Iowa, Inanity, SOTU and political games

In the wake of those frenzied and overblown Iowa Caucuses, a number of interesting thoughts:

1) That Donald Trump should have done a little traditional Expectations Dampening - you know, like politicians do. But that is not in his nature.  Anyone could tell you (as I did) that Iowan conservatives are very religious and that faction turns out - hence Cruz was always the leader there, whatever the polls say. (Weirdly, Iowa democrats turn out to be way more leftist than liberals nationwide.  What a state.) In any event: "The bad news for Ted Cruz: His Iowa win looks very similar to Mike Huckabee’s and Rick Santorum’s."

Only I still maintain Cruz has a cunning plan.

2) The near tie between Clinton and Sanders is actually great news for democrats. Both candidates will benefit from lively and invigorating tension. But this assumes Bernie is able to keep perspective and not get so caught up that he forgets -- you are vying, vigorously, for captaincy of a team you both know must win. Bruise each other... a little... but not too much for genuine hugs and kisses, later.

Oh and Hill? No thumbs on the scale. A cute trick would be to offer Bernie at-minimum the right to pick your Inspector General and your SEC head. No quid pro quo.  Just offer it.

3) NYT Nobelist economist Paul Krugman highlights ‘uplift’ in his analysis of the Iowa returns. 

Yes, he chose that word. His point being that we should choose to be more ambitious -- the one core thought that Bernie Sanders has contributed. Can we ‘uplift’ our society, our civilization? 

Right now, the American public mood is addicted to downer memes, despite almost every statistical metric having improved. While science fiction is filled with many negative stories, often unecessarily so, it remains the one medium where perhaps 10% of the time, we see real optimism and hope. Prof. Krugman knows this, else why would he feature a Michael Whelan sci fi cover to illustrate his essay?

4) Did I mention demmie 'hugs?' Among many young Sanders supporters I have been noting a bit of a shrill tone, even hatred for the Clintonite Democratic 'establishment.' And sure, some degree of complaint about that is valid. And yet, I am from the 1960s, and you kids are pure amateurs at indignation. Seriously? Some persepective is called-for. Especially when some bright-bozos have been proclaiming that "radicalism" is preferable to "well-meaning but too-moderate incrementalism."

The implication is that pragmatic moderate are tepid in desiring reform. But indeed, I warned about the threat of a secret world oligarchy in my novel Earth way back in 1989 -- see my portrayal of the "Helvetian war" -- and no one dissects that trend more often or deeply than I do. Also, that novel was early re Climate Change warnings.

Do I agree with much that Sanders says? Sure. I am glad of some of the radical enthusiasm he's fired up. And note that PAC money is playing a much smaller role in this election. Cool.

Still, the world is ultimately made by pragmatists and incrementalists. Franklin Roosevelt reset capitalism and gave the workers such a big stake that it created the fantastic American middle class. Which oligarchs are busy undermining, sure. So? All that means is another Rooseveltean reset is needed.  Hey, if our parents in the Greatest Generation could achieve that miracle, without diluting the best aspects of creative-competitive capitalism at all -- then we should be able to, as well.

Only dig this well, The New Deal had some radical aspects! But deep down, anyone who knew Franklin Roosevelt also knew that he was above all a politician, a pragmatist, an arm twister, and a moderate. A negotiator! The only way you can reconcile those two facts is by recognizing this: radicals will not accomplish as much in the American context as fierce pragmatists will. 

And we must do our part. Obama or Clinton needed us to give them a Congress. Any failure of their incrementalism was our fault. And "radicals" without a Congress will be even more pathetically ineffective.

== Congress listens -- in sullen crankiness ==

President Obama’s State of the Union address (SOTU) got a lot of attention, including nervy Paul Ryan, who either smirked "knowingly" or else scowled, theatrically-disrespectful through the entire address, then accused Obama of “degrading” the office of president… this from the party that gave us Richard Nixon and both Saudi-Bushes. 

Obama’s content – appealing for a return to the politics of actual-negotiation – was in fact filled with things to which we might all reasonably agree.  But one topic I have long inveighed against… electoral cheating. Especially gerrymandering  --  "the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around."

This article appraises how easy it would be to create fair electoral maps based upon “compactness of districts". In fact though, I do not agree with this solution – though it would be a vast improvement.  Elsewhere I offer a ‘minimum overlap” proposal that would require just three sentences and end the problem in a shot.  

Only here I want to comment less on President Obama’s SOTU address than on South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's official GOP response. The sub-text implications are quite interesting. Haley admitted in an interview on CNN that her speech partly targeted Trump & Cruz and that party leaders reviewed her speech before she delivered it Tuesday.

Choosing her as SOTU responder was one of the few actions that the Republican establishment could take, having completely lost control over the wild presidential nomination race. Earlier, I suggested 1:3 odds that they are setting up Paul Ryan to step in, should the convention be deadlocked after a first or second ballot (see below). (Ryan's scowl, all through the SOTU? A hour of silent-and-free publicity.) But back to Haley...

The GOP establishment knows that Jeb is toast and Rubio - their new boy - is unlikely.  The Ryan Gambit is plausible, but their backup plan...?  

Set up their choice to be the VP running mate.

Let's back up a bit. I believe Ted Cruz never intended to win the GOP presidential nod.  He knows how hated he is, by the GOP lords.  (In fact by almost anyone with normal intelligence.) His role model has to be Richard Nixon in 1952. And sure, if Jeb or Rubio or Ryan get the nom, then Cruz would be their shoe-in VP pick -- their envoy to the fundies and tea partiers, to keep them in line.  

What's Cruz's payoff?  Either 4 or 8 years as VP, pulling in IOUs... or else, if the GOP ticket loses this year, becoming the heir apparent to oppose the sitting dem's re-election in 2020.

Only now that plan is dashed!  The rebels - Trump and Cruz - have been too successful! If Trump wins the nomination, he simply can't choose Cruz as his running mate. They'd torch the whole party. Donald would have to find a "moderate" to mollify the Lords and to soothe offended folks in Trump's wild wake. (Unless Trump then intends to dash-for-the-center! In which case Cruz might make sense as veep, after all.)

Moreover, Ted Cruz - if by some chance he wins the main nom - would have to do the same.

And so we arrive in South Carolina, where the most important Republican primary will be held. Nikki Haley will be potent there. Moreover, she is a solid VP choice for many reasons.  A woman and a soother... and somewhat of an ethnic minority... though not Hispanic and not from a state the GOP needs. No matter! How better to reach out to GOP grownups and urge them to stay loyal, while either Cruz or Trump rampage about?

Haley: “It takes everyone to get their egos out of the room and really sit down and say, ‘OK, how are we going to get to a solution? That’s not something we’re seeing in D.C. right now.”  

Further: Haley said that Republicans share the blame with Democrats for the nation’s distrust of Washington and need to “recognize our contributions to the erosion of the public trust in America’s leadership.”

Look, it's possible she's even sincere about wanting to forge a path for American conservatism out of the hellish pit Roger Ailes led them. If so, then her getting a VP stint on a losing zombie-festival could be good news for us all, putting her in position to bring back some version of the party of Eisenhower, in 2020.  It's a scenario.

I'll put no money on it though.  I do know this... actually winning the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2016 was not Ted Cruz's plan. As in The Manchurian Candidate, his scheme was a patient one, and now his prize, the VP slot, is slipping away from his hands, because he's been too successful.  And I can just imagine him murmuring "Oh crap, now what!"

Summary: If Trump or Cruz win the nom - VP goes to Haley or some hispanic GOP pol.
If it's anyone other than those two, then Cruz gets what he really wanted - (though perhaps sugar plum fairies are now dancing in his head) - the VP slot.

== Has Trumpism run its course? ==

Donal's lack of savvy expectations limiting before Iowa means his aura has taken a hit. So, is it over? Of course not.  Still...

The Eight Causes of Trumpism: This stunningly cogent article from The Atlantic fills in the historical trends that - since 1990 - have contributed to turning American politics from being about policy argument and negotiation, to an utterly polarized hate-fest. "The 8 causes of Trumpism" is actually not about Donald Trump, at all, but the forces that made 1/3 of Americans so volcanically (and illogically) furious that only a manipulative outsider-savanarola like Trump or Cruz can be viewed as appealing.

There are factors that Mr. Ornstein leaves out.  Like the role that Saudi investment played in building Fox News into the incendiary fuel behind a New Confederacy.  Or how  those petro-sheiks and our own coal barons created a populist frenzy that (to their chagrin) is now slipping out of their control, much the way Junker-class lords in 1920s Germany thought they could foster another right-wing populism, then lived to regret it. 

Still, Ornstein does feature a crucial moment -- the treasonous know-nothing act when Newt Gingrich's House GOP dissolved its own Office of Technology Assessment, and sent all the techies and boffins and nerds packing, openly declaring that science and facts that conflict with dogma have no place within the Capitol walls..

Now that phase 8 of the American civil war is thoroughly blatant, is it time, at last, to call it what it is? (Start ordering your blue-kepi 1865 caps now, for next Halloween!) Only then might the Blue Union do what it was forced to do, during other phases of this recurring, national fever.  Win.  Overwhelmingly.  Then, "with charity for all," resuming our ambitious role in remaking a better world.

Dear Professor Krugman – how to cut the libertarians’ leash

This week in Las Vegas, Freedom Fest will feature the “debate of the century!” pitting Keynsian economist and Nobelist Professor Paul Krugman against Steve Moore, supply-sider and Wall Street Journal columnist.  

(And here's a late news flash... Freedom Fest will also feature visits from Marco Rubio and... Donald Trump. See below where I explain why the Hijackers of Conservatism are so desperate to reach out to libertarians, and maintain a special effects fantasy-illusion that the two movements are somehow siblings.  Desperate, indeed.)

Let me start by saying Freedom Fest is way-fun!  I was invited to speak at last year’s event, and I found that my message – as a lonely acolyte of Adam Smith among fervid followers of Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard – was both rare and greeted with attentive respect. The Smith-Heinlein branch of libertarianism is rarely heard, nowadays, but I can think of few conclaves of political zealotry where a dissenting voice would be treated so courteously. Certainly not in gatherings of today's fervid far-left or today’s raving, fanatical entire-right.

I expect Professor Krugman – famed in sci fi circles more as an acolyte of Isaac Asimov, than for his Nobel – will be similarly welcomed. Though, if you look at the Freedom Fest web site, you can see that the masters of (hijacked) conservatism are pulling out the stops, sparing no expense or effort to keep libertarianism tethered, like a dog who is deeply unhappy, but cannot break the masters' leash.

Severing that chain was my own aim, last year. It is forged out of lies, misconceptions and manipulations… but also by the neglect of moderate liberals who have shrugged and assumed that outreach to libertarians will be a lost cause.  This is foolishness of the highest order. Especially since Adam Smith was the founder of both liberalism and libertarianism.

And hence, I wrote to Paul Krugman, offering him suggested “bullet points” for his upcoming debate with one of the front men for Rupert Murdoch and the ongoing attempted oligarchic putsch.  Points that truly strike home with sincere and openminded libertarians.

 Ways to make his debate less like a sumo match, in which the right always wins, through sheer obstinacy and mountains of cash… and more like judo, in which the right wing dinosaur must stumble over its own inconsistencies.

Alas, though we have exchanged correspondence, in the past, Krugman never answered me, this time.  Well, well. Famous people and all that.  I have a backup plan, then…

…to share my advice right here, publicly.  Hoping that the message somehow will get through.

== Judo tools for separating libertarians from the mad right ==

Dear Professor Krugman,

We’ve corresponded. I’m the astronomer/science fiction author who Janet and Robin Asimov asked to tie up Isaac’s loose ends in the Foundation universe, with my novel Foundation’s Triumph.  

I see you’ll debate Steven Moore at Freedom Fest, where I spoke last year, ministering to libertarians, a movement that’s been (alas) largely hijacked by oligarchy.  

May I offer suggestions? After years trying to draw out the Rand-Rothbard poison, I’ve discovered some effective counter-catechisms that you are welcome to use.

1) The word “competition” is key! It underpins the saner libertarianism of Adam Smith and Robert Heinlein, not the present cult’s substitute obsession with -- “propertarianism.”

When I point this out, the truly intelligent libertarians get guilty looks. They know these two words can be opposites!

All good things – oxygen, water, food... and property – become toxic when overly-concentrated. Smart libertarians know this. They suspect, inside, that the Murdochian hyperbole for utterly unlimited concentrations of economic power cannot be justified.

Propertarianism -- beloved of Forbes, Norquist, Murdoch and would-be feudal lords -- is opposite to the teachings of Smith and the American founders, who knew competition is only effective/creative when it is flat-open-fair. 

(The Founders seized and redistributed 1/3 of the land in the former colonies, for example, far more “leveling” than FDR ever tried.) 

Friedrich Hayek himself called for maximizing the number of knowledgable decision makers, which is not what you get when the economy is controlled by a secretive cabal of 3,000 mutually-conniving CEO golf-buddies.

Smith showed that competitive-creative arenas fail when cheaters can manipulate, as lords did in every feudal society for 6000 years. He despised feudalism far more than socialism. So why is no one using Adam Smith and “competition” against the right? I find it effective to juxtapose Smith against Rand, showing them to be opposites! With Rand's "lords" inevitably leading to feudalism's repetitiously boring and destructive song.

Were democrats to reclaim Smith, it could be a prodigious judo move. (See: Liberals Must Reclaim Adam Smith.)

Key to this… Steve Moore won’t expect it! Show that all GOP efforts -- especially Supply Side -- actually undermine competition. Top to bottom and in all ways. Today’s version of conservatism is the diametric opposite of libertarianism. At least Adam Smith’s kind.

2)  One relentless conservative meme is nostalgia, especially for the 1940s, 50s and 60s, when America was led by the stalwart "Greatest Generation." Only there's a rub. Our parents in the Greatest Generation adored one man above all others -- the very same person who moguls of the right now call antichrist. 

Our purported golden era of capitalism – the 1950s and 1960s – happened when FDR’s tax rates kept things flat-open-fair.  These are facts that demolish the nostalgia part of the right’s hypnotic mantra.

3) Refer to science fiction!  These geeks mostly love the stuff. (It’s why they invite me, even knowing I’ll diss their icons.) Talk about the future. Mention Heinlein, who was as much a liberal as a libertarian. Then ask why they ally themselves with the most reactionary, anti-science and anti-future forces in America.

4) “If this society is so awful, how come it made more libertarians than any other?” In fact, the more children of the poor and disadvantaged get healthy and educated, the more of them will become libertarians, too!

5) This one is potent. Yes, democrats and Keynsians want the state to help people… and yet, which party DE-regulates bloated government, more often?

Challenge them to name an industry the GOP - for all its ranting - ever actually de-regulated! Other than Wall Street/Finance and Resource Extraction – and those two exceptions only unleashed moguls to rape us all.

In contrast: when the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) became festered-captured wreckers of competition… Democrats abolished them!

And they deregulated Trucking, too. Or take Bill Clinton’s deregulation of the GPS system, freeing it for use by all. AT&T’s breakup ignited a golden age of cell-phone competition.

Above all, Al Gore’s bill unleashing the Internet was the greatest deregulation in history! Make them face that irony! Then demand to see the GOP's de-regulatory history, by comparison... and recall the Republicans owned every single lever of power from 2001 through 2007.  They passed anything they really cared about.  And deregulation got only lip service. Anyone who believes their promises, this time, is simply a fool.

6) Then ask why only blue states are backing away from the damned Drug War. This really makes libertarians sit up.

7) Distinguish between “liberals” and “leftists.” Yes, the latter can act crazy, supplying anecdotes for Fox to claim “Dems are even worse than Republicans! So come home to the GOP on election day you libertarians!”

But the DP is not run by its lefty radicals!  It is run by millions of moderates who want only to negotiate. (E.g. leftists may want “equalized outcomes” but liberals want all children uplifted to equal starting blocks for subsequent fair competition. A huge difference, and the reason why Adam Smith was “The First Liberal.”)

In contrast, the Republican Party is the most disciplined partisan force since 1865. (Use that word – disciplined – libertarians know it is true. And facing that truth about the GOP, they will recoil!) The so-called "differences" among GOP candidates are minuscule bits of meaningless theater. All of them repeat Roger Ailes talking points, daily. And Barry Goldwater is spinning now, at 5000 RPM. 

8) Just as "competition" is a better word to focus on than "propertarianism," so we need to address the current libertarian reflex that the word "government" is the sole and entire human sin.  

Sure, go ahead and have a reflex to hold that elite under suspicion!  (I share it!)  We need the libertarian  impulse to worry about Big Government, since that is one (but only one) of the possible ways Big Brother might arrive.

But also do look at 6000 years of human history. Recall that freedom and flat-fair competition and opportunity were repressed FAR more often by owner-oligarchies. Adam Smith recommended neutral civil servants as counters to the old, feudal sickness. 

Here is the plain fact: 
Bureaucrats can stifle flat-fair competition, if not carefully watched.  
Oligarchs always stifle flat-fair competition.

The reflex to always pour hate only at "government" (and on scientists) is being pushed by... can you guess who? That's right. Owner-oligarchs.

9) Sure, liberals and libertarians will always disagree.  We both want a better world than this one.  Libertarians think it will happen through unleashing the maximum number of free and empowered competitors into flat-fair-open markets. 

Guess what… so do liberals!  Where they differ is that liberals see a central need for committed investment… in infrastructure, education and public health... in order to maximize the number of 25 year olds who reach equal starting blocks in that flat-open-fair arena!  

And without the slightest doubt, many past Rooseveltean efforts have increased the fraction of kids reaching that free and confident readiness to compete.  Do you guys want to try some more market-oriented ways to eliminate poverty and disadvantage?  Great! Bring your plans to the table.  But remember, today's mad conservatism does everything in its power to destroy the negotiating table! 

(10) The crux:

a) Liberals are not leftists!  The latter want to equalize outcomes.  The former want just enough common action to ensure that talent is not wasted by poverty and so we'll get more equality of opportunity and starting blocks.  Sometimes this boundary is fuzzy and confused.  But in their hearts, liberals can be negotiated with, and even talked into ending obsolete programs. Liberals can be talked into emphasizing programs for the young and old and leaving adults much less coddled. Leftists make no such distinctions.

b) Libertarians are not right wingers!  Or, they wouldn’t be, if they remembered Adam Smith. If they recalled 6000 years of awful feudalism. If they weren’t suckered by propaganda financed by oligarchs and confederate fanatics.

If liberals and libertarians argued, debated fairly and negotiated, they might find surprising common ground. Overlaps that the mad-dogmatic far-left and the raving insane entire-right will never perceive.  But these distinctions need to be made, first. 

Paramount is this – libertarians must sever the oligarchy’s leash on their movement. Just look at the money that the oligarchy is spending, sending missionaries to Freedom Fest. They are terrified you all might wake up and rebel.

Libertarians must banish this notion that “I know the Republicans betray us, every time, but they are still home.”

No, they are not home.  

They are puppetmasters. 

Tell us they are ‘home’ when you can show us pro-freedom measures they ever took. 

All right. Guns. I’ll admit they talk more about guns. Talk. 

Meanwhile, it’s the dems who dissolved the CAB and ICC and ATT and unleashed GPS and the Internet and are ending the Drug War… and dems aren't even proposing much more than some tepid-tiny ideas about guns.  And scientists, the smartest folks alive, are fleeing the party of oligarchy as fast as they can.

Come on guys.  Look at actual facts.

Laugh at the oligarchic shills they keep sending to events like Freedom Fest. Tell them you won't be holding your nose and "coming home" in 2016.  The Murdochians need you in order to supply a gloss of intellect atop their heap of rationalizations for a return to feudalism.

The fellow you need to remember - and come home to - is a guy named Adam Smith.

====

Okay that's it.  My "capsule" list of talking points for libertarians.  Sorry, Professor Krugman. I know my input was unsolicited. And I know your own emphasis will be on pointing out that Supply Side (Voodoo) Economics has never been correct in its predictions -- not even once -- across 35 years, a track record that would have invalidated any theory based on science... 

...which is why the right hates science, so.

Still, do not miss this opportunity to reach out in other aspects. My own Freedom Fest experience suggests you might use some rhetorical jiu jitsu.  These polemical tools have been effective. I hope you’ll find use in one or two of them. Especially the contrast between "competition" and "propertarianism," in the contaxt of 10,000 years of feudalism.

Because these folks are worth the effort!  They represent a major streak in the American psyche... one of irascibly independent belief in the creative power of competition. These aren't fools, though oversimplification can make them seem foolish.

They are worth reaching out to, if only to help free them from the puppet masters who would end creative competition forever.

With cordial regards,

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

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*** ADDENDUM for the rest of you, out there:  Sorry, I can't help it.  I see that Glen Beck will be speaking at Freedom Fest.  OMG, the oligarchy truly is cranking up the message that "libertarians and right wingers are cousins! We bicker but we're the same team!" They are terrifed the "libertarian wing" of the GOP may bolt.

Glen Beck.  Eep. I am hoping someone in Beck's audience will draw him out on just one of the ten thousand limbs of deceit that Savanarola has regularly spun. This one is a doozy.

"Mr. Beck, you claim that George Soros is a really scary guy.  So devilishly clever and manipulative that he personally toppled eight foreign governments. Is Soros still worrisome?"

That is just part 1 of the question. It's purpose: getting Beck to scoot down the branch with a fervid rant about Soros.  But the audience questioner should then ask this followup:

"Mr. Beck, not one person in your TV audience... nor a single person at Fox, where they endlessly repeated your truisms about Soros... has ever asked about those eight foreign governments the scary George Soros 'toppled.'  That dittohead failure of curiosity is what I now want to correct.

"Would you now please NAME THEM FOR US? Right now, please NAME the eight foreign governments that George Soros personally toppled?"

Oh, to be there, with a phone cam aimed at Beck's face, when this happens!  Please, oh please someone do this and record it? 

Because yes! George Soros did help to topple eight foreign governments. It's true! On this one occasion, Glen Beck didn't lie!

Only when those "eight toppled foreign govenrments are named - when you stare at the list, in stunned, ironic amazement - you will all despise yourselves for ever having ever listened to a word shouted by Glen Beck or the Fox shills.  You will never again heed a further word they say.  And you will learn the value of asking followup questions. The value of science.

So what is on the Congressional plate?

== Outcomes in Question ==

I frequently demand of our friends who are still loyal Republicans to name any positive, assertive steps that the party of Bush and Cheney will actually attempt to accomplish, now that they control both houses of Congress. 

Nu? Repeal Obamacare? Puh-lease.  The GOP leadership never wanted it repealed, since it is their own… damn… plan -- cloned from Heritage plans, Romney-care, Gingrichcare and the GOP platform.  They just want to yell and pretend, while letting it work.

Seriously, I ask again! Given that every GOP-run Congress since 1996 scored among the laziest and least productive in the nation’s history, what’s on their agenda now?

Deregulation?  Republicans sure do talk and talk about that! So is it strange that, despite many periods when they held every rein of power, they have only ever deregulated one industry? Wall Street/Finance (with results we all know)?

By comparison, dems have deregulated eight. I listed them elsewhere: (e.g. the ICC, CAB, ATT, and the Freaking INTERNET...)

Oh, Republicans like to NIBBLE deregulate.  Never eliminating bureaucracies, but reducing their effectiveness. Now they want to retract their own "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) and weaken its testing standards, leaving each test to the state. Why? 

Because All the red states (except Utah and somewhat Texas) are doing worse in student testing than predicted, because their schools have been torched. They test far worse than most Blue States and it's getting worse(r) daily. NCLB teststing lays out the embarrassment clear, so they must now abandon their own baby...

== At last, a sincere deregulation by the GOP? ==

Oh, but patience is rewarded! Suddenly, among Republican leaders, there is talk about a great big, bad regulatory target! Actually repealing and eliminating an actual bureaucracy!

  The Export Import Bank...

...which helps US companies to compete with mercantilist exporters like China. Okay but can we afford it when times are tight and when deficits are, er, um... steeply declining?

Okay, then, Mr. Boehner. What's the bottom line here?  How much is the EIB costing us?

Fact check: the EIB regularly pays billions in profits to the U.S. Treasury, having only lost money in one year out of the last 30.  

Please dig that again. The EIB both expands U.S. exports and makes a profit for the taxpayer. But suddenly the USEIB is the devil! How can that be? Why is the EIB the GOP's top target... since they "deregulated" away the Congressional Office of Science and Technology Assessment?

Because the tech companies that the EIB mostly benefits are generally democratic-leaning while the GOP-leaning corporations — in finance and resource (theft) extraction — don’t use the USEIB much.

Give it a read. And yes, I am impressed that the laziest and most corrupt politicians in US history actually have lifted their gaze to want to actually do something!  Something wrongheaded, venial and dumb. But something.

== About that "lazy" accusation ==

Already the House leadership has begun setting expectations, making clear they plan to blame President Obama for the coming two years of Congressional noise and inaction. They know folks have started noticing that...

... recent GOP Congresses have been the laziest in US history, holding the fewest hearings and introducing the fewest bills since 1792. Despite all their anger they have even issued among the lowest numbers of subpoenas!  Without the utterly banal/trivial Benghazi and IRS probes? Almost none at all.

Just to be clear.  For 6 years, under G.W. Bush, the Republican Party (and the Murdoch-Koch-Adelson-Saudi owners) controlled ALL branches of the US government.  They could have done anything on their agenda, anything at all. 

What did they give us? Two trillion dollar wars, a tsunami tax gift for the uber-rich that achieved zero supply-side aims, deregulation of Banking/WallStreet (leading to disaster)… plus Medicare Part D, the only entitlement that passed with zero provision for paying for it.  NAME ONE OTHER major action taken by the GOP during the long stretch when they had total power.

It’s one thing to be crazy, dogmatic servants of oligarchy with a long list of social-political grievances.  It is another thing to yammer your grievances endlessly — while being too lazy to lift a finger about any of them.

== Their one positive-assertive agenda item ==

Any positives? Certainly not the Infrastructure Bill to repair 10,000 decaying bridges and put 100,000 men to work, generating high velocity, demand side economic activity. If that had passed 3 years ago, we'd be all the way into a boom, by now, and the results of the last election... oh, I get it. Pretty clever, guys. Treason. But clever.

Keystone. That's it. The only positive-assertive thing. Keystone! Subsidize petro zillionaires to ship Canadian tar over the most vulnerable and precious agricultural aquifer in the world and stink our air, to they can ship it to China... and what's OUR cut? Zero.

But at least Keystone is positive assertive!  

Now name one other positive assertive item. One. even one.  Just one.

== Anything else? ==

A large number of newly elected Republican Senators intend to vote to eliminate the food stamps program. Is this news item faked?  Well... in fact it comes from one of the many "satire" sites that simply do not understand one of the rules of true satire... do not call "satire" a story that is entirely plausible.  It's just not funny. 

Meanwhile, U.S. healthcare spending grew 3.6 percent in 2013, the slowest rate on record since 1960, federal health officials reported Wednesday.

== Guaranteed NOT to be on the agenda ==

2014 is in the running to be the hottest year globally on record, according to the latest data from the Japan Meteorological Agency.... the previous record years of 1998, 2005 and 2010 will be overtaken by a narrow margin.

Oh, by the way.... “The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Retreating at a Much Higher Rate Than Previously Thought."

The only way to ignore all this is to join the cult of “scientists are sniveling liar/cheater/coward/lemmings — ALL of them! Who scrabble after “grants” that one side does NOT have to list or point to or document.  Because vague is good!  As is belittling the smartest, wisest and most competitive humans our species ever produced.”

== My own top priority ==

Okay so now Ted (Joe McCarthy's clone) Cruz heads the committee overseeing NASA? Ooooog. My own priority it adamant. Mr. Obama stop letting them attach lunacies to must-pass budget extensions. (The GOP Congress has not passed an ACTUAL budget in ages.) Me? I'd veto every single thing till they reinstate the Congressional Office of Science and Technology Assessment. Destroying OTA was the smoking gun that this was no longer Barry Goldwater's GOP.

It is the biggest Know-Nothing movement since the 1840s.

(Join the petition to restore West Virginia's science standards in schools. http://www.wvsta.org )

 == Krugman on the Economy ==

Paul Krugman explains How Soaring Inequality May Lead the World Down the Path to Fascism: Whether your reflexes are "left" or "right," you should be disturbed by the picture painted here, and willing to ponder it.  You conservatives, when do you picture the ideal hey-day of capitalism that delivers for everyone? The fifties and sixties?  Certainly our parents in the Greatest Generation delivered one thing - a stunningly rapid rate of middle class growth, a burst of wealth and education that their children then used, to break old habits like racism, sexism etc.  The left is insane to ignore that it was wealth and middle class well-being that fostered those reforms...

...but the right is even crazier, to ignore cause and effect -- that capitalism was at its flattest, healthiest, fairest and most productive under regulatory and tax regimes instituted by the Greatest Generation's favorite person, the man they adored above all others, but whom Fox and its Murdochian-Saudi owners want you to envision as Satan.

          Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In contrast, for close to thirty years, Republicans have told us..."Tax-break gifts to the rich will make EVERYONE rich and erase government deficits!"  Supply Side Voodoo Economics (SSVE) has been tried over and over, and not ONE prediction ever came true -- and did  I mention not ever?  Scientists know what to make of such a theory... which is why the Right now wages war on science.

You liberals, use this.  Hammer it. Flat-open-fair capitalism is one of the main VICTIMS of the current oligarchic putsch.  Study Adam Smith, who founded liberalism AND libertarianism. And stop listening to your mad leftist allies.  FDR saved us from both insanities, communism and fascism. Focus on him and on Smith, and you can demolish the Fox-oligarch bullshit mountain.

see:

Liberals Must Reclaim Adam Smith.