Night Light

The Rich Keep Getting Richer: Pro-Occupy TV Appearance (Alonya Show)

Here's the clip of a conversation we had yesterday on The Alonya Show about the new CBO report, which provides even more data on the explosion of wealth at the very top of the scale, the injustices driving Occupy Wall Street, and where we go from here.

After Alonya sets up the discussion by providing the figures, we start talking at about 1:00 minutes in:

 

 

Interview on the Rick Smith Show About 'Nihilist Republicans"

As always, I enjoyed talking with my friend Rick Smith, whose labor-themed radio show in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg area) is "where working people come to talk." 

Rick grew up in a part of Cleveland that had to be a lot like my home town of Utica, in a kind of blue-collar America that will die if we don't do something about it.  It was rough in those towns sometimes, but it was real.

We were talking about my piece on The Nihilist Party: Republicans Who Believe in Nothing. Rick digressed a couple times and surprised me, as you'll hear - but that's part of the fun, right?

 

RICK SMITH SHOW OCT 17

 

 

It's on, Big Mike!

Gotta love this image, from my interview with RT about the Occupy Wall Street protest.  I was making the point that Mayor Bloomberg likes to corral demonstrators away from view, which is the Bush "free speech zone" approach, and that we already have a "fee speech zone."  It's called "the United States of America."

Occupy This! TV Interview On the #OccupyWallStreet Protests [video]

The other day we spoke to RT Television about our search for the #OccupyWallStreet demonstrations in a lower Manhattan that almost felt as if it were under military siege.  That led to a conversation about the protests -- what they're protesting, the importance of these protests, Wall Street's role in the crash, and Mayor Bloomberg's police-state tactics in the heart of our country's financial and cultural capital.

We also talked about the GOP in Congress and their ongoing acts of economic terrorism -- holding the government hostage for their radical and unpopular demands.  We talked about the President's past mistakes, capitulations, and repetition of Republican rhetoric. We also gave the President moving toward a more popular, progressive, and common-sense approach - and credited progressive institutions with moving him in the right direction.

But about those protests:

Wall Street's fear is understandable.  If the public is ever given a voice to express its outrage, their party train will have to stop and some people will pay for their crimes. But when Americans can only express their right to free speech after they've been coralled into a "free speech zone," one that's far from the subject of the protests, that's not free speech at all. 

And it's not America.

 

Raising the Medicare Age: Discussing this Terrible, Awful, Not-So-Good Idea With Sam Seder

Here's an interview we did with Sam Seder today (Monday) on his Majority Report show. It's about raising the Medicare eligibility age. Great discussion (it's always a great show):

 

The_Majority_Report--RJ_Eskow_of_Campaign_for_Americas_Future_on_raising_the_Medicare_Eligibility_Age_091211

What can we say. Terrible idea. It's bad. Not good. Ech. (the interview runs about 14 minutes, but who's counting?)

 

 

Conversation with Thom Hartmann: That Secret Federal Reserve Bailout

The other day we had an interesting discussion of that secret Fed bailout on Thom Hartmann's TV program, The Big Picture.  Here's the video:

 

Young Turks: Discussing SEC and Justice Dept Failures

Here's a clip from Friday's show. We discussed enforcement failures and potential corruption in the SEC and Justice Department:

 

 

 

 

Cool or Lame? The High Court of Cool Issues Its Ruling In Re Van Halen

Two people in their twenties were having an argument yesterday about Van Halen:  Is the band cool or lame?  They wisely sought a ruling from an elder who is experienced in these matters, namely myself.  I have therefore issued a proclamation on this matter on behalf of the High Court of Cool, a body in which I am an Appeals Judge.

Be ye upstanding, and All Rise as We enter the courtoom. 

Say we now, on behalf of this Court and all the Judges of Cool everywhere: It is a common mistake to assume that coolness and unspeakable lameness cannot coexist.  They can.  For coolness lieth in the Whole, not merely the parts thereof.  It lieth not merely with the Vessel, but with that which the vessel contains.  Let us examine the vessel you bring before us to be judged, the one that is called "Van Halen": 

Eddie's guitar playing:  awesome.
David Lee Roth:  lame, but funny.
Sammy Hagar:  terminally lame.
Costumes, props, lyrics:  Lame, lame, lame.

We therefore find as follows:

Overall lameness quotient:  99.8 percent.
Overall coolness quotient:  0.2 percent.
Final ruling:  100% Cool.
 

How is such a thing possible, you ask?  How can something that is 99.8% lame be adjudged "cool"?

Because in the words of William Blake, "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise." By persisting in their folly of lame-ass tight pants and smoke bombs, while at the same time working hard on their musical craft, the members of Van Halen succeeded in producing rock and roll worth opening the sun roof for on a hot July afternoon and playing at eardrum-bleeding volume.  They escaped their decadent suburban mentality and became more than the sum of their admittedly (and sometimes absurdly) lame parts.  They created hot July sun-roof eardrum-damaging rock and roll.

In this misery-filled world, that is a blessing for the suffering millions.  For delivering this blessing, Van Halen shall be declared now and henceforth, in all the ages to come, Cool. And if this is understandably aggravating to the one who rightly noted how completely lame they are, the judges can regretfully offer only these words of advice:

Go ahead and jump.

 

 

Discussing the "Debt Ceiling Deal" on Al Jazeera

Two key issues came up in this interview about the debt-ceiling "deal," which I did last night for Al Jazeera English:  The first is that many more Republicans and conservatives voted for the deal than Democrats and progressives, and the second is the role of the credit ratings companies in what happens next.

 

Photoplay: A Tibetan Buddhist Master and his Subject

Here's a picture of me with one of my favorite living Buddhist teachers, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.  Actually it's a picture of him taking a picture of me.  The picture of him was taken by a wonderful young classical guitarist, Benjamin Biers.  There was a lot of subject/object reversal was going on.

Maybe this picture should be called "Chain of Transmission."  Or "Metaphotograph."  Anyway, it was a great experience.  Rinpoche had a burger and Coke for lunch.  I had tortillas and chorizo.  It was a very global-culture meal.  And although I was the journalist and he was one of the subjects of the reporting, he took my picture rather than the other way around.

Rinpoche's talk was excellent.  I like the picture, too.  And since all journalism is ultimately about the writer and not the subject, why not take my picture?  Besides, it was his idea.  He's the teacher, not me.

The tortillas and chorizo were delicious.  Very authentic, rustic-style cooking, not restaurant-style.  It reminded me that those of us who live in Southern California reside in that part of the country the Chicano activists used to (and maybe still do) call México Ocupado - "occupied Mexico."  That's looking at local history through a slightly longer historical lens.  And, as always, what gets in the frame is determined by who gets to hold the camera.

And if you want to get beyond the Subject/Object dichotomy - well, then, that's where it's good to call in somebody who can express the situation in a non-literal way.  Musicians are good at that.

¡Viva México Ocupado!

 

 

 

 

Lawrence O'Donnell Is Wrong About Deficits and Entitlements

On most issues Lawrence O'Donnell is on the side of the angels. But O'Donnell, who held senior staff positions on Capitol Hill during the 1990's, is one of many Democrats and liberals who think the way to fix today's problems is by recycling yesterday's solutions - even when those solutions didn't even fix yesterday's problems. Nostalgia for the great compromises of the 90's is going to sink the Democratic Party, not help it. More importantly, it will lead to the wrong policy decisions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the current deficit debate. When O'Donnell accepted Esquire's challenge to create his own "deficit commission," he was already reinforcing the mistaken idea that deficits are the nation's number one concern. I hosted The Young Turks broadcast (America's #1 online news show, I'm told!) for three days this week. The clip below shows O'Donnell's last comments on the deficit debate, along with our comments.

The short version of our reaction? Lawrence, we love ya, but you're completely wrong on this one. And this is exactly the kind of thinking that will drive us over a cliff if we stick with it:

 

Follow @rjeskow

Elizabeth Warren Among the Lilliputians: Round 2 With Republicans [video]

While hosting The Young Turks this week we covered the latest interrogation of Elizabeth Warren by House Republicans, who are determined to make sure that she -- and the bureau charged with protecting consumer from bank ripoffs - are discredited.  

The headline for this piece should be "Elizabeth Warren Listens to Ludicrous Republican Statements While Maintaining Straight Face."  It was really impressive of her to maintain her composure as long as she did, and we couldn't help picturing a thought balloon above her head as she half-suppressed a smile.  Here's the video of the appearance, with our introduction and commentary:

 

1776, Today's Struggle for Independence, and a Pascal's Wager With the Future

I appeared on Burt Cohen's radio broadcast on Wednesday and we had the kind of in-depth talk about politics and meaning that feels all too rare nowadays.  The invitation came after I wrote "The New War of Independence - Against Corporate Politics," so that frames the overall discussion.  

Most of the clips are between two and three minutes in length.  The final two are closest to my heart, I suppose, although I enjoyed each part of the conversation.   (And you may notice that I was struggling with a nasty flu.)

The first clip talks a lot about the 18th Century, contrasting the challenges of identifying and fighting for independence then with those that confront us now, and raises questions: independence from what?  What do we need to declare our independence from, and how would that be done? 

INDEPENDENCE THEN AND NOW

(1 min, 58 secs)

 What would the Founders think of today's Tea Party? They believed in the common good.  They developed an early kind of "national health insurance," for example, and were opposed to the multinationals of their day.   

THE FOUNDERS BELIEVED IN GOVERNMENT AND THE COMMON GOOD

(2 mins, 28 secs)

Today the marginalized "Left" often speaks for most Republicans, and almost always speaks for most Americans, according to the polls.  So what "outside power" is holding us back?

WHAT DC CALLS THE LEFT IS THE AMERICAN MAJORITY POSITION

(2 mins, 15 secs)

We can't just define ourselves by what we're against.   What are we fighting for?  Can we motivate ourselves to write letters, make phone calls, and not surrender to hopelessness?

POSITIVE ACTION

(2 mins, 20 secs)

Here we discuss a pretty inconvenient and uncomfortable idea - that no politician or political party can do what needs to be done, and that the last several years have been pretty discouraging to a lot of people: 

THE OBAMA EFFECT

 (2 mins, 17 secs)

But unlike their opponents, the President and other Democrats can be influenced by citizen action. 

HOW TO WORK WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

(1 min, 48 secs)

Don't we need to declare our independence from the need for heroes?  "XFK" is a symbol of our yearning for the next JFK or RFK, that politician "X" who might heal the trauma of assassination and restore a broken thread of leadership.  That dream isn't serving us well anymore. 

XFK AND ACTING FOR OURSELVES

(2 mins, 29 secs)

The last one is my response a recent piece by Chris Hedges which argued that democracy is dead and the corporations have already won.  Historical experience telsl us that despair is a form of blindness -- and that even if Hedges were 90% likely to be right, that we would need to make a "Pascal's Wager" with the future.  Pascal said he doubted the existence of God, but was going to act with belief just in case he was wrong.  

What if Chris Hedges is wrong?  Even if that's a long shot - and I don't think it is - shouldn't we take that bet?

IS CHRIS HEDGES RIGHT

 

(Warning:  Editing audio, like any act of editing, can always potentially change the context and so in some sense also change the meaning of what was said.  I don't think that's the case here but will err on the side of caution by offering that word of caution.)  

 

 

Talking Social Security with a Right-Winger

Lars Larsen of Alpha Broadcasting was kind enough to have me on for a pleasantly civil - and yet direct - exchange of views on Social Security.  Polls show that there's surprising consensus across the political spectrum on the so-called entitlements programs.  We can't protect them without engaging everybody, and I thank Lars for being a gracious host (in contrast to my experiences with, say, Sean Hannity). 

The conversation lasted about 10 minutes and can be heard by clicking below:

 

Lars Larsen SocSec_070711

 

A thoughtful conversation about what "Independence" meant in 1776 -- and what it means now

I appeared on Burt Cohen's radio broadcast on Wednesday and we had the kind of in-depth talk about politics and meaning that feels all too rare nowadays.  It seems like we're always fighting for or against Policy "A" or Policy "B" without searching for meaning and context in what we do.

The invitation came after I wrote "The New War of Independence - Against Corporate Politics."

If you have an hour to kill, or some portion thereof, here it is: 

 

Burt Cohen Independence 070711

 

Who's Killing the US Middle Class? Russia Today Debate With Harvard/Cato Institute Economist

While I'm posting videos, here's a debate on the death of the middle class I did on Russian Television with Harvard economist and Cato Institute maven Jeffrey Miron and Samuel Sherraden of New America.  Samuel's a good guy, but Miron and I really went at it. 

My answer to the question, "Is the US Middle Class Dying?" is essentially "No, but there are people trying very hard to kill it."  Let's not pretend that today's "crisis" is an act of God - it's the result of very deliberate policy choices.  Here's the video:

 

Our MSNBC Panel Discussion On Cain, McConnell, Cantor, And The GOP's Pro-Wealthy, Mean Policy

I participated in an MSNBC panel discussion with Cenk Uygur, Sam Seder, and conservative Matt Lewis. We discussed Cain, Mitch McConnell's insistence on Medicare cuts as part of a budget deal, and Eric Cantor's insistence on no disaster relief funds for Missouri unless they're taken out of the budget somewhere else.

My overall point was then all of the GOP's policies make sense if you assume that their overriding goal is to protect tax cuts for the wealthy at all costs. Video of the discussion is here.

 

Hold On, Alabama, Your Country's Here For You

The President's plane touched down at Tuscaloosa Regional Airport at 10 am this morning, local time.

That's Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA.

These are the moments that bring us together as a nation, and as people. Just like 9/11 did, before people used it to divide us. I left New York City for the suburbs just a few weeks before 9/11, and lost friends when the planes struck those towers near my old office. We felt love and support from every part of the country back then. Hopefully the people of Alabama feel ours today.

Back then the country singer Alan Jackson, who has his share of fans around Tuscaloosa, asked: "Where were you when the world stopped turning? Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer, and look at yourself and (at) what really matters?"

What really matters. We spend so much time vilifying one another that takes a tragedy to bring us together. As bitterly divided as we get, most of us still care about one another in time of need. When President Bush spoke from the rubble of the World Trade Center, it seemed for a moment that he spoke for all of us - even those of us who questioned the way he became President. President Obama represents us today in Alabama. The hand he's offering is our hand. The help he's sending comes through the government, but it comes from us. That's all a government really is, when democracy's working: It's just us. So hold on, Alabama. Your country's here for you.

People say that it takes a tragedy to bring us together, but maybe that's wrong. Maybe it takes a tragedy to remind us that we're already together.

Alabama's Governor, Robert Bentley, upset a lot of people when he took office by saying that people who weren't Christians weren't his brothers and sisters. ""So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

That ticked some people off, as you might imagine. The President of the American Atheists said it was "outrageous" and added. "He is a governor, not a mullah." That's a reasonable reaction, but so's this one: Aw, that's just how those born agains talk. I had cousins like that. The Governor said hewants to be my brother, which is evangelical talk for proselytizing me, but I've got news for him: He's already my brother. He may not find me in the next pew, but we're brothers. And another brother came this morning to tell him the whole family's here.

Now, Governor Bentley is a Republican and, like most Republicans, he'd rather cut government spending than raise taxes. And in the tradition of Dixie politicians from time immemorial, he pretty much told Uncle Sam to go hang in his inaugural address: "I will defend our right to govern ourselves, under our own laws and to make out own decisions without federal interference," he said.

Yesterday he asked for emergency federal assistance. I could get indignant, I guess. Last time someone looked, Alabama was getting $1.71 in Federal money for every $1.00 it pays in Federal taxes. And interference was appropriate back in the civil rights days. But Alabama's hurting, and now's not the time to quarrel with my brother the Governor. Besides, I'm not indignant. If they get more money than we do, it's because they need it. That's the way a good government works. We all pay what's fair, and if someone else needs more help they get it. The Governor did the right thing by asking for our help yesterday. I'm glad he did, and I'm glad we can give it.

What's more, I respect Gov. Bentley, despite our differences. He wants to cut the state budget by 15%, but he laid out some ground rules in his first State of the State address: "Medicaid, which provides health care to approximately one million children, elderly and disabled people must be protected ... " He also said that there will be no teacher layoff or shortening of the school year. If you're stuck on framing everything as "left" or "right," that puts him to the left of a lot of Democrats in Washington. And politics aside, it makes him a decent man.

I will make one respectful request of the Governor: to ask his Republican colleagues in Congress not to cut funding for the agencies that help protect people from violent storms, as they've already voted to do. But whether or not he does that, he's my brother.

Besides, Alabama has a place in my heart. Aretha, Otis Redding, Bobby Womack, Percy Sledge ... everybody recorded in Muscle Shoals. Hank Williams was from Montgomery. The great Louvin Brothers came from Henagar, in the mountains. Their beautiful harmonies influenced the Everly Brothers, and through them the Beatles. Arthur Alexander was born in Sheffield, and he's the only songwriter to be covered by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. The great and too-often overlooked Eddie Hinton was from right there in Tuscaloosa.

And let's not forget Lynyrd Skynyrd. Once I was dating someone interesting - very interesting - and I took her to see Skynyrd and ZZ Top. I could tell by the look in her eyes she was having second thoughts about me. Really, Mr. Sophisticated? Southern rock? But then Skynyrd started playing and she was yelling just as loud as as those bottle blondes in the tight stars-and-bars t-shirts ...

(Did somebody just yell "Free Bird"? Go ahead, wiseguy, but they're great. And you're damn right I married her. You don't let one like that get away.)

Why talk about music in an hour of tragedy? Because music's an expression of the heart, and our hearts are close even when our politics aren't. Lynyrd Skynyrd likes to attack liberals in general, and President Obama in particular, with songs like "God and Guns" and "That Ain't My America." But they're great musicians, and everybody fights with their brothers sometimes. Those songs didn't stop the President from taking that morning flight, did they?

Rebecca Solnit wrote a book called A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. Solnit described our response to catastrophes this way in an interview: "The great majority of people are calm, resourceful, altruistic or even beyond altruistic, as they risk themselves for others. We improvise the conditions of survival beautifully. People rescue each other. They build shelters and community kitchens and ways to deal with lost children and eventually rebuild ..."

Pulling together can even bring economic benefits. Some people were surprised when the Japanese yen strengthened against the US dollar last week. But economists were already predicting that the Japanese economy would rebound and become even stronger because of government spending to rebuild. Do we need to learn that lesson the hard way, too? We're still in a financial disaster. It didn't leave visible wreckage, but we'd allbe better off if we did more to rebuild from it.

But this isn't about money. It's about us. Why does it take a tragedy to bring us together? If we respond this way in times of great need, then isn't that who we really are? This generosity of spirit must be inside us every day. If we can reach out to those who lost their homes in a whirlwind, why can't we do the same for those who lost their homes because of the banks?

One purpose of government is to express our inward generosity every day, even when we're busy going about our daily lives. When it's working right, government lets us be our best selves, without terror or tragedy. It represents our bond, our spirit.

The Bible says God talked to Job from a whirlwind. I'm no clergyman, but I think the message was that some things must be accepted rather than understood, because there are limits to our understanding: "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? ... while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?" But even when we can't understand, we can help.

I've never heard the morning stars singing together, but I've heard the Louvin Brothers and Hank Williams and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I wish I could've been there to help, and I'm grateful that my President and my government were there to offer my hand in brotherhood when I was so many miles away.

Where were you when the world stopped turning on 9/11? You were in lower Manhattan, represented by the President. As the head of our government, he stood in the ruins and spoke for you. Where were you when the winds ripped through Tuscaloosa? Your plane touched down at 10 am this morning. 
________________

This post was written for the Curbing Wall Street project and the Strengthen Social Securitycampaign.

Paid your taxes already? Thank you. If you'd like to do more to help, try donating to the Alabama Red Cross. And let's not forget the victims in other states. The governor of Mississippi, the one who ticks me off so much, arranged for donations to be made here; hope he collects a million bucks. The local Salvation Army seems like the best bet for Georgia.

Mississippi gave us the blues - the blues! It gave us John Hurt and BB King.  And Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis, both of them, which means it gave us rock and roll too. Georgia gave us James Brown, Johnny Mercer, the Allman Brothers, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Travis Tritt, and our old friend Alan Jackson.  And all three states gave us writers like William Faulkner, Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, F. Scott Fitzgerald ...

Here's a sampler of fine Alabama music you can listen to while you're donating. Like the man on the record says: Turn it up!

Al-Jazeera Commentary After The President's Speech On Deficits And The Budget

We provided live commentary for Al Jazeera English at the conclusion of the President's speech on the deficit and the Federal budget. That speech was Thursday, but we weren't able to receive and post the video until now. It's below:

I know I look ghastly, darling. It must have been the light.

 

TV Interview On The IMF and World Bank: International Echoes Of Domestic Banking Policies

Did an interview with RT Today on the meeting of the International Monetary Fund, and on the ways that IMF and World Bank policy reflect the same combination of austerity economics and a 'liberalized' financial sector that we're seeing here and in Europe. The video is here:

---

 

Wherein I'm Attacked by Rush Limbaugh -- plus, Dittoheads Gone Wild! [audio]

Apparently the august and statesmanlike Mr. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III (his real name) was a little displeased by our piece in the Huffington Post this weekend, "Why Progressives Keep Losing and the Right Keeps Winning."  He read it out loud on his show this morning, and I'm about to say something about that which might shock and surprise you:

He was neither as courteous as one might hope nor as well-informed as once might expect.  Disappointing, I know.  

Rush spent nearly ten minutes of air time reading my piece and commenting on it.  (The audio and the transcript are below.)  It wasn't all bad:  After initially mispronouncing my name, he corrected himself and said it correctly.    The man's a pro; gotta give him that.  Almost nobody gets my name right.

You'll notice that he does change my words in one way:  Whenever "Democratic Party" appears in the text he says "Democrat Party" instead.  Oh, and he calls the Huffington Post the "Huffington Puffington Post."  Très drôle, no?

Rush was furious at the suggestion that the Right won this weekend's negotiation.  Do you feel like you won? he asked his listeners.   Who cares? Judging by the hate mail I've received since the show aired, I doubt his listeners can feel their toes.

But what really seemed to get his goat (and quite a horned beast that animal must be!) was this:

Where's the progressive vision for 2021? Where's the dream people can seize upon and make their own? Where's the ideal that can energize activists? Where's the extreme position from which the Democrats can be "bargained down" so that they, too, can only get 20% more than they asked for when the negotiations began? If they're not going to do it, we have to do it for them.

Here's a start: First increase Social Security retirement benefits by 15%, across the board, by lifting the payroll tax cap and imposing a financial transactions tax. Second, increase income taxes on a sliding scale that goes up to 60% for the highest earners in the country. (It's been as high as 90% during periods of our greatest prosperity.) Third, add $500 billion to our stimulus spending over the next two years, and keep adding it until unemployment is down to 4%. Fourth, immediately add a public option, "Medicare For All" plan that's voluntarily available to Americans of all age brackets.

That paragraph has really aggravated the Right, I guess.  RedState.com and Hot Air both took strong exception to it as well.  We might be on to something.  The left really needs to think big, doesn't it?

The big fella also took exception to my assertion that progressive ideas are more popular than those of the Right.  Clearly neither he nor his producers clicked on the links, which provide data from a number of polls which prove my point.  Facts are troublesome things.

Afterwards he lambasted Paul Krugman, too, before answering my rhetorical question:  "Why do you keep losing?  Because you elected a false messiah!"  

What was really interesting to me was the rage some of his callers directed toward the Republicans. Rushbo's really just a highly-paid Republican Party operative at heart, born into  a family of Republican functionaries, although he tries to hide it.  He seemed pretty disconcerted by the intensity of their emotion.  Rush and his party have channeled a lot of white rage, but there's a chance it could backfire.

Some of that rage is irrational, and some is justifiable anger that's been misdirected.  It should be channeled instead toward Wall Street, the big corporations who control the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the plutocrats' political operatives - a group that includes the Republican Party, the Tea Party's backers, and Rush Limbaugh.  

Now the Partiers are so worked up that, judging from Rush's callers, nothing less than total annihilation of the Federal government will satisfy them.  Of course, then they'll be a little upset when their Social Security check doesn't arrive.

Or their disability check.  Or their Medicare coverage.  Or when they're poisoned by bad groundwater because the EPA's been shuttered.  Or when they're swept away in a flood because the GOP has cut disaster preparedness and emergency warning funds.  Or when their house is burglarized because the Republican Congress has cut funds for supporting and training local and state law enforcement.

But in the meantime, that inchoate and uncontrollable rage could make things a little awkward for Rush as he tries to navigate the rockyshoals that lie between his audience's fury and his servility toward the Republican Party. My message for the Tea Party is this:  Those political guys'll just use you, folks, and so will their highly-paid operatives like Rush Limbaugh.  Start listening to people who will tell you the truth.  (And hey, I'm sorry about what I said back there.  You know, the toes thing?  I was just mad.  I know that the vast majority of you did not write me nasty emails, so that was uncalled for.)

Like the saying goes:  He who rides the tiger cannot dismount.  (It's just a saying, Rush.  I'm not suggesting that actual tigers were present at any point during this debate.)

___________________

Here's Rush reading what I've written.  I wonder how he'd sound reading poetry?  I'm thinking Edna St. Vincent Millay, but I'm open to suggestions.

 

Rushbo reads RJ

 Here's the entire segment, if you're filled with morbid curiosity:

 

Rushbo segment

And here's the transcript:

TV Appearance: A Little Buzz Kill About Jobs Numbers, Hedge Fund Billionaires, and Other Econ Stuff

I appeared on Russia Today television's "The Alyona Show" to talk about today's job numbers, slow-rising wages vs. fast-rising CEO pay, and the fact that 25 hedge fund managers made $22 billion each.  

I think Alonya was suggesting at the end that I was being a downer about those job figures ... I believe the current slang term for that kind of thing is "buzz kill."  Oh, well!  

(It was last-minute, hence the unshaven look.)

 Re the unshaven look:  Like it?  I mean, is the effect more like this -

or like this?

Vanity compels me to ask.

Music For Madison: Steve Earle Steps Up (With A Digression About The Fall Of Communism)

Steve Earle, who's hands-down one of the best songwriters of our time, has re-released two union-themed songs on iTunes to support the Madison protesters. “Harlan Man” and “The Mountain” are being issued as a special "2-track digital single" (I didn't know you could do that), with all proceeds going to The America Votes Labor Unity Fund, through SaveWorkers.org.

“Unions are a fundamental component of democracy throughout the free world," said Steve." All eyes are on Wisconsin.” I'll go with that.

In fact, I was thinking about exactly that earlier today - unions and democracy, I mean. I was working with USAID and the State Department when the Communist countries were changing over back in the early nineties. I went to the Silesian mountains in Poland back then to talk to the Solidarity folks about financing a health care plan for the workers. I spent a lot of time in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, even Albania when it was first opened up after forty years as a "garrison state." That was under the first President Bush.

And I was just thinking today how funny it is how some of the people who got so excited about the unions over there are working as hard as they can to destroy the unions over here. You should have seen them: They had Solidarity coffee cups, Solidarity posters in the original Polish ... they had everything material you could acquire that had anything to do with "solidarity."

They just didn't have solidarity, if you know what I mean.

I was in Prague once with a World Bank mission, and on our way home from dinner a group of us saw two young girls playing guitars for spare change. My companions bribed them into letting me play the guitar and sing with them. I don't want to brag, but we made some really good money. They didn't want me to leave. (To be completely honest,, there wasn't a lot of competition on the street that night.)

The only problem with singing for a group of non-musical people from a lot of different countries, like the people on that mission, is that at least back in the nineties you would almost be forced at gunpoint to take a crack at singing "Hotel California" or "Country Roads." On another trip I heard a Hungarian country band play Merle Haggard songs for Mossbacher, Bush's Secretary of Commerce (I forget his first name, although I shook his hand. He was all hair and teeth and tan, like all these guys are.). The event was a "Texas style barbecue" in Mossbacher's honor at an ancient fort overlooking the Danube.

Life throws some weird curves at you sometimes.

Anyway, back to Steve: The songs are from the bluegrass album he did with Del McCoury and his band back in 1999. The whole album's great. Earle's got an uncanny way of writing original songs that sound about 150 years old. (You should hear Levon Helm sing "The Mountain," too. He was born to do it.)

Both songs deal with life as a (union) miner, so you can buy the single for the mineworker in your life.

According to the press release, "The America Votes Labor Unity Fund is the fiscal agent of the AFL-CIO State Unity Fund, a special account of the AFL-CIO and directed by a broad coalition of national labor organizations ... The America Votes Labor Unity Fund united labor organizations, allied progressive groups and individuals to fight for workers -- on the ground and on the airwaves. Contributions help activists campaign in 11 states ..."

You can contribute at saveworkers.org, and you can buy Steve's single on iTunes here. The two actions aren't mutually exclusive, either, so you don't have to make a vexing decision here. Why not do both?

 

From the Huffington Post File

Here are the last gazillion pieces I've done over at the Huffington Post (well, at least six, anyway):

For Adults Only

234 Comments | Posted March 15, 2011 | 03:29 PM (EST)

God save us from sentences like this one: "Don't look now, but an adult conversation has begun on the federal budget deficit." If we've heard this cliché once, we've heard it a thousand times, so we hope we'll be forgiven for the blunt talk that follows.

Let's face it. Washington's...

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Wisconsin Governor's Allies Ran a Toxic Bailout Bank... and Got Rich

165 Comments | Posted March 14, 2011 | 03:15 PM (EST)

People in Wisconsin are pulling their money out of Marshall & Ilsley (M&I) Bank because they know it's been helping their Governor's crusade against public employees and the middle class.

They might also like to know that M&I's executives ran one of the most conspicuous dumping sites for toxic...

Read Post

MadisonWorld: A Future Where Corporations Have Human Rights... and Humans Don't

616 Comments | Posted March 11, 2011 | 01:09 AM (EST)

Today we saw state troopers in Madison tearing peaceful protestors out of their own capitol after the state's Senate voted to deprive them of their rights. Video footage of that event should come with a label: Brought to you by the State of Wisconsin, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch...

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The Ministry of Truth: New Fronts in the War on Social Security

167 Comments | Posted March 9, 2011 | 12:39 PM (EST)

The phrase "Moment of Truth" first appeared in English in Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. It was originally a Spanish expression for the final sword-thrust in a bull-fight, the one that finishes off the bull after the matador is done taunting and tormenting him.

Remember that whenever you hear...

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Contempt

71 Comments | Posted March 7, 2011 | 08:57 PM (EST)

"Clueless." "Stupid." "Middle-class welfare." Sometimes a guy who likes facts and figures gets slapped in the face by reality, and apparently today's my day. Several recent stories showed me how some of these "austerity economics" advocates in Washington really feel about the middle class. I guess I always knew it...

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The United States Isn't a Company and It Isn't a Family -- It's a Country.

604 Comments | Posted March 4, 2011 | 04:26 PM (EST)

Let's begin with a multiple choice test. The United States of America is:

a) a for-profit corporation; 
b) a family, like the typical American family in a 1960's sitcom; 
c) a nation -- with a national economy and nation-sized problems.

If you answered "c," there's good...

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Does That Proposed Foreclosure Deal Help Main Street or Wall Street?

37 Comments | Posted March 3, 2011 | 02:00 PM (EST)

Bankers began whining as soon as word of a proposed mortgage fraud settlement case hit the street, even though it was a pretty sweet deal for them. From the Wall Street Journal: "Banks Bristle at Mortgage-Loan Plan."

Even the lightest, most symbolic of penalties is apparently too...

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The GOP Plan to Cut Social Security ... Starting Right Now

368 Comments | Posted February 28, 2011 | 10:14 PM (EST)

Call it a "general strike" ... from above. Republicans in Congress are trying to paralyze the government with their new budget bill, using a "disrupt and defeat" strategy to prevent it from delivering services promised to the the nation's citizens and required under current law. It's fiscal sabotage, plain and...

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"Entitlement Reform" Is a Euphemism For Letting Old People Get Sick and Die

23 Comments | Posted February 25, 2011 | 08:26 PM (EST)

George Orwell would be proud. The latest Washington catchphrase deserves a place of honor in the 1984 lexicon, right between "War Is Peace" and "Love Is Hate." It's a virus of the language that's spreading faster than the stomach flu.

"The President's budget punts on entitlement reform," reads a statement...

Read Post

The War Against the Republic: The Battle Of Madison

282 Comments | Posted February 24, 2011 | 08:31 AM (EST)

Sometimes it's worth looking at current events through the eyes of a historian chronicling the end of an age, or those of a district attorney in a time of corruption. Come to think of it, the two perspectives aren't all that different.

However you look at it, calling the...

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Dear Washington DC: The Public Is Smarter About Money (and Deficits) Than You Are

104 Comments | Posted February 22, 2011 | 08:58 AM (EST)

Some condescending politicians and pundits never miss an opportunity to talk down to the American people, especially when it comes to budgets. The members of Washington's political "center" encounter one another at social events, often in pleasant halls where the chill of winter is kept at bay by the warmth...

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Hank Paulson: Ex-Goldman Sachs CEO, Ex-Bush Treasury Secretary, and Ex-actly Right

58 Comments | Posted February 17, 2011 | 11:58 AM (EST)

Somebody said that regulators need real power in order to be tough and effective. He said a strong, independent consumer protection agency is needed to help prevent the next financial crisis. And that we should help the millions of "responsible" homeowners hurt by the crash, instead of demonizing them.

This...

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Six Things Everybody Knows About Deficits... That Are Completely Untrue

207 Comments | Posted February 15, 2011 | 10:53 PM (EST)

Thanks to the generous support of billionaires and self-interested corporations, think tanks have seeded our political discourse with a lot of mistaken ideas about government spending and deficits. For too many journalists, consultants, and policy makers, these ideas are "givens," things that everybody knows... which also happen to...

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First-Person Politician: Video Game Politics and the Battle of the Budgets

7 Comments | Posted February 14, 2011 | 11:53 AM (EST)

The president's budget has just been released, and so has a Republican alternative from the House Appropriations Committee. Reading them is like watching two people play a video game and confusing it for the real world. These budgets don't reflect competing visions so much as they do competing priorities within...

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In the Dark: Crimes, Capital Crimes, And GE Capital Crimes

5 Comments | Posted February 10, 2011 | 11:57 PM (EST)

Can a crime be committed if there is no criminal to commit it? According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the answer to that Zen koan is apparently "yes." The SEC collected a $50 million settlement from GE Capital after concluding that the corporation "misled investors" by committing...

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Cold-Blooded: Grandma Souljah, Felon-Friendly Cuts, and Other Austerity Horrors

100 Comments | Posted February 10, 2011 | 02:43 AM (EST)

Slasher-Movie Economics

A vicious, savage, axe-wielding killer stalks the political landscape, yearning to draw blood, slash victims, and amputate limbs. That's not my description of austerity economics -- that's how its fans talk about it.

"Austerity" is defined as "the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures)."...

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Fannie's Scandalized, Freddie's Dead -- and the Next Financial Meltdown May Have Already Started

113 Comments | Posted February 9, 2011 | 03:42 AM (EST)

Here's an idea: Let's give hundreds of billions of dollars in government-backed guarantees to private banks so they make a fortune writing mortgages without any risk to themselves. Hey, what could go wrong?

The FCIC's recent report illustrated an important lesson from the economic meltdown: Privatization, not big government, ruined...

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The Third Chamber: Why AIG's CEO and Jamie Dimon Don't Give a Damn What You Think

10 Comments | Posted February 7, 2011 | 08:20 PM (EST)

Why don't the CEOs of AIG and JPMorgan Chase give a damn what you think? Because they don't have to. The Third Chamber of government, that unelected body of lobbyists and wealthy executives symbolized by the US Chamber of Commerce, has insulated them from public outrage.

Chase CEO Jamie...

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If Ben Bernanke Hosted Our Super Bowl Party Instead of My Friend Pete

37 Comments | Posted February 4, 2011 | 09:15 AM (EST)

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke held a press conference today, and my friend Pete is holding a Super Bowl party this Sunday. This is the second year in a row that the Big Game will feature two pre-expansion teams, franchises with names that would've been familiar to people back in...

 

Fukushima USA: Hell or High Water

Some politicians are so determined to serve their corporate patrons that even disasters like Fukushima can't lessen their deregulatory zeal. The expression for that kind of determination is "Come hell or high water." Now, thanks to deregulation, we've seen both.

As tragedy unfolds in Fukushima, an ideological struggle's being waged here at home. A CBS News headline reads "Nuclear Safety Expert: It Could Happen Here." The Nation's Christian Parenti offers a piece called "Nuclear Hubris: Could Japan's Disaster Happen Here? Experts are being quoted on both sides of the debate. The Brattleboro Reformer's"Could It Happen Here?" piece reflects a special anxiety, since the Vermont Yankee reactor down the road in Vernon is a General Electric Mark I like the reactors at Fukushima. Other "can it happen here?" stories have appeared in Pennsylvania,Grand Rapids, Detroit, South Carolina, San Francisco, Michigan, New Hampshire, and undoubtedly elsewhere around the country.

The question urgently needs to be asked. There are at least 23 similar reactors in the United States, and some them are forty years old. And "can it happen here?" stories are appearing in other parts of the world, too, like Canada, Great Britain, India, Russia, Australia, and Armenia.

But in another sense, "Can it happen here?" is the wrong question, because the truth is that it'salready happened - and it will continue to happen as long as private corporations are allowed to decide whether our risk of disaster outweighs their need to show strong quarterly earnings. We've seen the damage that can be caused by excessive deregulation and government cost-cutting. Yet despite this latest tragedy, the political voices of corporate America are once again waging their perennial war against sanity and common sense.

If the Devil had lobbyists we'd be in Armageddon now - and he'd be winning.

Hell

Enter Sen. Mitch McConnell, right on cue. Here's what the Republican Majority Leader said on Fox News Sunday as the flames of Fukushima unleashed hell on the Japanese countryside: ""This discussion reminds me, somewhat, of the conversations that were going on after the BP oil spill last year. I don't think right after a major environmental catastrophe is a very good time to be making American domestic policy."

Right. And right after a drunk driving accident isn't a good time to administer a Breathalyzer test.