Trump’s Psychopathology and the Government Shutdown

-by Helen Klein

What is becoming increasingly clear is that despite Dr. Ronny Jackson’s gushing superlatives about Trump’s clean bill of health that extend beyond the physical, Trump’s personality make up and his mental/cognitive functioning are dead center in this shutdown mess. All arrows point to Trump. Now that the Republicans have hit a wall with Trump during the negotiations, even they are being forced to recognize his impairments in judgment and decision making, although of course they won’t do anything about it. They cannot help but realize with increasing disgust that they cannot control him, nobody can control him and he is one sick and crazy dude. Hello!

Is Graham going to make another about turn in his view of Trump? Compare his quote from February 2016, “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office,” to his quote in November 2017, “What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label [Trump] some kind of kook not fit to be president.” He may soon need to eat those words.

Dr. Jackson’s findings and conclusions regarding Trump’s recent physical were discussed in a DWT post a few days ago, The Physical, by this author.

Kurtz, who worked at The Post from 1981 to 2010, writes that Trump’s aides even privately coined a term for Trump’s behavior-- “Defiance Disorder.” The phrase refers to Trump’s seeming compulsion to do whatever it is his advisers are most strongly urging against, leaving his team to handle the fallout.

Dana Milbank, in his January 17 editorial in the Washington Post, “Is Trump’s Doctor Okay?” was “alarmed, not about the President’s health but the doctor’s.”

And not just his heart! The doctor rhapsodized about Trump’s vision, his stamina (“more energy than just about anybody”) and above all his mental acuity, which, Jackson made sure to note, he examined only “because the president asked me to.” Trump is “very sharp, and he’s very articulate... Very, very sharp, very intact... Absolutely no cognitive or mental issues whatsoever... The president did exceedingly well.”

From "The Physical:"

In conclusion, while Trump’s basic general health appears satisfactory, Jackson’s presentation of the findings leaves much to be desired and is alarming to many. His use of over the top superlatives was unwarranted and uncalled for. His conclusions about Trump’s mental, cognitive and language skills are well beyond that indicated from a routine physical and appear misleading, unethical, unprofessional and even untrustworthy. Unfortunately, Jackson gives the impression of being a political lackey rather than a professional doctor of medicine. This is worrisome. One wonders if there were any findings he is hiding.

On Twitter, Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone and Matt Damon humorously questioned even the factual aspects of the findings.

Here are some excerpts from Gail Collins’ January 17 editorial in the New York Times, Donald Trump Gets His Sanity Grades:

Donald Trump has passed his mental test. This may come as either a relief or a shock.

But the big news was the mental test. Trump took something called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and got a perfect score. Not perhaps the highest bar possible, unless you were concerned about whether he can identify pictures of animals and draw hands on a clock. But the test can be useful if there is, for some reason, concern that the subject is suffering from... um, dementia.

But about the president’s mental report. It didn’t measure judgment, and there was no score to indicate whether the test-taker would, if faced with a question of what to do about immigration policy, change his position 12 times in 24 hours. Whether he would confide to several million Twitter followers that the country “needs a good shutdown”? Whether he thinks of himself as a “very stable genius.”

Maybe Jackson could have given him a passing grade without going so far over the deep end. Something like: “Identified the camel picture, and no problems you could lock him up for.”

So here we are. Our current president is in O.K. physical condition and has “absolutely no cognitive or mental issues whatsoever.” The doctor says so. And really, he’s doing better than Woodrow Wilson, his jaw is intact and everything’s fine, unless you count a terrible attention deficit disorder and rampaging narcissism as mental issues. If so, they don’t come up on that test with the camel.

Up top you can watch Saturday Night Live's lovely skit about Dr. Jackson. Hopefully heron't be a recurring character.

Mental and cognitive issues and jokes aside, the bottom line in this shutdown mess is Trump’s psychiatric issues. These have been described in the media by a variety of professionals and were also reviewed in a previous DWT post. Concern in this realm is really nothing new, but it keeps getting buried in importance. Now it is raising its ugly head and is an unavoidable aspect of the mess we are in.

Trump has a mental disorder, Dr. Jackson. While an assessment along these lines is not part of a routine physical, you had no professional basis for any statement ruling this out.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a key player here, which Howard Dean noted last week on Lawrence O’Donnell’s The Last Word on MSNBC. Even a superficial glance at the designated features listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- Fifth Edition, the bible for mental health professionals, reflects a slam dunk for Trump – he meets all 9 features, well beyond the required 5 for the diagnosis.

Here is a refresher to remind everyone what we are dealing with:

Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The definition of NPD states that it comprises of a persistent manner of grandiosity, a continuous desire for admiration, along with a lack of empathy. It starts by early adulthood and occurs in a range of situations, as signified by the existence of any 5 of the next 9 standards (American Psychiatric Association, 2013):

• A grandiose logic of self-importance
• A fixation with fantasies of infinite success, control, brilliance, beauty, or idyllic love
• A credence that he or she is extraordinary and exceptional and can only be understood by, or should connect with, other extraordinary or important people or institutions
• A desire for unwarranted admiration
• A sense of entitlement
• Interpersonally oppressive behavior
• No form of empathy
Resentment of others or a conviction that others are resentful of him or her
• A display of egotistical and conceited behaviors or attitudes

A summary of the features is helpful:

The most important characteristics of NPD are grandiosity, seeking excessive admiration, and a lack of empathy. These identifying features can result in a negative impact on an individual’s interpersonal affairs and life general. In most cases, on the exterior, these patients act with an air of right and control, dismissing others, and frequently showcasing condescending or denigrating attitudes. Nevertheless, internally, these patients battle with strong feelings of low self esteem issues and inadequacy. Even though the typical NPD patient may achieve great achievements, ultimately their functioning in society can be affected as these characteristics interfere with both personal and professional relationships. A large part of this is as result of the NPD patient being incapable of receiving disapproval or rebuff of any kind, in addition to the fact that the NPD patient typically exhibits lack of empathy and overall disrespect for others.

Malignant Narsissism, while not an official DSM-5 category, zeros in on other factors affecting Trump’s recalcitrant stance and blatant unconcern about the shutdown. Trump has no conscience. He thrives on causing disorder, mayhem and destruction. He gets a kick out of others’ misery. Now he has the power of the Office of the President to create chaos on a YUGE scale. Sad to say, he may be finding this reinforcing. The only downside for him is that he had to miss the one-year celebration party in Florida. Naturally, this was held anyway to rake in lots of bucks.

Malignant narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial behavior, aggression, and sadism. Often grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines families and organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate.

All Aboard! by Nancy Ohanian

This description is particulary noteworthy regarding Trump. He is certainly raising hostility levels, undermining our institutions and demeaning those around him.

To distinguish between narcissist and malignant narcissist:

A narcissist will deliberately damage other people in pursuit of their own selfish desires, but may regret and will in some circumstances show remorse for doing so, while a malignant narcissist will harm others and enjoy doing so, showing little empathy or regret for the damage they have caused.

Unfortunately, Trump appears to fit the latter description.

Furthermore, Eric Fromm, the social psychologist who coined the term Malignant Narcissism in 1964, described it as a “severe mental illness” representing “the quintessence of evil” and “the most severe pathology and the root of the most vixious destructiveness and inhumanity.” The British psychoanalysist, Herbert Rosenfield, decribed this condition as “a disturbing form of narcissistic personality where grandiosity is built around aggression and the destructive aspects of the self become idealized.”

Trump has never been held accountable for his behavior so why should he be now? Frankly, HE DOES NOT GIVE A SHIT. He has demonstrated over and over that he does not care about our country, our democracy, our institutions, the American people or the planet for that matter. He only cares about himself. He seems to enjoy denigrating others and take pleasure in their suffering. He is clearly a RACIST who has no compassion whatsoever for the Dreamers-- as far as he is concerned, they could be shipped back to whereever (aka their “shithole” countries). And he has Miller and Cotton, two evil anti-immigrant racists, whispering in his ear to keep him on track lest he be influenced in another direction. He has extremist minders keeping him in their clutches. They will likely hover at any future meetings.

A brief look at his behavioral history stemming from childhood is notable. He punched his second grade teacher in the face! His father sent him to military school because of his unruly uncontrollable behavior. He appears to have had Conduct Disorder, another DSM-5 category. Trump has always has been a bully who has bulldozed his way into adulthood using threats and intimidation. He has never kept his promises-- he has cheated a long trail of contractors and workers without the slightest guilt. He has shown no morality or ethics and a complete disregard for the law. And he has always gotten away with it! To him, scoffing at rules has been highly effective and this has become his M.O. He has NEVER been held accountable for his criminal shenanigans. What are a few fines here and there (e.g., $25 million for Trump University)? (One question that arises is - how has he managed to snub the justice system and the IRS for his extensive money laundering, which has apparently been going on for decades? This does not say much for our justice system).

Trump has a low bar for whom he associates with-- he is loyal to no one. All he cares about is how he will personally benefit from relationships. “He sucks up and shits down.” He was in bed with the Italian mafia for many years-- this is covered in a documentary film by the Dutch, for one-- and later with the Russian mafia for more than a decade. As Simpson from Fusion testified to the House Intelligence Committee, the Russian mafia, the Russian security services and the Russian government are all entwined and headed by Putin. Many Russians danced at Trump’s Inaugural balls. The extensive list of the folks surrounding Trump in the White House as well as many of his appointees SCREAM of Russia. Does he care one whit about being a traitor? He has shown over and over that he does not. He carries on about The Wall but not about Russian interference in our democracy, the greatest threat to our security in history. Trump admires Putin and loves Russia!

Trump is likely running around the White House rubbing his hands with glee about the shutdown. Too bad Wolff is no longer there to supply us with some juicy quotes. Trump has stated that what our country needs is “a good shutdown.” He loves confrontations. He loves blowing things up. He never backs down. He loves sticking it to others in the face. Malignant narcissism is written all over this. Putin must be laughing his head off. Trump has brought us down. He is destroying our government one tantrum at a time.

Trump does not even care about his positions on much of anything, which shift back and forth with the wind. This weekend Schumer said that negotiating with Trump is like negotiating with “Jell-O.” Even McConnell said he has no clue what Trump wants. Trump enjoys keeping everyone guessing and on tenderhooks. He is the all powerful, the master of the universe. His ego is on steroids.

His ignorance is YUGE. He does not read, he does not listen, he does not attend, he does not process. His speech is off topic and incoherent, a “word salad.” He makes Sarah Palin look like an orator. Trump may well have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and a Language Disorder (some indications of a language disorder are reduced vocabulary (word knowledge and use), limited sentence structure (e.g., ability to put words and endings together to form sentences based on the rules of grammar) and impairments of discourse (e.g., ability to use vocabulary and connect sentences to explain or describe a topic or series of events).

Thus Trump appears to be a man with many clinical diagnoses. He thrives on chaos and consults only himself in the mirror, as he knows better than everyone. He has no idea of the costs, human or financial, of a shutdown that may continue for weeks. And as long as he does not personally have to pay for it out of his own pocket, he does not care. He continues to enrich himself on our dime. He is thrilled that there is a domestic crisis. He loves being the center of attention, and that he surely is. His delusions of grandeur are our reality.

It seems doubtful that Trump will back down or that the right wingers in the House will either.

In a January 17 piece, Trump’s Enablers Destroy Their Reputations for Nothing, Brian Buetler writes:

In this world, they (McConnell and Ryan) are too ineffectual and paralyzed by fear of Trump’s outbursts to negotiate with Democrats in good faith, even when they know they need Democratic votes to keep the government from shutting down.

After a year of abdicating their constitutional obligations on Trump’s behalf, he returns the favor by making routine governance impossible.

The precise mechanisms are different, but in one respect, they’re suffering the same fate as Graham. Like him, they put a career’s worth of political cache on the line for Trump without condition, and in both cases he flushed it unblinkingly down the shithole.

It seems we will be in shutdown mode for a long haul. I hope I am wrong.

Gail Collins probes into "Sunny John" Boehner's "thinking" on immigration -- and she has a quiz!

"Well, we got a lot of things on our plate."

-- "Sunny John" Boehner, quoted by Gail Collins
in her NYT column "Boehner on Fantasy Island"

by Ken

We like to pop in occasional pop quizzes, and so, it seems, does NYT columnist Gail Collins. Her subject today is a gentleman who scarcely needs any introduction, a gentleman who, at least by the standards of the scurvy gang known as the House Republican caucus, which he nominally leads, isn't as hopeless in the matter of immigration reform and the American melting pot as one might assume. Or wasn't entirely hopeless, up until Thursday, when he --

pretty much tossed the idea of immigration reform over a railing. This was a metaphorical railing and not the one that the congressman from Staten Island threatened to throw a reporter over.

But it's sad. The immigration bill that was passed by the Senate last year would have done a lot of good, both in giving millions of undocumented residents a better life and in rationalizing the way we decide who gets to come here legally and who doesn't.

"For a while," Gail notes, "it looked as if the House was going to pass a modest version of the same."

But that was long ago. Back, um, last week. That was when the Republicans came up with a series of principles for reform during a group retreat. Principles that, Boehner said, "our members by and large support, put together by the leadership team. And they believe it."

He made that last comment Thursday, about three seconds before he announced that nothing was going to happen.

Which brings Gail to her Pop Quiz.

Complete the following sentence: John Boehner dropped the plan to pass immigration reform in 2014, and blamed his sudden, abrupt, U-turn on:

A) The people who closed down the George Washington Bridge without Gov. Chris Christie ever knowing a single thing about it.

B) Russian oligarchs.

C) Justin Bieber.

D) President Obama.

"Yes!" Gail proclaims. "Everybody got this one right!" And before we go on, I'm going to give you one last chance to change your answer in case you didn't think it through. And where "Sunny John" Boehner is concerned, "thinking through" is hardly an in-depth activity.

Are you sure of your answer? Okay, let's continue.

John Boehner says the House Republicans won't pass the plan they came up with last week because Barack Obama ruined everything.

Nobody out there picked (A), (B), or (C), did they? (I just wanted to be sure.) The operative quote from Mr. D came at a press conference,:

Listen, there's widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws. And it's going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes.

Which prompts Gail to "consider the Obama administration's record on enforcing immigration laws."

Under this president, half of all federal crime prosecution involves immigration crime. The government now spends more on enforcing immigration laws than it spends on the F.B.I., Drug Enforcement Administration, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combined.

We have more than 650 miles of fencing along the Mexican border. Plus, don't forget all the drones. And 21,391 border patrol agents. Given the plummeting numbers of people actually trying to illegally cross into the country, let us hope that a lot of those agents are good at meditation.

A sizable chunk of Obama's own base is furious over the all-time high rate of deportations -- nearly two million so far in his tenure and way ahead of the record of George W. Bush. The government now automatically goes through the fingerprints of people who are arrested and sifts out the ones who are here illegally.

Immigrant advocates say the system breaks up families and viciously punishes people who may be guilty of nothing more than a minor traffic violation. The administration says it's all about targeting the real criminals. This is an argument we need to continue, but, however it turns out, the answer is not going to be that Barack Obama refused to enforce the immigration laws.

Hmm, so it appears that Sunny Johns "thinking" (for want of a better word) on the subject may have gone a tad deeper than I suggested. Or maybe that he was just lying. "So what do you think John Boehner's real motive is for dropping immigration reform?" Gail asks.

Do you think his members are worried that if illegal immigrants get a path to citizenship, they'll use their franchise to vote Democratic? ("G.O.P. Crafts Plan to Wreck the Country, Lose Voters," said the headline in a blog from the ever-popular Ann Coulter.)

Maybe the House is just short of time. There's a post office somewhere that needs renaming, and Obamacare to repeal.
"Well, we got a lot of things on our plate," said Boehner. He mentioned fixing Medicare payments for doctors and flood insurance. That's one heck of an agenda, but maybe they could fit in just a little more by expanding their 2014 schedule beyond the current 97 more working days.

"Too hypothetical," she says. And she harks back to the beginning of the column, where she suggested that Sunny John "has his good moments," like "when he brushes off a question by saying: 'If ands and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas.' " She always enjoys this, she says.

But she warns, press the speaker on this real agenda, "and he'll feel obliged to tell you about candy and nuts again."

#

Gail Collins on Chris Christie's Internet gambling vision: "This cannot possibly be a step in the right direction"

"Earlier this year, Governor Christie signed a bill legalizing Internet gambling in New Jersey. The idea was to help resuscitate the Atlantic City economy and raise a projected $150 million in tax revenue. Very few people believe the state will really make that much, but the number did help Christie to run for re-election waving what appeared to be a balanced budget."

-- Gail Collins, in her NYT column
"Candy Crush and Mr. Christie"

by Ken

Gail Collins, it seems, has some forebodings about the sociopolitical vision of a certain governor of a state tucked between New York and Pennsylvania, and she comes to it via an avowedly embarrassing confession of her addiction to an iPad-iPhone game called Candy Crush.

It’s been played about 150 billion times over the past year. There is no reward for winning; you just advance to another level in an ever-growing chain of chocolate mountains and lemonade lakes.

I told you this was embarrassing. I used to be addicted to playing BrickBreaker on my cellphone, and I now recall those days as my own personal version of Athens in the Age of Pericles.

Now I'll leave you to read about Gail's and her sister Mary Ann's Candy Crush passion.

Here’s the thing. Candy Crush is free, but if you get stuck on a level, you can purchase extra moves, extra turns, extra weapons. The creators — a London-based company called King — won’t reveal how much money they make on this gimmick, but the consulting firm Think Gaming estimates it’s more than $900,000 a day.

Which prompts from Gail the question: "What would people do if they actually had a chance of winning something?" Which brings us, she says, to the governor of New Jersey.

Earlier this year, Governor Christie signed a bill legalizing Internet gambling in New Jersey. The idea was to help resuscitate the Atlantic City economy and raise a projected $150 million in tax revenue. Very few people believe the state will really make that much, but the number did help Christie to run for re-election waving what appeared to be a balanced budget.

The law went into effect a few weeks ago. Now, state residents can go online, create an account with one of the sponsoring casinos, and gamble on all the casino games — blackjack, poker, slot machines, etc. — in the comfort of their homes.

How many of you think this is a good plan?

So far, New Jerseyites have created more than 90,000 casino accounts even though many banks and credit card companies are wary of getting involved. You know that it’s quickly going to get easier and easier to play, and that more and more states will want to get in the act, sniffing those new tax dollars.

“This reminds me of the early ’90s when Iowa introduced the first riverboat casino. Within weeks Illinois started its own legislation and soon the river was loaded with competitors,” said Earl Grinols, an economist at Baylor University who has written on gambling issues. Nevada and Delaware already have limited Internet gambling. Congress is looking at bills to create a national Internet gambling system, some of them proposed by Tea Party conservatives.

Fighting to stem the tide, we have the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, financed by Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner, who told Forbes his “moral standard compels me to speak,” and that he is prepared to spend “whatever it takes” to keep casino gambling out of people’s bedrooms. (This is the same guy who promised last year to spend “whatever it takes” to defeat Barack Obama.) Lined up on the other side are big casino owners like MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment, as well as Donald Trump, Person With His Name on a Casino.

The whole idea of Internet gambling is enough to make you question the potential of Chris Christie for national office. There is no possible way the country could be improved by giving people a greatly expanded freedom to gamble for money in their pajamas. Some day in the near future, you may look back nostalgically on the time when your grandfather did not have a slot machine connection in his bedroom.

“Slot machines are the crack cocaine of gambling,” said Grinols.

Which brings Gail to the conclusion:

This cannot possibly be a step in the right direction. I speak from the experience of a person who spent $32 last month buying extra turns for a game that involves moving bits of candy around an iPad. Just because it was there.

#

The Turner Diaries

If you're not a reader of the Hollywood Reporter you probably missed Thursday's brilliant OpEd by actress and activist Kathleen Turner: I've Had Enough. I serve with Kathleen on the board of People For the American Way and have found her to be an inspiration for many years. Her passion for equality is infectious and uplifting.

Oh, please.

I would have thought by now that I wouldn’t be reading news stories about a "who’s who of the next generation of Republican Party leaders"-- all men-- running around trying to enact a national ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

I had hoped I wouldn’t see another photo of a male governor, surrounded by smiling men, signing a bill forbidding counselors from even discussing abortion with rape survivors.

Or another, who had promised women in his state that he wouldn’t pass any more abortion restrictions, sneaking through an effort to close clinics in a motorcycle safety law.

I would have thought that at least most members of the House of Representatives would have learned the basic facts of reproduction, for instance that rape can in fact result in pregnancy.

A question I have been longing to ask-- Who the hell are you to tell me what I can do with my body?

Instead of making progress in cementing women’s rights to control our own bodies and our own futures, it feels these days like we’re sliding back down the long hill that we had to climb in the first place.

That’s why it was so exhilarating to watch Texas firebrand Wendy Davis literally stand up for 12 hours on behalf of women in her state… and so predictably deflating to have her filibuster stopped by men who literally refused to let her speak.

The Guttmacher Institute counts 43 new restrictions on reproductive rights in just the first six months of this year. A new report from People For the American Way outlines some of the most common ways right-wing politicians are trying to cut down on women’s access to reproductive care. They range from devious (laws like the new one in North Carolina that seek to close abortion clinics by regulating them out of existence) to just plain offensive (unenforceable bans on “race- and sex-selective” abortions).

Thank the Lord for the Wendy Davises of the world. Because everywhere that right-wing male politicians are trying to roll back the rights of women, progressive women legislators are there to speak up against them. I think of Lucy Flores, a Nevada Assemblywoman, who had the courage to speak of her own experience with abortion when she argued on behalf of comprehensive sex education in schools-- and was met with death threats. I think of the African-American women legislators in Florida who walked out of the statehouse when conservative lawmakers dared to compare black women who choose abortions to the Ku Klux Klan.

40 years after Roe v. Wade, we’re still fighting for the right to control our own bodies and to make our voices heard. But we sure won’t go down quietly. In last year’s presidential and Senate elections, women sent an unequivocal signal that we won’t be messed with. A new NARAL poll in Virginia finds that gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli’s regressive anti-woman policies are more than enough to turn women out to vote.

Let’s make sure that when we go to vote, we aren’t just voting against whatever backwards policies conservatives are pushing. Let’s vote for leaders like Wendy Davis and Lucy Flores, people who know what it’s like to be marginalized and won’t back down from fighting back.

I'd like to add to her list of women willing to stand up and fight against self-satisfied patriarchal-minded men, New Jersey state Senator Barbara Buono who has spent her entire career fighting men like these and has now taken on the uphill battle of fighting media-darling Chris Christie in his reelection battle. He is as aggressively anti-Choice and anti-equality as he can get away with. And yet the media remains asleep to the dangers-- or eager for a "good fight" in 2016 pitting Hillary Clinton against Christie, the only Republican who can beat her-- in Gerogia! The media has declared the New Jersey race done and Christie the winner by a landslide. Blue America doesn't accept that. Wednesday, Gail Collins, pretty much skipping over the Senate race entirely, already fighting against Christie 2016 on the pages of the NY Times:

There’s a side to Christie that reminds women of their worst boyfriends. In his race for governor in 2009, he won male voters by a wide margin. But women went for his opponent, Gov. Jon Corzine, 50 percent to 45 percent. This is a particularly startling figure when you add in the fact that Corzine had the personal warmth and communication skills of an unconscious flounder.

Democrats were eyeing that gender gap when they chose Barbara Buono, a state senator, and Milly Silva, a labor leader, to run for governor and lieutenant governor this fall. They’re bucking long odds. Christie’s record has a lot of weak spots, but he was terrific when it came to the cardinal rule in politics, which is to show up for bad weather. Voters never forget good behavior in a storm, and Christie was pretty near pitch-perfect during Hurricane Sandy.

But let’s get back to that infant race for the Republican presidential nomination. The WMUR Granite State Poll, which had Christie on top in New Hampshire, put Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in second. So it was kind of fascinating last week when they got into a fight, carried out long-distance at top volume.

Christie started it, when he laced into a “strain of libertarianism” that he termed “very dangerous” to national security. This was a garbled broadside against Paul’s recent campaign against the government’s mass collection of phone and e-mail records. “I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans (of 9/11) and have that conversation,” he concluded.

...In the end, the governor scored points only when the Yelling Guy was replaced by the rational politician with an actual point to make. What if it turns out that the most celebrated aspect of Chris Christie-- his high-decibel tough-talking-- is really his biggest handicap as a national candidate?

In that New Hampshire poll, Christie got 27 percent of the male vote and 14 percent of the women. All the other candidates mentioned were pretty much gender gapless. It’s just one little poll, but maybe we’re onto something. Maybe quiet and sane trumps loud and crazy, even in Republican primary politics.

Yeah... whatever. Or maybe people who recognize the danger of a Chris Christie-- loud or quiet-- should get behind stopping him now-- in New Jersey-- by standing up for Barbara Buono. Despite the pollsters and pundits, this race isn't over yet. You can help here.

Is "system" really the word for our two-party, er, arrangement?

Do Republicans really grasp the significance of having people like VA Atty. Gen. (and 2013 gubernatorial candidate) "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli as the face of their party? The Dems meanwhile have their own problems; we'll get to that.

by Ken

It's not exactly news that here at DWT we don't have a whole lot of hope for either of our major political parties. And since Howie has, as usual, been keeping us up to date on the horror shows of both, I haven't felt the need to chime in. (Not much anyway.) But a pair of items that have jumped out of the news hole into the opinion pages -- in one case, a Washington Post editorial, in the other a NYT column by Gail Collins -- and it struck me that they kind of sketch out the boundaries of the hole we're in.

AMERICA, MEET YOUR 2014 REPUBLICAN TEAM

You remember "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli, the super-exreme right-wing wacko who got himself elected Virginia's attorney general and is now the Republican Party's candidate to succeed fake-moderate far-right-wing Gov. Bob McDonnell?

And you remember the ironic turn of events by which his handlers are forcing him to pretend to be a tad less crazy than he is in order to throw less of a scare into the non-wacko portion of the state electorate. After all, all he has to do is defeat perhaps the most loathsome candidate the Dems could have come up with: Mr. Moneybags, Terry McAuliffe, and he gets to move into the governor's office and unleash his full crazy.

And you remember the still more ironic turn of events by which the Cooch is now saddled with a running mate possibly even crazier than he is. (Yes, it's possible. As I like to say, you never want to put something like that in the form of a challenge.)

Well, it takes a lot to get the Editorial Board of the Washington Post worked up to the point of bluntly dressing down war-whooping right-wingers. But harken unto the start of this editorial, "Va.’s Cuccinelli plays fast and loose with the facts on abortion":

E.W. JACKSON, the fire-breathing pastor who stunned the Republican establishment by storming the party convention in Virginia and snatching the nomination for lieutenant governor, has been roundly mocked for saying Planned Parenthood has been “far more lethal to black lives” than has the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, the idea that Planned Parenthood is a racist, even genocidal enterprise, while scurrilous and estranged from the truth, is an article of faith among some right-wing Republicans — among them Herman Cain, the flash-in-the-pan presidential contestant in last year’s GOP primaries, and Mr. Jackson’s running mate, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, the party’s candidate for governor.

The Post editorial writer, bless him/her, goes on to actually investigate the "charges" the loony tunes have come up with, updated to include the idiotic notion "that Planned Parenthood targets African Americans for abortions today by concentrating its clinics in black communities." There's something preposterous about dignifying these imbecilities with "fact-checking," but I guess it has to be done.

And even the Post editorial writer gets there in the end.

Mr. Cuccinelli has written that Planned Parenthood’s sex-education programs in the nation’s schools are “a loss leader” for the organization, whose real goal is to hook youngsters into seeking “abortion on demand.” That conspiratorial view does not align with reality, but it does square with Mr. Cuccinelli’s general disdain for any facts that pose an obstacle to his ideological agenda.

Still, the problem isn't really the loony tunes' command of facts. The point is that they don't care about facts, and this is across the board, not just single-issue. It's as if they believe that facts are part of a liberal-socialist conspiracy. Instead of facts, they have, as the editorial writer put it, their ideological agenda, what I would describe as their warped, delusional primitive brains, saturated with ideological delusion.

I bring up the Virginians, not as a side show, but as part of the main event. Although voices of caution are finally being heard around the margins, the Republican Party remains in thrall to its farthest-right crazies. Howie has been tracking them here, so I don't need to review the list. Arizona Rep. Trent Franks's loony resurrection of Republican rape craziness should serve as a reminder that 2012 poster crazies Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana differed only in their nutty bluntness from their more circumspect colleagues like whiz kid Paul Ryan.

(I should add that there is, of course, another party dallying in the Republican tent: the people who view it -- in a good way -- as the Party of the Rich, who expect to use all those poor dumb sumbitches as tools toward enabling the party to personally enrich them. They are, again of course, bolstered by all those rich-guy wannabes who will settle for being lackeys to the elites, beneficiaries their largesse. I'm not including these people in my argument because, after all, they have correctly identified their own interests and are correctly pursuing them.)


THEN THERE'S YOUR DEMOCRATIC LINEUP

In today's column, "The Revenge of Magic Mike, the NYT's Gail Collins surveyed the fallout from the latest electoral initiatives of New York City's Michael Bloomberg, the man who, she imagines, has us all asking ourselves, "What would I do if I had $27 billion to toss around?"

As we all know, Mayor Mike has made illegal guns his immediate cause, and he and his fellow Mayors Against Illegal Guns have targeted the four Democratic senators who this year voted against the exceedingly modest gun regulation bill, despite heavy popular support. She points to the $350K Mayor Mike poured into ads in Arkansas targeting Sen. Mark Pryor, one of the two out of the apostate four running for reelection this year, along with Alaska's Mark Begich. And now there's Mayor Mike's letter to the thousand biggest New York Democratic donors encouraging them not to contribute to the campaigns of the Dem Four.

"Some gun control advocates," Gail writes, "regard this as a disastrous example of tone-deaf politics: the war on Big Gulps writ large." Pryor and Begich, she points out,

are going to be opposed by Republicans who are even more averse to weapons regulation. Right now it looks as if Begich’s opponent will be Joe Miller, a Tea Party stalwart who would be an improvement only to people who believe that the one thing this country needs is to bring back Sarah Palin.

Meanwhile "Democratic leaders" are going bonkers because they have so many candidates in tight races this year. While it's true that Mayor Mike has no stake in the care and feeding of the Democratic Party, being an "issue guy" here, still, even on those terms, those Dem leaders are apoplectic.

They argue, with absolute accuracy, that if the Democrats lose control of the Senate in 2014, there will be no gun bill to vote for, because Mitch McConnell, as majority leader, would never allow one to get to the floor.

Now it's an article of faith among a lot of us on the progressive side of the spectrum that one thing we need urgently to do is to upgrade the quality of Dem office-holders, that while Republican obstructionism is indeed an important reality, too many important fights are being lost because of Democratic, not Republican, nonsupport. And isn't this just how you might go about holding the apostate Dems to account? By making sure their voters know what they're doing, and why it's bad?

Well, yes, but . . . .

We've been living with this argument for decades now: In any given instance, are we better off with a Republican or a Democrat who's not much better? And we all know the arguments on both sides.

In presidential politics, were we really (or would we really have been) better off with [fill in the name of any of the Dem candidates of the last several decades] than with [the R each was running against]> Or rather would we be enough better off to justify supporting so flawed a candidate? The Senate version goes like this: On the one hand, Rs who replace Ds will be voting for Mitch McConnell for majority leader, while on the other hand we can't go on indefinitely rewarding Ds who, when the chips are down, are likely to vote with the Rs.

(The latter is sometimes accompanied by the argument that maybe by t'rowing da bums out, we can hope for a resurrection, the dawn of a more enlightened-by-purge party and candidates. It was the argument of the people who voted for Ralph Nader. But I'd like to that that especially in the shadow of George W. Bush this argument isn't going to regain much currency.)

My point tonight is not to come down on one side or the other, but to step back and suggest that the very nature of this perennial dilemma is why there's so little to be hoped for from the Dems. I will still continue to vote for them, mostly, just as I've been voting Dem in pretty much each of the above-referenced instances. I have no doubt, for example, that we would be significantly worse off with a President Willard than we are with what we've got. But if someone wants to insist how much better?, beyond saying "a fair piece better," I don't think I want to talk about it.

#

"Let's do it," says Gail Collins. "Let's privatize." And NJ's Gov. Wide Load is feeling some heat from the halfway-house scandal

Both Gail Collins (who's written a book about the subject) and Paul Krugman wrote NYT columns this week that mentioned NJ's Governor Wide Load as a featured player in the state's privatization scams.

"As more and more government functions get privatized, states become pay-to-play paradises, in which both political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become a quid pro quo for getting government business. Are the corporations capturing the politicians, or the politicians capturing the corporations? Does it matter?"

-- Paul Krugman, in his Friday NYT column,
"Prisons, Privatization, Patronage"

"I recently wrote a book in which I tried to juice up the subject [of privatization] by suggesting that readers might want to Iimagine a privatizer as a cross between a pirate and a sanitizer -- a guy with an eyepatch and a carpet steamer. This was a desperate attempt at, um, humorization. I am so ashamed."

-- Gail Collins, in her Thursday NYT column,
"Political Private Practice"

by Ken

Can NJ's Gov. Chris "Wide Load" Christie, the patronage saint of white-collar crooks, dodge the heat of the state's privatized-halfway-houses scandal?

I always try to be careful in writing about the stupendously popular Governor Wide Load. I never want to characterize him as a tool of the 1%. He's a different kind of Republican slime. Oh, I'm pretty sure he would roll over for a 1%-er in a heartbeat if it was made worth his while. But I always think of Governor Wide Load as the patronage saint, not of the economic elites, but of the humbler white-collar crooks. You know, the guys 'n' gals who toil grifting off their economic betters, quite frequently the government.

That's pretty much how Governor Wide Load ran the U.S. attorney's office when he was one of Karl Rove's foot soldiers in the Bush regime's War Against Justice. You can be sure that Wide Load was never on any stinking list of Bush USAs targeted for removal for the cardinal sin of, you know, occasionally doing their job. Bush regime USAs, after all, were expected to be not just cheerleaders but facilitators for the regime's national crime wave. Somehow, instead of winding up under indictment and heading off to the Big House, Wide Load was rewarded, via illegal collusion from Master Karl, with a clear shot at the NJ governorship.

But his heart is still with the white-collar grifters. And unfortunately some of his boys have been getting their behinds caught.

In recent days both Gail Collins and Paul Krugman have written NYT columns about the gummint privatization scam inspired by their paper's "terrifying reports," as PK put it --

privately run adjuncts to the regular system of prisons. The series is a model of investigative reporting, which everyone should read. But it should also be seen in context. The horrors described are part of a broader pattern in which essential functions of government are being both privatized and degraded.

Gail, who notes that she has in fact written a book on privatization, waits till near the end of her column, "Political Private Practice," to stick the fork in Governor Wide Load, and even reduces him to parentheses.

Republican governors are big privatization fans. (Did I mention that some years before he became governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie was a lobbyist for the company that's the biggest player in that halfway house system? Well, I have now.) Rick Perry tried to build a humongous highway through Texas in a public-private partnership that would have severed the state with a toll road as wide as four football fields. He dropped the idea after his own political base revolted under the theory that the road was going to be part of a "NAFTA superhighway" that would strip the country of its sovereignty and turn us into citizens of the North American Union. Really, it's always something.

As to former Republican governors who would like to be Romney's running mate -- there are no words for the privatization passion. Except those of Tim Pawlenty, who recently said that "if you can find a good or service on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesn't need to be doing it."

Paul, however, got Governor Wide Load into the second paragraph, referencing the New Jersey halfway houses:

In 2010, Chris Christie, the state's governor -- who has close personal ties to Community Education Centers, the largest operator of these facilities, and who once worked as a lobbyist for the firm -- described the company's operations as "representing the very best of the human spirit." But The Times's reports instead portray something closer to hell on earth -- an understaffed, poorly run system, with a demoralized work force, from which the most dangerous individuals often escape to wreak havoc, while relatively mild offenders face terror and abuse at the hands of other inmates.

Paul is shortly led to ask what's behind the nationwide passion for privatizing.

You might be tempted to say that it reflects conservative belief in the magic of the marketplace, in the superiority of free-market competition over government planning. And that’s certainly the way right-wing politicians like to frame the issue.

Gail helpfully tosses in a quote President-in-waiting Willard Inc.

"When you work in the private sector and you have a competitor, you know if I don't treat the customer right, they're going to leave me and go somewhere else, so I'd better treat them right," Romney said in a round-table discussion with veterans in South Carolina. This is the exact road he was going down on the dreaded day when he said he enjoyed firing people.

Now Paul picks up from that way that "right-wing politicians like to frame the issue" of privatization, as a reflection of "conservative belief in the magic of the marketplace, in the superiority of free-market competition over government planning."

But if you think about it even for a minute, you realize that the one thing the companies that make up the prison-industrial complex — companies like Community Education or the private-prison giant Corrections Corporation of America — are definitely not doing is competing in a free market. They are, instead, living off government contracts. There isn’t any market here, and there is, therefore, no reason to expect any magical gains in efficiency.

And, sure enough, despite many promises that prison privatization will lead to big cost savings, such savings — as a comprehensive study by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, concluded — “have simply not materialized.” To the extent that private prison operators do manage to save money, they do so through “reductions in staffing patterns, fringe benefits, and other labor-related costs.”

Gail points out that the NJ halfway houses --

costs about half as much per inmate as a regular jail. This may be in part because the prisoners keep escaping. More than 5,000 have run, walked or wandered off since 2005. That placed a sometimes tragic burden on the victims of the crimes the escapees later committed, but it must have definitely reduced upkeep. Perhaps you could call it inmate self-privatization.

Oops!

Paul meanwhile reflects:

Privatized prisons save money by employing fewer guards and other workers, and by paying them badly. And then we get horror stories about how these prisons are run. What a surprise!

And he wonders "what's really behind the drive to privatize prisons, and just about everything else."

One answer is that privatization can serve as a stealth form of government borrowing, in which governments avoid recording upfront expenses (or even raise money by selling existing facilities) while raising their long-run costs in ways taxpayers can’t see. We hear a lot about the hidden debts that states have incurred in the form of pension liabilities; we don’t hear much about the hidden debts now being accumulated in the form of long-term contracts with private companies hired to operate prisons, schools and more.

Another answer is that privatization is a way of getting rid of public employees, who do have a habit of unionizing and tend to lean Democratic in any case.

But the main answer, surely, is to follow the money. Never mind what privatization does or doesn’t do to state budgets; think instead of what it does for both the campaign coffers and the personal finances of politicians and their friends. As more and more government functions get privatized, states become pay-to-play paradises, in which both political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become a quid pro quo for getting government business. Are the corporations capturing the politicians, or the politicians capturing the corporations? Does it matter?

And he points out that the privatization scandals are buried deep enough to require substantial efforts of investigation, as in the case of the NYT series on "New Jersey's halfway-house-hell."

You shouldn’t imagine that what The Times discovered about prison privatization in New Jersey is an isolated instance of bad behavior. It is, instead, almost surely a glimpse of a pervasive and growing reality, of a corrupt nexus of privatization and patronage that is undermining government across much of our nation.

Of course undermining government is the basic business of right-wing government -- that and making a pretty penny off it. Gail honors the election season by regaling us with "some examples of privatization disasters."

Texas tried to turn eligibility screening for social services over to a private company, creating all sorts of messes until it gave up the experiment. The most apocryphal story involved a privately run call center that told applicants to send their documentation to a number that turned out to be the fax at a warehouse in Seattle.

The hottest new wrinkle for private companies eager to tap into public school funding is charter cyberschools. A study at the University of Colorado's National Education Policy Center found that only about a quarter met federal standards for academic progress.

Here in New York, we have been experiencing a long-running privatization adventure in which an attempt to streamline employee timekeeping that was supposed to have cost the city $63 million wound up with a slightly unsleek tab of $700 million.

John Donahue, the faculty chairman of the master's in public policy program at Harvard, says the best candidates for privatization are functions where performance is relatively easy to evaluate, like construction or food services. On the worst-case end, he points to "having mercenaries run your war for you," which we know something about, given the fact that our military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan sometimes involves more people working for private contractors than actual members of the military.

Gail notes that privatization --

has such a long history that it's a wonder we still have any public sector left. The Ancient Greeks did it. The Han dynasty did it. Birds do it. Bees do it. Even Harvard Ph.D.s do it.

Let's do it. Let's privatize.

#

Wouldn't it be smarter for Davy Brooks to leave the "wacky pundit" comedy routines to pros like the "Daily Show" folks?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
State of the Union 2011 - Correspondent Rebuttal
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

by Ken

Maybe I wouldn't be quite so defensive about my policy of nonparticipation in "event" political talkfests like the SOTU if not for The Aftermath, the endless wave of pundolatrous folderol they set in motion. Take the relevant installment in "The Conversation," the ongoing online tê-à-tête between NYT columnists David Brooks and Gail Collins, which began:

Gail Collins: David, every year we get all worked up about the State of the Union speech. When it finally happens I’m always disappointed, bored, underwhelmed. Then the pollsters announce that the public loved it. So obviously it’s me.

We both like Barack Obama, but from different perspectives. I think the guy at the front of the House on Tuesday was your version, not mine. Never have I beheld so much reasonable moderation. Such moderate reasonableness.

To which our David replied, "I guess I'd say the speech was modest more than moderate." Paul Ryan's SOTU reply, however, he thought was "outstanding": "[H]e demonstrated why he is a rising star. He forcefully made the case that the debt threat is much more serious than Obama acknowledged, and his remarks built a strong momentum."

If you read Howie's latest post on Paulie this morning, you know that people with working brains -- Paul Krugman for one has been trying for ages to point out that the guy is a fraud -- had little difficulty seeing his latest disgorgement of claptrap as a pile of imbecility, ignorance, and ideologically psychoticized deception, word for word as shameful and dangerous a pool of puke as any human gut could have upchucked.

In Davy's murky world, I guess the only thing that tops mindless gibberish is wonkesque mindless gibberish backed by phony-baloney numbers and charts. I should add that, not having watched, I don't know whether Paulie actually used charts, but I have enough experience of his fiscal comedy routines to know that when he opens his mouth, there are always at least metaphorical charts lurking in the air. They're always bogus, of course, but Paulie's shtick is that if you come rigged out in the accoutrements of knowledge, gullible people will believe you're giving them actual facts rather than ideologically whacked-out jibber-jabber. (Right, and Newt Gingrich was a "history professor.") And is there anyone on the planet more gullible, to the right line of patter (and I do mean "right"), than our Davy?

The man is a cretin, and shouldn't be allowed to appear in public without a dunce cap.

So what is Gail C doing dialoguing with the cretin? I should say that I retain a lot of admiration and affection for her, from those happy days when I first got to read her regularly, after she moved her column from the New York Daily News to much-lamented (by me, at least) New York Newsday. She doesn't seem to me ever to have regained her spark in the NYT (though she's had her moments), but I've still never figured out why she let herself sink to the absurdist level of these sci-fi-bizarre online "conversations" with Davy B.

The image that always pops into my head was conjured by Robert Benchley is a piece we read just the other night, "One Minute, Please!": "A business man could be talking with Ajax, the mechanical chess player, on the other end of the wire and still feel he was getting somewhere, simply because to anyone passing the door he looks as if he were very busy." I have to guess that the NYT couldn't get Ajax, or maybe Ajax didn't have the right-wing credentials the paper was so desperate to bring into its fold, and then they found out that Davy B was available.

SILVER LINING DEPT.: THE DAILY SHOW PEOPLE
ALSO SEEM UNDERAWED BY THE IDEA OF THE SOTU

I refer you back to the wonderful segment from last night's Daily Show atop this post, which begins with John Oliver offering a rebuttal to -- not, it turns out, to the State of the Union address itself, but to Jon Stewart's jokes about it, demanding plaintively, "What of the jokes we didn't hear? Then Olivia Munn comes on to offer a California perspective, but unlike poor Michele Bachmann, who delivered her SOTU reply staring resolutely into a camera off in a different direction and by gosh stuck to it, she's repositioned by Jon in ways that take her farther and farther off the mark.

Finally, Larry Wilmore comes on, intoning, "The Daily Show is the greatest show that God has ever given to the people of earth, and yet, it is in trouble." Illustrating with a clip from 1999, he laments "the show that was once young and vibrant and thin [illustrated, a show whose best days were still ahead of it" but is now "old and bloated, graying, droopy-faced," eventually leading to this exchange:

LARRY WILMORE: I remember a Daily Show where a correspondent could work hard, give it everything they had, and achieve his dream of leaving this show for a better career in Hollywood. But where is our Steve Carell, Colbert, Ed Helms? Today's is the first generation of correspondents that will do worse than the generation before. I'm here to tell you that is not the Daily Show we should leave to Sam and Jason's [i.e., married correspondents Samantha Bee and Jason Jones's] kids --
JON STEWART: But we . . . they have, like, ten kids. We can't leave them . . . But anyway you guys are doing great. You've done books, Larry Wilmore. Oliver's on a sitcom as well; he's done some movies. Olivia Munn's got that show Perfect Couples.
LARRY: Wait, wait, wait, wait! The Asian correspondent's got a show? See? China is kicking our butts!
JON: She's not, she's not Chinese.
LARRY: We can do better, America!
JON: Thank you very much for all the rebuttals.

No, thank you for the rebuttals, Team Daily Show.

#

Gail Collins says this election will be about "gobs of cash falling on campaigns like tar balls on a beach"

The mind boggles at how many zillions of $$$$ Meg Whitman's going to spend battling sad old Jerry Brown for the California governorship. Of course it's not likely to get her elected, but Gail Collins wants Californians to keep in mind that she wasn't going to pay off the state's debts anyway.

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

-- Alexander Pope, in "An Essay on Criticism"

"The rich rush in and keep right on rushing."

-- anonymous

by Ken

Gail Collins has a swell column today ("Rise of the Richies"), suggesting that newly designated California GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman may have been right but for the wrong reasons when she declared in her victory speech Tuesday night: "Career politicians in Sacaramento and Washington, D.C., be warned; you now face your worst nightmare."

The people of California may be hoping that if she wins, she’ll just pay off their deficit. As a resident of New York City, which has had a billionaire chief executive for some time, I would like to say: Don’t hold your breath.

[Of course, as Harold Meyerson pointed out in his Washington Post column this morning: "Calif. GOP primary winners look headed for defeat," because their campaigns were of the far-right variety that's fine for GOP primaries but not, at least in a state like California, for a general election.]

Which leads Gail to a different take on pol-ish nightmares:

[T]he gubernatorial nominee explained that the worst nightmare for status quo lawmakers was of “two businesswomen from the real world who know how to create jobs, balance budgets and get things done.”

This is not actually the case. For career politicians, the worst nightmare would be a businessperson from the real world with a billion dollars and an open checkbook. Freddy Krueger is Michael Bloomberg.

We have been entertaining ourselves with theories about how this election year is going to be all about voter anger. Or Washington insiders. Or health care. Or TARP. But, really, it’s going to be about money. Gobs of cash falling on campaigns like tar balls on a beach.

As Gail points out, fear of a Bloomberg of their own drives already cash-crazed incumbents even crazier in building up that all-important reelection war chest.

This seems to me just another way in which the lovable schmucks of the Teabaggers' movement miss the mark. Even if they've actually located a few of the correct targets for their wrath, not only do they have no constructive clue what to do about them, but they've missed most of the really important targets. And what we're seeing now could have been easily enough foretold: the rich rushing into the political void to make hay while the sun shines, as it were.

Oh sure, the Teabaggers hate "bailouts." As usual, though, when it comes to reality, they have no idea what they're talking about. There's no way that the government was going to simply allow the financial-serivces firms -- notably the ones providing banking-equivalent services without being banks, thereby freeing themselves from even the light oversight of federal banking regulators -- to disappear. Of course the option that was minimally explored was liquidating the damned firms and paying off the depositors rather than letting managements and shareholders off the hook. Nevertheless, something was going to be done.

And now, of course, with the banksters having been made relatively whole thanks to the bailouts that the Teabaggers decry, they're acting as the banksters' foot soldiers, making sure that nothing is done to force the banksters to share the loot they've squirreled away instead of using it to restart the country's credit markets. And thanks to the Wall Street insiders who make economic policy for the Obama administration, who managed to screw up the stimulus package so it provided bulging deficits with precious little economic stimulus, not to mention the administration's failure to even try to educate the public as to what exactly economic stimulus is about (this is perhaps understandable, since the administration's cocked-up stimulus never stood a chance of accomplishing it), the entire "discussion" of depression-easing economics is left to the liars and economic neanderthals of the Right.

So we keep hearing about Greece, even though our economic situation bears hardly any resemblance to Greece's, while we never hear about Japan, whose "lost" decade we show every sign of emulating. In addition, the corporate Right has accustomed Americans so to downward expectations that with each economic downturn since the Clinton years, we're led to expect less in the form of "recovery" -- more and more Americans are shut out of such recovery as does occur, and it's come to seem normal.

As we've seen in the battle over financial-regulation reform, the business community is prepared to dump staggering sums into fighting for its prerogatives, even after the spectacular demonstration we've just had of what happens when their limitless greed is left unchecked. Sure enough, there's the Chamber of Commerce dutifully selling its horror stories of what will happen if its clients' prerogatives are impinged on even slightly, the same pack of fantasies and lies they trot out every time meaningful regulation is on the table. And Americans swallow it every time, just as they will swallow any appeal to military necessities, no matter how far-fetched or unfounded. As our friend Me has been arguing recently in the comments section, it really does appear that you can't win an election in this country taking a stand against war. (That toxic twerp Jeffie Sessions is trying to see if you can prevent the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice by branding her as "against the military," a charge even he, stupid as he is, can't be stupid enough to believe is true.)

There might be something amusing about seeing those people squawking about the economic injustice they've suffered at the hands of Big Government used as unwitting stooges of Big Money -- if it weren't so sad, and serious.

#

Trapped in the meltdown: Is it possible being a state (or even U.S.) senator isn't as glamorous as it's cracked up to be? (Hint: Ask Governor Arnold)

The one and only Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak

by Ken

In her NYT column today, "The Devil Made Me Do It," Gail Collins recalls an episode of the halcyon TV thriller Kolchak: The Night Stalker in which Kolchak, "a newspaperman who spent most of his time tracking down demons of the underworld" -- and, "since his editor never believed his stories, did not get in the paper much" -- "was confronted by a politician who sold his soul to the devil in order to win a seat in the State Senate."

When I first saw this particular program, coyly titled "The Devil's Platform," I was covering a real-life State Legislature in Connecticut. My first thought was that accepting eternal damnation in return for a career as a state senator was a little like swapping your house for a pair of socks.

But lately I am beginning to wonder if, in our troubled times, being in a Senate -- any Senate -- actually is hell. Everybody has seen pictures of the state senators in California, held hostage to a spectacular financial fiasco, sleeping at their desks during the long, long hours of deliberations, which revolve around whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can get a wealthy Republican broccoli farmer to vote for his budget.

And Washington! Imagine you're Harry Reid, the majority leader. Every time something important comes up, you've got to round up 60 votes. And Reid only has 59. One belongs to someone who is apparently doomed to spend the rest of his life in court in Minnesota, arguing about absentee ballot witness registration.

And another, of course, belongs to Roland Burris, cursed with an inability to come up with a consistent story on whether he tried to raise money for Illinois' rogue governor before said governor forked over a Senate seat. The other senators resent Burris because he is proof that just about anybody blessed with strong persistence and a weak memory can join their club. Reid should also consider the possibility that Burris has been infected by a mind-altering demon that could, at any moment, convince him that he dwells in a reverse reality where all good senators vote against the White House agenda.

The U.S. Senate's rules -- like those in California -- wind up leaving the power in the hands of a very few moderate Republicans. Everybody else just sits around reading their mail -- or, in the case of California, napping in the aisles -- while one or two members of the minority party tries to decide whether to let the economy fall off a cliff.

The good news is that in Washington, the whole world is now run by Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine. True, not what you had in mind when you spent the last year obsessing about the next president. But way better than California, which is facing a series of end-of-times crises that include insolvency, 20,000 imminent layoffs and a halt to all public construction programs. And for weeks, it has all hung on State Senator Abel Maldonado, the above-mentioned broccoli farmer.

As of last night, Maldonado was holding out for changes in the state election laws that would make it easier for him to get the Republican nomination to run for state controller. (I believe there was once an episode of "Marcus Welby, M.D." in which a troubled would-be father refused treatment for sterility on the grounds that it would hurt his chances of being elected controller. Back in the day, it was inspiring what high regard TV scriptwriters had for state government.)

Maldonado has always denied that his political ambitions had anything to do with his inability to make up his mind about the budget. Nevertheless, one of his ongoing demands has been to eliminate money for new office furniture for his mortal enemy, the current controller, John Chiang.

The California situation is so dire that everybody in the state appears to have forgotten that their governor is a movie star. Schwarzenegger used to be one of the most famous people on the planet, and now he's spent months begging members of his own party to throw him three lousy votes so he can keep the Department of Motor Vehicles' offices open. When Arnold's ally, the Senate minority leader, revved up the pressure, the Republicans responded by electing a new minority leader.

On the plus side, all those arguments about whether the Constitution should be amended so people born outside the United States could run for president can be put on the back burner.

If the nation's only action-hero governor is at a loss, clearly new powers are needed. Look up that "Night Stalker" episode on the Web and you will learn that the demon soul-selling senator (Tom Skerritt) got "the ability to assume the form of an indestructible black mastiff, and destroy his enemies both within his own party and opposing him."

I wonder if Harry Reid has heard about this.

UPDATE: THE BROCCOLI FARMER GETS
HIS WAY, AND CALIFORNIA GETS A BUDGET

Earlier today, the NYT reported:

Budget Clears Legislature in California After Scathing Battle

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

LOS ANGELES -- After five days of intense, nearly nonstop negotiations over how to close a $41 billion gap, California state senators agreed early Thursday morning on a budget that raises taxes, cuts deeply into services and borrows far into the future, leaving nearly every person in the state scathed in some way.

The leadership of the state, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, agreed several weeks ago to a plan to address the state's severe budget issues, but the plan failed to gain the two-thirds majority approval required by California state law to pass through the legislature. This left Democrats trying to woo a single Republican vote out of the state senate, where Republicans were staunchly against new taxes.

Finally, in the witching hours of Thursday morning, lawmakers caved to some of the demands of State Senator Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria, a Republican who wanted state constitutional amendments banning legislative pay increases during deficit years, and the elimination of a 12-cent increase in gasoline taxes from the plan.

Mr. Maldonado also won legislative approval for an amendment that would make California political primaries open and nonpartisan, a measure that many Democrats resisted to the bitter end.

All told, the budget bills contain $15 billion in spending cuts, $12.8 billion in temporary tax increases, $11.4 billion in new borrowing, and the creation of a $1 billion reserve fund. The intention is that if the state receives anticipated federal funds, the borrowing will be reduced by half, some of the tax increases will be trimmed and some cut spending would be restored.

"If we can solve a $42 billion budget deficit, we can solve anything in this state," said Darrell Steinberg, Democrat from Sacramento, the president pro tem of the Senate, in a news release.

The package of bills was quickly given the nod by the State Assembly -- where lawmakers were less intransigent than in the Senate -- just before 7 a.m. Pacific time

The governor has said he would sign the bill immediately. "This is a very difficult budget," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a prepared statement, "but we have turned this crisis into an opportunity to make real, lasting reforms for California.

"Some special interests may not like this budget -- but like I always say, what's good for the people is not always good for special interests. I look forward to partnering with the people to make sure these bipartisan reform measures are passed to put an end to our budget roller coaster and get California moving forward again."

The series of budget bills, as passed by the senate around 5 a.m. Thursday, feature billions of dollars in spending cuts for schools, healthcare institutions and entitlement programs and they greatly reduce the dependent credit that Californians may claim on their income taxes.

They also include an increase of the state sales tax by 1 percentage point, and a doubling of the vehicle license fee to 1.15 percent. In lieu of the gasoline tax increase loathed by Mr. Maldonado, residents here will see their personal income tax rates raised by one-quarter of a percentage point. The package also relies on federal stimulus dollars to get through the year.

The lengthy debate over how to address the budget crisis that has befallen the state because of the national recession -- huge numbers of home mortgages have gone into foreclosure and a host of past stopgap budget measures have come home to roost in the form of large debt payments -- has not been without cost.

As legislators fought, hundreds of state workers were put on unpaid furloughs, scores of infrastructure programs were halted, counties went without checks from the state and tax refunds were not issued to citizens. Republican state senators also ousted their leader, and the governor failed to find the allies he needed.

Still, there are at least two winners in the budget package. Small businesses will be given tax breaks, as will some parts of the movie industry, which has long maintained that the state's onerous tax burdens caused it to move shooting elsewhere. Both sets of tax breaks were big victories for Republican lawmakers.

The new taxes are set to last for two years, but could be extended another two years if voters approve a permanent spending cap in a referendum on May 19. The open-primary measure -- which could cover state legislators and members of Congress from the state -- also needs voter approval, and is set to go on the ballot in June 2010.

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