Super Congress To The Rescue (But Not Ours)

I never liked the idea of this SuperCongress or congressional SuperCommittee to sit down and decide our fate as a nation from the first time it was proposed as part of a "compromise," a compromise that could only lead us to another advance for the Conservative Consensus imposition of an Austerity Regime on the United States. It certainly was never meant to lead to what Americans would like to see happen. Corrupt wingnut Jeb Hensarling's kind of serious bipartisan work (above) shows what the GOP has in mind. Boehner picked him and two other right-wing Austerity fanatics-- and Miss McConnell picked 3 as well.

It was obvious from the beginning that all we needed was for Reid or Pelosi to give us just one so-called "serious compromiser"-- along the lines of Democrats playing softball and Republicans playing hardball-- and the game would be over before it started. Reid gave us three-- Kerry, Murray and Baucus, all seriously conflicted Establishment types. I heard EJ Dionne on MSNBC this week advocating that Pelosi pick "a real liberal" (he mentioned Schakowsky who abandoned the public option at the drop of a hankie and said she would have voted FOR the Satan Sandwich if her vote had been needed) and a serious moderate (Hoyer). I wonder why no one Inside-the-Beltway can figure out that if there are 12 members of the SuperCongress, and the 6 Republicans are all hard-line, anti-compromise fanatics, even one Democratic schnook is too many.


Admittedly Reid didn't have much to choose from, given the kind of human waste that populates the U.S. Senate, but he would have sent a very different message if he had chosen a trio with records of standing up for the legitimate aspirations of working families, Bernie Sanders, Tom Harkin and Jeff Merkley, for example. I guess we can be happy he didn't give us McCaskill, a Nelson or Manchin but, in effect, he certainly could have because, other than the theatrics, it's the EXACT same thing-- the transpartisan Conservative Consensus again.

At this point it really makes no difference who Pelosi puts on the SuperCongress. The die is cast with intransigent anti-family sociopaths like Kyl, Toomey, and Portman, who oversaw a doubling of deficits while at Bush's OMB, from the Senate Republicans and, Hensarling, Camp, and Upton courtesy of Boehner. All six, of course, swore their ultimate fidelity to Grover Norquist and his anti-tax/drown the government in a bathtub pledge.

So just at a time when the rest of the world is starting to realize that Austerity is the WRONG answer-- while Wall Street and the international "let them eat cake" plutocracy doubles down on it-- the U.S. is rushing headlong into an agenda that will destroy what's ever left of our country's social cohesion. You can only push people so far-- and only steal so many elections-- before they react... in a way that gets out of hand and uncontrollable.

In the eyes of the financial markets, Britain was supposed to be a model of successful, sustainable austerity and a safe haven in which the world's rich could buy houses and stash their savings.

The riots that turned London and some other English cities upside down this week have undermined that model, raising questions about the sustainability of spending cuts and a widening gap between rich and poor.

From many of the dealing rooms and offices in the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, traders, wealth managers and analysts could see billowing smoke in several directions this week as rioters torched buildings and looted shops.

Order was restored in the capital at least on Tuesday night with a massive show of force by police, but they too face the drastic spending cuts that will affect everything from the military to social benefits and inner-city services.

Britain's coalition government says it remains committed both to cutting a record budget deficit and staying in power until elections due by 2015.

Investors have always had mixed feelings about austerity. They want the British government to tackle the huge deficit to slow its accumulation of debt. But they also fear that cuts will push the economy back into recession, hitting corporate earnings and tax income while raising social spending costs and actually pushing the country deeper into debt.

Nevertheless, they had generally compared British determination to cut the deficit favorably with the indecision or infighting paralyzing much policy-making in the euro zone and United States. Now, they are not so sure.

"If you'd asked me at the weekend, I would have said that with the problems of the euro zone and U.S., (Britain's) sterling (currency) might be poised to become an appealing safe haven," said Simon Derrick, head of foreign exchange at the London branch of Bank of New York Mellon.

As he spoke, from his dealing room Derrick could still see smoke on the horizon from a distant burning warehouse. "This has certainly shaken that... it's probably still too soon to say what it means for policy, but it certainly makes austerity look more difficult."

The short-term market impact looks to have been limited. Derrick said U.S. media coverage of the London riots prompted a modest sell-off in the pound late on Tuesday, but markets have largely shrugged off the violence.

...Some countries such as Latvia and Ireland have pushed through massive cuts with relatively little unrest but not everyone can pull off the same trick. The British riots could point to similar risks in other European and U.S. cities as cuts start to bite.

...Speaking to Reuters late on Tuesday, looters and other local people in east London pointed to the wealth gap as the underlying cause, also blaming what they saw as police prejudice and a host of recent scandals.

Spending cuts were now hitting the poorest hardest, they said, and after tales of politicians claiming excessive expenses, alleged police corruption and bankers getting rich it was their turn to take what they wanted.

..."Across Europe, we've already seen some incidence of civil unrest," she said, saying it would almost inevitably impact policy. "There's definitely a likelihood that similar scenes might erupt when austerity cuts really start to be felt."

UPDATE: PELOSI ADDS... NOTHING MUCH

She named 3 loyal leadership lieutenants. Xavier Becerra is the best of the three. Clyburn's OK for a garden variety Democrat and Van Hollen isn't completely horrible. Becerra even voted against the Satan Sandwich.