
== Shall we welcome "neocon" allies against madness? ==
Oh irony. David Frum - one of the original "neoconservative" apologists - is like Oskar Schindler, a former partisan hack who found himself simply unable to follow his party beyond a certain point, down a hellhole of treason and evil. "The scandal of the Trump presidency leaves Americans only bad choices. Powers and privileges essential to the functioning of an honest and patriotic presidency are called into question by this dishonest and unpatriotic presidency. Succeeding presidents and Congresses will have to find a way to restore or replace busted norms with new ones—but pretending now that the old rules can function as intended is not only delusive, but dangerous." 
It's a well-written essay, offering insight into how hard it would be to subpoena the translator from those Putin meetings. (Still, Ms. Gross should be careful on the street, and avoid men with umbrellas.)
As for "reformed" neocons like Mr. Frum, well, we need all hands on deck, and I will fight anyone who tries to narrow the Union's big tent in this critical phase of the Civil War. That means receiving and welcoming help even from former monsters, even the 'Worst American,' George F. Will. In Schindler times, you welcome help from Schindlers, who refuse to sink all the way with their treasonous party.**
So read this piece. It shows the minefield that would lead all the way to SCOTUS, if the House tries to subpoena the interpreter. And yet, there should be a path. In particular, I am appalled to learn the answer to a question I asked at an intelligence agency in 2004. "Do you have a small office dedicated to watching for enemy subornation at the nation's highest levels?" At the time, I was thinking about the Bush family's utter devotion to their kissing cousins in the Saudi Royal House, but such an office would have had the skills even more needed, today.I got no answer then, nor did I expect one. But now I know. We all know. Crap, they never had such a team. How in the world could that be? Back then, my "threats" slideshow featured one that spoke of "subornation" and it got indulgent smirks. No longer. Now, when I show it, I get gasps.

== Another must-read ==
On WIRED a truly key insight: "THE PATTERN OF (Trump's) pro-Putin, pro-Russia, anti-FBI, anti-intelligence community actions are so one-sided, and the lies and obfuscation surrounding every single Russian meeting and conversation so consistent that if this president isn’t actually hiding a massive conspiracy, it means the alternative is worse: America elected a chief executive so oblivious to geopolitics, so self-centered and personally insecure, so naturally predisposed to undermine democratic institutions and coddle authoritarians, and so terrible a manager and leader that he cluelessly surrounded himself with crooks, grifters, and agents of foreign powers that he’s compromised the national security of the US government and undermined 75 years of critical foreign alliances, just to satiate his own ego." 
Oh, but there's more, and better.*
== Failing Bipartisan Efforts ==

A highly sapient article goes to why "bipartisan" efforts have been failing for 40 years. And why, faced with demographic collapse, GOP politicians reach for ever-more blatant methods of cheating. Secret money, gerrymandering and voter suppression are justified by your mad uncle who - with a straight face and no sense of shame - says "it's the only way we can win and keep back the mob."

Examples from the article: the Democrats' foremost proposed bill HR1 would promote wildly popular (70%+ polling) anti-cheating reforms like: "public financing of federal elections through a voluntary small donor-match, requiring that Super PACs and “dark money” groups make their donors public, requiring the president to disclose his or her tax returns, creating a new ethical code for the Supreme Court, restoring the Voting Rights Act, creating a national automatic voter registration system, ending partisan gerrymandering in federal elections and prohibiting voter-roll purging."

"While Democrats are getting ready to roll out that broadly popular, nonpartisan, pro-democracy package, what are Republicans doing? In several states where they suffered midterm defeats, they attempted lame-duck sessions to launch anti-democratic power grabs. I

"In Michigan, where Democrats won the top three statewide offices — governor, attorney general and secretary of state — for the first time since 1990, the lame-duck GOP legislature attempted to dilute the power of all three offices."

The only remaining rationalization for volcanic levels of open cheating is "keeping back the mob." The same justification offered by feudal lords for 6000 years, and the reason for both the English and American revolutions... and every subsequent phase of the U.S. Civil War. This is not politics! Politics in America was killed, dead, by Newt Gingrich and Dennis "friend to boys" Hastert in the 1990s and Mitch McConnell squats like a lead gargoyle on the coffin lid as we thump and pry to open it.

If their putsch succeeds, it will be a world run by mafias. (Did you see the high five exchanged by two leading dons from the Kremlin and Riyadh clans?

There is some unease at these levels. The smarter oligarchs are starting to realize this coming world will not let them enjoy the fruits of restored feudalism. Not when they've made enemies of all the castes and professions who know stuff like science, cybernetics, molecular biology and fission. Their dreams now drift to "Postman" style redoubts in Patagonia, Paraguay and New Zealand. And yes, those mad dreams, too, are built on fairy dust. 

The truly smartest ones are realizing that the grand plan, for all its recent successes, will not have a future. More and more, Revolution's in the air, and only one choice will soon remain.

Will it be an American-style "revolution" like we had in the 1770s and 1860s, or when the Greatest Generation revitalized market enterprise while engendering a thriving middle class and still leaving the rich very comfortable? 

Or will it be the more common style, seen aross 4000 years, in which emotion carries the angry mob? Like 1917. Or 1789? 

Now may be a good time for cheaters to pick the color of their tumbrel.

== A great place to start demanding wagers ==

In an ultimate test of the utter gullibility of our poor confederate neighbors, many of them are fixated on the latest Kremlin-sourced meme, spread by every treason site, reportedly showing Rep. Nancy Pelosi prescribing a Democratic Party smear tactic. I know a number of RASRs – residually adult-sane Republicans – who are not hateful or unpatriotic fellows, but who cling to these treason sites, suckling obscenely deceitful crap. In this case, though, OMG! Not one of them questions how the video suddenly starts?

So eager are they to actually believe she's talking about democrats using that tactic, it never occurs to them to ask for the two minutes that just preceded the sudden start of this Pelosi “confession.” It is a blatant howler, but they actually, actually swallow such an obvious ploy.

See the context and whole footage provided by Snopes… one more reason why the mad-right calls every single fact-checking service “partisan.” 

I offered a wager to one RASR I know. If it turned out Pelosi was saying what the treason site claimed, I would pay him $100. But if I was right, and he’d been suckered, he would promise to never again trust the Kremlin-funded liars who post this kind of garbage, and to in-future ask the blatantly obvious questions, and maybe spread his net wider to get other views.

Alas, as always happens when I try to corner a RASR with a wager, he scooted away. But that doesn’t mean wagers are useless! There are maybe a million decent, patriotic, intelligent and still somewhat adult-sane Republicans out there who desperately cling to magical incantations, to maintain loyalty to a party that long ago left them, betrayed them and has plunged headlong into treason. Their obedience to oligarch-mafiosi and former KGB agents who were all raised from birth to be communists is… weird. But they evade all applications of logic, and run away from bets.

What you do accomplish by demanding a wager is to bring into play a different part of their minds, one that is pragmatic about actual money and honor and even long-forgotten things called facts! Oh, your RASR will run away from putting money on it. They never have the balls to actually bet on one of their incantations. But still, he (and it is always a “he”) sometimes is shaken into thinking new thoughts.

And let me be clear, these fellows, not a majority of GOP males but an important sub-set, are worth the effort! They are decent neighbors and the old-fashioned, sincere kind of conservatives. Alas, they truly – if mistakenly – think they are on the side of the American Experiment, instead of helping its enemies.

Winning just one million of them back into some kind of light is worth trying. Indeed, that may be the last best hope for our republic.

== The bizarre Bezos bonanza... ==

In desperation, the mad right-o-sphere is gleefully attacking Amazon's Jeff Bezos over his looming divorce from his wife MacKenzie, after 25 years. Ooh, wag your fingers over some slightly corny-embarrassing texts, why don't you. (Indeed, one can be puzzled over why rich and famous people use social media at all, let alone texting or twitter. Especially for any off-the-books relationships. Can't they afford intranets?) 

After 25 years, the Bezos divorce is described as amicable, and hence -- human flaws and some silly things notwithstanding -- this is not very much my business, or yours. But sure, Red America, you are free to hold up your divorce rate against Blue America's, or rates of success for your "abstinence only" sex education programs, or rates of gambling, addiction or teen pregnancy, or STDs and so on. By all means, let's compare outcomes.

Seriously?  You can try to tar a democratic leaning zillionaire as "immoral" for a divorce far milder than any of Newt's three, Limbaugh's three, Reagan's, Trump's two, McCain's... and then perverts like Larry Craig and Roy Moore and Dennis "friend to boys" Hastert, who both buggered children and buggered America by deliberately ending all negotiated politics in the USA?

You know I was just getting started. The list goes on and on. But it really boils down to one fact -- that Jeff & MacKenzie Bezos were among the most effective teams in the history of our species. And I'd wager they'll continue to be.

----
* Look who agrees with the WIRED piece, using many of the same terms. 
** Meanwhile, just to illustrate that not all US conservative have gone insane, see the cogent legal scholar Jack Goldsmith who still had hopes a year ago that Tillerson & Mattis might moderate the insanity, in this interview by Bill Kristol who, though he was a neocon idiot, seems to have "Schindlered" along with David Frum and others, unable to follow the GOP down a rabbit hole of treason.

The Politics of Divisiveness

As Congress went into recess without addressing even a single serious matter before it -- like fighting the Zika Virus or funding the FAA or finding a way to prevent bankruptcy of the largest U.S. territory (see below) -- we are reminded that for 20 of the last 22 years it has been the laziest, do-nothing and lobotomized national legislature in American history. 

Do not let the presidential circus get you too fixated! Your local congressional and state assembly races may be just as important. Only, at that level your own efforts could even make a difference.

== Political Notes ==

How Red and Blue America Became Two Separate Countries: A well-spoken article by Paul Waldman, describes how America is dividing ever-deeper into blue and red components. Still, I think the point is missed, unless you instead call it what it is. Blue vs Gray.  

Obama can appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if the Senate does nothing: here's an interesting legal argument that the Senate, by refusing to even hold hearings on Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination is in effect waiving its right and duty to practice “advice and consent.”  It is a strong argument… and it could wind up before the Supreme Court! Only here's the kicker.  If the case first goes to a federal district court that rules in Obama's favor, and then also the court of appeals, then just four present justices could seat Garland.

But no, watch how quickly the GOP Senate rushes to confirm Obama's appointment, after the dems win the election.  Their polemic to: "let the next president choose" will evaporate, as they hurry to deny H. Clinton her pick. 

In Defense of the GOP: Fareed Zakaria offers a fascinating insight about how today’s more “democratic” parties, in which the presidential nominee arises out of passionate primaries, may be less temperate or practical or even representative than the old “smoke filled rooms.” 

Nothing makes this clearer than the fact that Donald Trump, who - before New York - was never liked by more than 38% pluralities in his best states, could come to dominate, because of the passion of that one-third. 

This, combined with Ted Cruz’s passionate one-quarter of Republicans, has forced the rest of us to let a radical half of 40% of Americans to set the agenda.  Zakaria long ago: “predicted that the partyless system would be good for “political dynasties, celebrity officials and billionaire politicians.” The front-runners in both parties in 2016 fit this description.”

Of course, when a frothing few can dominate discussion, false narratives abound.  Like the incredible tizzy that illegal immigration has increased under Barack Obama. “Immigration into the United States has slowed substantially in the last ten years. Moreover, that's lead to the English proficiency rise among Hispanics. A greater share of Hispanics today prefer to get their news in English than was the case just ten years ago." 

How to get that frothing minority to start paying at least some slight notice to actual facts? Demand that your Trumpist uncle make it a bet.  Wagers are the only thing that makes these fellows budge. Putting money on it is "manly" and hence you'll get them cornered. Just don't do it with anyone you have to sit with, next Thanksgiving.

Why poor whites chant Trump, Trump, Trump: This article does a better job of going to the heart of the matter: “From the era of slavery to the rise of Donald Trump, wealthy elites have relied on the loyalty of poor whites.” The author, Jonna Ivin, knows what she is talking about, painting a vivid picture of her own earlier life in an Arkansas trailer. Why do poor whites vote along the same party lines as their wealthy neighbors across the road? Isn’t that against their best interests?

The methods used to divide poor whites from blacks go back to slavery days and they worked. Ivins writes, "Poor and working class whites signed up by the hundreds of thousands to fight for what they believed was their way of life. Meanwhile, many of the wealthy planters who benefitted economically from slavery were granted exemptions from military service and avoided the horrors of battle."  

This cozening of poor whites has gone on and on – despite the feudal-style overlordship of Big Families like the scions of Tyson Foods, who manage to both oppress and be admired as good-ol-boys, while they smuggle in undocumented foreign workers to deny jobs to locals. And how do those locals react? By hating the smuggled-in illegals, not Tysons. The thing is… no one ever likes to admit that they’ve been fooled.  The more blatant it becomes, the more desperate most people are to cling to the “side” that has crushed them and kept them down. (Marx called this the instinct of the “lumpen proletariat.”)

And yet, as this well-written essay commences, you grow ever-more willing to see things through the eyes of folks long despised as 'poor-white-trash.' You realize that they have their own story of ancient pain and desperate grievance.  You start to understand both how the Fox-oligarchy updated the slaveholders’ propaganda techniques, and how that deliberate radicalization finally tore the reins out of their hands…

 … to be seized by Donald Trump.

== Fundamentals ==

Republican masters are already adjusting their plans to a likely loss of the presidency, this fall.  Fund-raising from big donors is shifting over to the big campaign funds supporting GOP candidates for Senate and the House of Representatives, and especially State Assemblies... the core locus of power they cannot afford to lose, even briefly.  

One of their top polemical tricks that you'll hear a lot? "Divided government is best! Because then Government is frozen and can't do much and that's gooood!"

As if the last six years of  raging, acrimonious divided government – free of any meaningful legislation, whatsoever - were exactly how a modern republic should adapt to rapidly-changing times. Forgive me for repeating this, but except for a two-year manic phase from 2009-2011, the United States Congress has for two decades been the most lazy and worthless U.S. national legislature in living memory, as well-reflected in opinion polls which rate the institution far below the DMV and circus carnies.  

Under Speakers Tearful John Boehner and role-model-for-all-boys Dennis Hastert, the House of Representatives held fewer hearings and fewer days in full session, passed fewer bills and (despite frivolous rage over Benghazi and emails) issued fewer subpoenas than almost any other across the last century.

To be clear, despite having had total power to do anything they wanted — owning all three branches of government from 2001-2007 — the GOP did not one thing about any ranted agenda items wanted by their tea party ground troops, from abortion to local sovereignty to eminent domain, to gun rights, to reducing deficits or disbanding government agencies. They railed and shouted about those things, but did nothing when they had complete power.

Exceptions. The GOP congresses did take action in four categories: massive tax cuts for the uber-caste, deregulating Wall Street, granting sweetheart deals for resource extractors, and conspiring to keep the true cost of wars off the books. Oh, yeah and Medicare Part D.  That’s five. Period. Note that all of them budget busting nightmares that transformed Clintonian surpluses into artery gushers of red ink. But beyond that? Utterly useless torpor.

A tradition that continues under new Speaker and obsessive supply-sider Paul Ryan, whose refusal to provide funds to stop the Zika Virus, or let the FAA keep airplanes safe, or for his blllionaire clients to face audit, all fall into this grand tradition. See this highly partisan but highly accurate denunciation. “The Speaker of the House is burnishing his credentials for 2020 by doing what John Boehner did best: Nothing.”

And this is their White Knight?

== A little late for oligarch regret? ==

Eep! In Existence, I portray a conclave of zillionaire-lords meeting in the Alps to at least *try* to make the New Feudalism not-stupid, this time, unlike the horrific statecraft and silly rationalizations that aristocratic castes produced, across 6000 years. I wrote that scene as a suggestion, in case the new lords win and repress our brief, two century enlightenment experiment. Odds still favor that outcome. Feudalism always won, in the past.

Alas, despite my suggestion, all signs suggest that this round of proto-feudalists will be as stupidly delusional as every other. Like kings and lords and priests of old, they let flatterers tell them how smart they are.  

Still, is there hope? Shall I lift my head, in wonder, when the archetype beta-minus billionaire (who naturally thinks he’s an alpha) seems to ‘get’ how stunningly awful is the 21st Century Republican Party that he and his brother helped to forge?

“It's a nightmare scenario for Republicans, but conservative billionaire Charles Koch says ‘it's possible’ Hillary Clinton could make a better president than the remaining candidates in the GOP primary.  As far as the growth of government, the increase in spending, Koch said. ‘It was 2.5 times [more] under Bush than it was under Clinton.’”

Um?  And every single other metric of US national health has done better across democratic administrations than GOP ones. Every metric. Every single one. Now think, Charles. What might that mean?

BTW Charles, remember that list of five "accomplishments" when the GOP held every lever of power. Most of those were things that *you* wanted and demanded from your servants. You made this bed, sir.

  

Fort Sumter Redux: the battle flag and the re-ignition of the Confederacy

 “Americans now discriminate more on the basis of party than on race, gender or any of the other divides we typically think of — and that discrimination extends beyond politics into personal relationships and non-political behaviors.” This according to a study published last year by Stanford and Princeton researchers. (See America's New Cycle of Partisan Hatred.)  The divide is as fierce as it has been, since…

… since previous phases of the recurring American Civil War. I found this excerpt interesting: “Also of note is that the partisan polarization occurs even though Americans aren’t all that split on policies or ideology. Their partisanship is more tribal than anything — the result of an ill-informed electorate." 

Moreover “In order to have an understanding of the ideology of your party and the opposing party you have to have a lot of information….”

And hence, polemicists on both sides (though one far worse than the other) strive to oversimplify and to downplay science. This article blames we, in the electorate for allowing it to happen.  And sure, some fault lies there.  But history tells us how our ancestors got out of similar phases, in the past.  And it always took just one thing.  One thing that’s needed now. 

When reason ceases to function and civil war has blossomed into full fury... one side has simply to win.

== The battle flag is only 99% a "symbol of hatred" ==

And so, the Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof has accomplished his openly stated goal -- to stir our civil war to an even greater boil -- though perhaps not with results he intended.  Take the surge in discussion of eliminating the X-shaped Confederate Battle Flag from state premises and symbology, and not just in South Carolina (where the governor just declared her agreement that it should depart from the state capitol grounds.)

(Indeed, see how this is one more example of why we should have a "rename crazy killers" law... Or Names of Infamy -- Deny killers the notoreity they seek.)

Indeed, for sure I am 99% on one side. Was the Olde Confederacy awful?  Of course. None of the rationalizations for secession or "the Cause" hold up under the slightest historical scrutiny. For example, southerners weren't complaining at all about "states rights" during the thirty years that they dominated the federal government, until 1860.  Up to the election of Lincoln, they ran roughshod over their neighbors, applying federal power with merciless cruelty and ferocity. 

The secession declarations of each Confederate state make abundantly clear that their cause was exactly and precisely and almost entirely the protection and promotion of slavery. Top middle and bottom. First and last.  The very word is praised more than thirty times in South Carolina's document. Those who tout any other explanation for the treason know no history.

And yet... I refuse to say that there was absolutely zero admirable about the Confederacy.  As evil as its romantic "cause" was, they displayed one trait worth positive (if grudging) memory. 

Martial courage and skill.Them rebs sure could fight! Southern foot soldiers repeatedly exhibited fortitude, endurance, cleverness, innovation and ability at arms. A knack that continues today as southern men and women volunteer for arduous military life more often than do blue-city folk.

Hence, there is one — just one — place where I can look at the Battle Flag of the Confederacy without loathing a symbol of treason and hatred... and that is in portrayals of actual battle. In movies like the wonderful GETTYSBURG film, or in real life re-enactments, I root for the Union, the good guys and the side that also has to win the latest phase of our re-ignited Civil War, lest American (and likely world) civilization spiral again into superstition and feudalism.  

But I will not begrudge southern whites swelling their chests with pride as that banner -- alongside the "bonny blue flag" -- unfurls on an actual battlefield, recalling when their forbears carried those symbols forward with stunning bravery, fighting for a cause —

— although that cause was, in fact, one of the worst for which men ever fought. *

Anywhere outside a movie or re-enactment, though? Ditch it. There is no redemption for a symbol of oppression and treason and hatred, anywhere having to do with civilized, 21st Century life.

== The other Confederate motivation ==

A corner-piece polemic spread by every single Republican candidate is one version or another of anti-intellectualism:

 “With the Republican primaries ramping up, there will surely be a great deal of anti-intellectual musing coming from each candidate. There will be talk of how those elitist “harvard faculty” members are disconnected from the common people up in their ivory tower, and how they just don’t understand the real America."

 Mike Huckabee, one of the GOP candidates for president, summarized this view on “The Daily Show” earlier this year (and in his book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy): 

“There’s a real disconnect between people that live in the bubbles of New York, Washington, and Hollywood, versus the people who live in the land of the bubba’s…theres a big difference between people who are well educated and people who are smart.” 

To which zero-sum dichotomy, the only reaction is that this Nehemia Scudder, like his ilk, is at war with the very notion of our civilization. See: Who Benefits from the Politics of Outrage?

More on this rising polarization, below.

 == Comparing the Union to the Confederacy: 2015 edition ==

Some maps speak for themselves. We are lectured-to about about capitalism and enterprise by folks who are worst at handling money, let alone doing business startups or innovation.

And lectured-to by Huckabee's "bubbas" on family values: States with the highest rates of second marriages:   35% in Arkansas, 26% Texas, 30% Florida,  versus 21 % California and 17% New York.  Look at the map and compare it to similar tabulations of teen sex rates, teen pregnancy, STDs, domestic violence... and net recipients of tax money. And some historical maps, as well. Ahem. Did I suggest that folks might adjust their politics to reflect... actual outcomes?

 Oh, but it gets better:

Red America gets far more from the Federal government than Blue America does. In fact, the federal government serves as a mechanism for transferring wealth from productive, innovative Blue America to parasitic Red America. From the Wall Street Journal: Which States Take the Most from the U.S. Government?

Delaware residents, who voted overwhelmingly for President Barack Obama in 2012, get 50 cents in federal funding for every $1 in federal income taxes they pay.

Mississippi — 55.5% for Mitt Romney — cashes in with $3.07 in federal funding for every dollar paid in income taxes.

== And it goes on... ==

Alas, am I exaggerating the "civil war" thing?

In a sadly related event: Bill Maher commented on the Jade Helm paranoid lunacy: “Here’s the thing: in today’s Republican Party, you can’t call out nutty people for being nutty, because they’re not a small group,” Maher said. “In the Republican Party, crazy is a constituency.” 

As if to illustrate this point: Conservative Charles Murray has a plan to render useless regulations from the EPA, OSHA, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commision. Create a fund to pay for a bunch of small suits against these agencies until they stop enforcing regulations. Read about it at (an admittedly biased source): 

Yeah, it fits: Texas bill would make recording police illegal: Citizens who are armed (with cameras) would not be permitted to record police activity within 100 feet of an officer on duty. The offense would be a misdemeanor. This bill would contradict the precedent set in 2011 by an appeals court, which found that citizens are allowed to record police.

Then how to describe the lunatics in the Wyoming legislature passing a law that "...makes it illegal to collect resource data” from any land outside of city boundaries, whether that land be private, public, or federal. Under the law, “collect” means to “take a sample of material, acquire, gather, photograph or otherwise preserve information in any form from open land which is submitted or intended to be submitted to any agency of the state or federal government.”  So even facing actual facts is now illegal.

Ah, but Ohio has joined the list of Republican controlled states that are gunning for the Libertarian Party, denying third party candidates positions on the ballot by tightening eligibility requirements.

Finally, see this: Tracking how America changes its mind: the pace of social change.

Am I being harsh?  I am a scientist and a believer in the future.  If they had left their Book Of Revelation yearnings for an end to civilization and the world and also of reason, for Sunday morning, it would be one thing.  By making it daily policy, they have made clear to folks like me that this has nothing, whatsoever to do with "left versus right."

It is a revived mad Confederacy ... waging outright war against tomorrow.

=========
* Paraphrasing Sherman, of course.

YOU can start a shift in U.S. politics

You Americans out there: it's time.  The primaries are approaching, which means you and all your friends have a chance to vote in the only 2014 elections that truly matter… the ones in the spring, not the fall!  Tell everyone you know to use this one little trick and we all, as individuals, can help defeat gerrymandering… and thus help de-radicalize American politics.  YOU can  do it.  By getting all your friends to re-register using this one little trick…

== The parties are the same? ==

That is the new mantra being fed to depressed "ostrich republicans," who can tell that their party has gone insane, but are scratching for any excuse to hold on to their old loyalties… "They're all corrupt statists... so let's assume the dems are worse and hold your nose and vote GOP!"

Look, I am conservative enough to prefer a budget that's close to balanced, and libertarian enough to think government should be very tightly scrutinized and always need to satisfy a burden of proof, that its services would not be better performed by… us.  I show such trends -- toward a devolution of government activity to tech-empowered citizens -- in EXISTENCE.  Indeed, anyone who shares those desires… along with wanting a scientific, flat-and-open, just and entrepreneurial and future-looking civilization… would have to be crazy to support the current (hijacked) version of the GOP.

One graphic shows clearly how gullible are all the watchers of Fox News, who actually believe the rant that Democrats are the fiscally irresponsible big-spenders.  It starts with the Clinton era surpluses then shows how revenues initially dropped under the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy… without any "supply side" (SS) rebound.  (SS has never predicted correctly, even once.)

Watch the the spectacular (9/11/Iraq/Afghanistan) rise in spending - and in taxation (now pounding the middle class) -  under republican rule, then even steeper, after they torched the economy and revenues plunged in Bush's last two years. Then?  The chart shows federal spending almost perfectly FLAT under Obama, proving the one truth that should make any fiscal conservative vote democratic.  That the 2nd derivative of deficit is always negative under demmies and almost always positive under goppers.

Show this.  Remind your crazy uncle that we narrowly avoided a second great depression.

This is not about classic left-right issues.  It is about insanity.

== Wisdom from … Osama bin Laden? ==

Anyone -- including Buckley-Goldwater conservatives -- who believes that the currently constituted Republican Party -- the version owned by Rupert Murdoch -- with its heritage of Bushite calamity -- should ever again be trusted with anything more than a burnt match, should contemplate the following quotation from Osama bin Laden.

"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedin to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

"This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahedin, bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat... So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."  

-- Osama bin Laden

It's not that Osama wasn't our enemy.  He deserved to die (note who killed him) and the Taliban who assisted him deserved to fall.  But did we have to chase him in exactly the fashion that he wanted us to?  In exactly the way that the 9/11 attacks were designed to entice? Plunging -- Russia-style -- into a futile, absurdly senseless exercise in so-called "nation-building," into a quagmire attrition of insurgency in Asia?  Didn't we learn that mistake in Vietnam?

Note that my complaint is in no way "leftist." It is as one who actually thinks rather well of Pax Americana -- compared to all other eras across all of human history. As one who believes that PA must remain a strong and calming world leader for at least another decade or two or three. One who knows many generals and admirals, most of whom (at one level or another) have expressed horror over being so badly led during the Bush years.

Frankly, I do not care if this quotation attributed to bin Laden is real or an urban legend. It blatantly expresses what the 9/11 attacks were for. And the Bushites knew this when they plunged us into trillions of dollars of waste and thirteen years of agony, leaving only two victors on the battlefield. One was Iran…. and the other group was Bush family companies like Haliburton and Bechtel.

(See the extremely different ways that (fundamentally) Democrats and Republicans wage war. )

This is not about who's a pussy.  It is about who is competent.  Who preserves the reserves and keeps readiness high. Who is smart enough to avoid blatant traps that only overcompensating small-organ twits would fall for. The kind of overcompensating twits who are the opposite of Patriots, no matter how loudly they yell "Yoo Hess Hay!"

== Return of the Feudal Pyramid ===

 Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World by Nicholas Shaxson, takes a somewhat radicalized investigative expose of how the corporate world uses tax havens to shirk paying its share of taxes. This costs the United States alone 100 billion dollars in lost revenue each year.  As you dive into this subject, the only question that keeps popping up is "am I being insufficiently radical in my anger over this?"

Now we see why the mantra of the new-right and of the hyper-libertarians is "death to all government" as a matter of fundamental principle, instead of the older movement to minimize or reform.  It must be absolute war, because only civil servants stand in the way of utter feudal oligarch. Hence civil servants must be "statist" satans… nothing less. Let's ignore that for 6000 years the enemy of freedom was oligarchic feudalism, whose rebirth is chronicled in books like this… till the lords forbid books like this altogether.

Liberal moderates can fight back by reclaiming "the first liberal" - Adam Smith - as their very own. His call for flat-open-fair-accountabble competitive markets included uplifting all children to a level playing field.  A level field whose destruction is the sole and central goal of the New Lords.