FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

From Politico:

House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday.

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

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Here are two old headlines, possibly even real headlines, that have been floating around the net for years.

One involves consumers who can't pay high prices for milk and switch to powdered milk:
"Milk Drinkers Turn to Powder"

The other is about agricultural legislation that can't get through Congress:
"Farmer Bill Dies in House"

Now it appears to be the Republican caucus that has turned to powder, and poor Farmer Bill might survive for a while longer.

Almost unnoticed, in every paycheck's concern with Republican hostage taking on the economy, is that other fiscal cliff. It's what you might call the milk cliff.

At the very last minute, it looks like a Senate bill that was passed months ago might be considered in the House of Representatives. No, no, no, not on the Fiscal Cliff, that Republican suicide vest that threatened the economy. We're still talking about the Milk Cliff, the one that might cost you every time you buy groceries.

Back in Great Depression days, people figured out that the United States still was largely an agricultural economy. The thought was that if the family farm was in trouble, the entire economy would keep on going deep in a Hoover-type direction, down-down-down.

Farmers had a hard time with a produce market that bounced all over. In most businesses with a line of multiple products, it can be a big deal to switch from one product line to another. It can be done, but it's not a simple thing. If the market turns and the price of hammers goes down, it's possible to switch some manufacturing lines to bolts or wrenches. That's how a market economy is supposed to work. One item becomes less profitable and demand goes up for another. Suppliers switch and prices stabilize.

In farming, that poses a problem. You can't uproot a growing crop to switch to another. You have to wait for the next planting season. By the time the next crop, the new crop, is harvested, the market has changed again.

So a system of price supports came about. Sometimes it involved paying subsidies for growing certain crops. Sometimes farmers were paid for not growing other crops. It wasn't just crops. Price supports worked with poultry, livestock, milk.

Family farms are much more rare now. Mega-corporations own agribusinesses, what had once been family farms. But the price stabilization system still makes corporate life more predictable.

Every five years the supports come up for renewal. They have always been passed again routinely.

Until now.

Enough Republicans came out against milk subsidies to kill Farmer Bill.

There is a sort of corporate war going on. On one side are agriculture suppliers, what used to be farms. Purchasers are on the other side: supermarket chains, processors. The purchasers would very much like price supports lowered or eliminated for milk. They want wholesale milk prices to go down. Those purchasers donate to Republican candidates.

But that isn't why Republicans have been against price supports. Agribusiness donates to Republicans as well.

The donations are the campaign finance equivalent of what I told a departing co-worker once. On the one hand, I was really sorry to see a good friend leave. On the other hand, I wanted to see a good friend pursue opportunities, going for professional growth. "So on balance," I said, "I feel nothing."

On balance Republicans are equally beholden to all sides, so all is fair.

The price supports are an affront to libertarian, laissez-faire, let-the-market-rule, Republican philosophy. Republicans like a let-ill-enough-alone system, at least in theory. And most of our economy works because of that.

But that isn't why Republicans have been against price supports.

Lower prices would certainly benefit consumers. But that isn't it either. In fact, a wrinkle in the law, a leftover from 1949, would raise price supports way way high if the bill isn't renewed. Milk prices wouldn't go lower. Officials in the US Department of Agriculture predicted you and I would be paying seven dollars a gallon. Seven dollars a gallon is a bit more than most of us would like to contemplate.

So the effect on markets has no influence on why Republicans have been against price supports this year. It hasn't much mattered to Republicans whether holding up Farmer Bill would raise those prices way high for milk.

Here's why Republicans have held up price supports until they were about to expire. Part of the renewal bill allows for nutrition programs for families trying to get out of poverty. Republicans wanted to slash that down more than any other cut to nutritional programs since anti-poverty programs were invented.

It now appears Republicans will give up and allow price supports to go on. The exact details are being worked out. Maybe the 1949 provision will be suspended. Maybe the extension will just be for a year. Or nine months. Or a week. Or something.

Consumers are happy. Prices won't go up to $7.00 a gallon at the supermarket. So powdery consumers won't disintegrate when they hit the checkout counter.

Agribusinesses and what are left of family farms are happy. Price supports won't be eliminated. The execution of Farmer Bill will be postponed for a while.

Purchasers are resigned. Prices won't go down, but they won't go way up, either.

Advocates for the poor are happy. Nutrition programs will be continued.

Republicans are pretty mad. That is nothing new this season.

The stereotype has long been that conservatives lie awake at night worrying that somewhere, somehow, some black person is getting away with something.

The new House reality can now be updated. Congressional Republicans are worried sick that somehow, somewhere, some undeserving little kid might be drinking milk.

Word is that negotiations have resulted in an eleventh hour and fifty ninth minute agreement. It is a caboose led train, the reverse of how things are supposed to work.

The focus of cliff negotiation had shifted to the President and the Senate, reversing the Constitutional path of fiscal legislation. Supposedly, it goes from House to Senate to President. Now the river flows upstream, from President to Senate to House.

Presumably, some form of legislative fiction will meet the Constitutional requirement. Maybe they'll backdate the unfolding Senate agreement the House ratifies. Maybe they'll get the CEO of some large banking institution to help forge the supporting documentation. If these guys can seize a mortgage holder's house through fraud, surely they can create a way to seize Boehner's House by manipulating documentation.

This has not been an easy year for Republicans. The stereotype of Republicans acting solely in favor of the wealthy, indifferent to the middle class, disdainful of the poor, had been denied, sometimes vigorously. In the Reagan years, Republicans largely seemed to dispel the image for a while. The idea that Republicans were interested solely in the wealthiest of wealthy Americans had never been vanquished, but it had been diminished. It bubbled along beneath the surface, breaking through enough to keep the legend going.

It was a sort of Loch Ness monster. Nobody had actual evidence. No photographs could be authenticated beyond vague shapes that could have been anything. The actual proof emerged this year. The Boca Raton sighting was completely verified. The existence of the monster was documented. It was indisputable.

Not that lots and lots of evidence didn't already exist. Policies favoring the rich had been a Republican staple for a long time. Those policies had been somewhat obscured, still perceptible, but only as through a glass darkly. Policies favoring the rich were supported for decades by trickle down theories which eventually mutated into Supply Side theology. Working class folks were offered reasons for pain. In the long run, tax policies that spared the very rich would help everyone else. There were charts, projections laid out on paper, bell shaped curves that put actual graphical imagery into play.

Even Republican debate audiences could be explained, in a way. Yes, they could be seen and heard on television, cheering at death for the uninsured, booing combat heroes if they were gay, ecstatic at capital punishment administered to those of doubtful guilt. But the eventual candidate was said to have merely pandered. He was rich, but he was no caricature.

Then came the Boca Raton footage, the 47 percent. The picture of those lazy, irresponsible, people composing the 47 percent as presented to wealthy Romney backers had an effect. The donors approved the picture and disapproved of those who hadn't achieved the success that must surely go to the virtuous. The video of that presentation, the picture of rich folk pointing fingers at those not wealthy, made a stereotype of the rich, and of Republicans, and gave it substance.

A blogger once reacted to a comment of mine, posting on line "To all idiots named Burr Deming..." When family members googled my name, they would find that posting. I remember mentioning once that, since the blogger hadn't been more specific, I just assumed he was talking about some other Burr Deming.

I suspect that many of those 47 percent did not take personal insult at the tape of the after dinner slur. My imagination tells me that many, perhaps most, thought the remarks were aimed at someone else. Combat veterans in treatment, working Americans riding buses to and from work, senior citizens receiving Social Security, little kids receiving breakfast programs, would not be inclined to think of themselves as part of the group being insulted.

I also suspect that most people, whether in that group or not, even if they took no personal insult, were offended. Those others, those down on their luck, those needing a helping hand, did not deserve to be regarded so heartlessly.

The image of the harsh conservative, concerned only with wealth, wrapped in snobbery, insulated in privilege, took on new life for those whose continuing financial concern is economic survival.

And that was only in the months before the election.

Post-election maneuvers have not been more kind to Republicans. Before Speaker Boehner disappeared into a purple haze, back when he was negotiating on behalf of House Republicans, President Obama had issued an initial proposal. It was based on positions taken and promises made during his reelection campaign, positions endorsed by a solid majority of voters. It included a tax increase on Americans earning over $250,000 a year.

Republicans first responded with a four page letter, most of which was an angry series of complaints. What struck me was what accompanied a demand for more entitlements.

The most telling part of the original negotiations, the talks between House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama, was the nature of the Republican demand for a reduction in what they are calling entitlements. An entitlement would be a paycheck for a teacher or a police officer. An entitlement would be medical care for an elderly patient or a wounded combat veteran. An entitlement would be breakfast for a little kid before school, or an unemployment check, or a grant toward college expense.

The Republican demand for slashes that affect the poor and middle class was accompanied by an equally important demand, one which the President rejected right away.

Republicans had wanted to name an amount that these programs would be mowed down. But they wanted the President to make the decisions about which people would suffer and by how much. They wanted no Republican fingerprints on GOP-forced sacrifices from ordinary folk.

Republicans would name the figure. The President would allocate the pain.

It is easier to make demands than to accept responsibility.

President Obama has invented a negotiating opponent. It's weird, but what's he gonna do?

A week and a half ago, the Speaker of the House of Representatives announced that his part of Congress would not hold a vote on any proposal to keep rates from going up on American taxpayers. Not the latest proposal from the President, not the response, such as it was, of the Speaker and his Republican caucus, not the conservative wishlist presented as the Speaker's own Plan B. The economy thus faces what most everyone agrees will be a catastrophe if it extends for months ahead. The Speaker said it was "the will of the House" that no plan would pass.

It wasn't exactly a majority that composed the will of the House.

A majority of seats in the House are held by Republicans. Most voters voted for a Democrat for their Congressional Representative this past election. Aggressive gerrymandering combined with accidents of population distribution combined to produce a Republican majority. Still, Democrats in the House got more votes in the election than did Republicans. It has happened only twice before within the previous hundred years that most voters cast ballots for one party while the other party took control.

And it isn't necessarily a majority of the gerrymandered House that opposes the passage of some realistic plan to keep tax rates down for most Americans. It is mathematically possible, and even politically plausible, that just enough Republicans might vote on some version of the President's proposal to keep the economy going. Saving the economy will happen if Democrats maintain the unity they have demonstrated so far and if 18 or so Republicans want to save the economy.

But the Speaker's "Will of the House" has kept the will of the House from being expressed.

That pretty much left President Obama with nobody with whom to negotiate. So he kind of invented someone. He appointed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to negotiate with Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. Senator McConnell had wisely kept out of the turmoil up until then. He is the least popular US Senator among constituents and he does not crave a new place in the Guinness Book of Hated Office Holders. He was eventually found hiding under his Senate desk, having handcuffed himself to a bolt in the floor. He was drafted into service.

That last is a figurative illustration, not to be taken literally. He didn't really have handcuffs.

Actually, the Senate is not supposed to originate a fiscal bill. I know this because I saw the cartoon "I'm just a Bill" which I have been urging on unwilling Republican friends ever since.

The House of Representatives is supposed to come up with all things financial, which all-things are then voted on by the Senate and then go to the President. But since the House Republican caucus disintegrated into pixie dust and scattered into the brisk Washington breeze, what's a grownup gonna do?

If Senator Reid and Senator McConnell can't come to terms, the President will produce a bill. The calculation is that the minority composed of Republican Senators, the ones who filibuster pretty much everything these days in a new sort of legislative routine, won't filibuster this. That's because they don't want to be blamed for everybody's taxes going up.

So the President's bill will get passed by a majority of the Senate. It's possible even a few Republican Senators will vote for saving the American economy.

Then it will go to the House of Representatives. The House will have reassembled by then, kind of like in the transporter on StarTrek. Everyone will look around and blink and rub their fingers together to make sure everything is still intact. Republicans will elect Speaker John Boehner to remain Speaker John Boehner and then they will pretend for the cameras that they have no idea at all what will come next.

Only then will the Speaker allow the House to vote on the Senate bill to save the economy or the President's bill to save the economy. House Republicans will appear on camera to lament how they were sold out by the Speaker they had just voted for, and will explain that they had no idea, no idea at all, what he would do.

Shame on you Mr. Speaker, they will cry in unison. Then they'll buy him dinner at Wendy's.

You see, the House will vote on the President's bill to save the economy because Speaker Boehner will be concerned about the country, or about his place in history, or about human decency, or something.

Okay, okay, that's the weak point in this plan.

But if the Senate passes a bill, and if the Speaker allows a vote, and if enough Republicans become patriots and join Democrats in passing it, everything will be okay until the Debt Ceiling that is not actually a ceiling on debt comes up. At that point, we'll do it all over again.

The President was on Meet the Press yesterday. He expressed a bit of impatience with gamesmanship, political kabuki, and twisted news coverage.

The news coverage part raised some mild indignation on the part of news coverers later in the program. The President lamented balance at the expense of truth. Undoubtedly, this is because he has been reading Fair and Unbalanced in his spare moments. I feel so proud.

David Gregory asked him about the frustration ordinary Americans feel toward Washington. The President answered.

Well, I think we're all frustrated. You know, the only thing I would-- I would caution against, David, is I think this notion of, "Well, both sides are just kind of unwilling to cooperate." And that's just not true. I mean if you look at the facts, what you have is a situation here where the Democratic Party, warts and all, and certainly me, warts and all, have consistently done our best to try to put country first. And to try to work with everybody involved to make sure that we've got an economy that grows, make sure that it works for everybody, make sure that we're keeping the country safe.

He then applied his observation to the current crisis.

What I'm arguing for are maintaining tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans. I don't think anybody would consider that some liberal left wing agenda. That’s some-- that-- that used to be considered a pretty mainstream Republican agenda.

And it's something that we can accomplish today if we simply allow for a vote in the Senate and in the House to get it done. The fact that it's not happening is an indication of, you know, how far certain factions inside the Republican Party have gone where they-- they can't even accept what used to be considered centrist, mainstream positions on these issues.

Okay. That's pretty clear. So how exactly should the press report this entire mess?

A crisis is here that Republicans back in July insisted be invented. It's not so much a fiscal crisis as a fiscal suicide vest. The theory was that everyone would vote for SOMEthing grownup in order to prevent the explosion. Pass a budget or the economy gets it. That was the Republican plan. Eventually everyone agreed, in order to keep the economy from blowing up right then.

Now we've gotten to the deadline that Republicans built.

In the House, a majority of a majority elected by a minority is able to keep pretty much anything from happening.

The President has prodded the leaders of the Senate into doing what the House is supposed to do, but can't because Republicans in the House are keeping the House from doing what the House is supposed to do.

If the leadership of the Senate can't come up with a plan, the President will. If even a few Republicans in the Senate come up with an attack of patriotism, no filibuster will happen and some plan to save the economy - the President's or that of the leadership - will pass, maybe even with a few patriotic Republican votes.

If Speaker Boehner experiences a sudden attack of patriotism and allows a vote, and if enough Republican Congressional Representatives experience a new birth of patriotism and vote with Democrats to save the economy, everything will be okay.

Until the the fiscal crisis of the so called "debt ceiling." Then we'll start it all again.

Do we have any a clue on how the reporting will go? Well, yes, in fact, we do.

David Gregory reacted to the President's oblique criticism. "... there’s something I also wanted to pick up on. The president’s obvious irritation, Chuck was just mentioning it before we started, at the notion that it’s a pox on both Houses."

And one of the president’s top advisers is rather defensive on Twitter saying that it-- you know, it should bug every American because it’s lazy journalism and punditry and has a real effect on our political system. Well, here’s the reality that even his advisers have to understand. The American people, Republicans and Democrats, do look at results or the lack thereof. So, it’s not lazy punditry when people are out there very frustrated with both ends of this.

So there you have it. It isn't lazy journalism. The American public is just too frustrated.

They can't handle the truth.

It's always a little perilous to extrapolate too much from your own feelings. I find something especially motivating, so most everyone must feel that way. Sometimes this is called projection, although that has a bit of a pejorative feel to it. Projection is usually the assumption that some negative emotion, perhaps hatred, maybe aggression, is returned by the target of hatred or aggression. I hate my enemy, who must therefore surely hate me.

Conservatives occasionally talk of liberal statism. Those who who do not dwell with the movement are thought to be endowed with a bedrock conviction that government must control economic policy, or social policy, or both. I think of this as a sort of projection, after a fashion. Maybe we can call it reflected projection. I hate something, so my enemy must love it. Conservatives hate governmental involvement in solving problems. So . . . when liberals, moderates, and those absent minded nudists who forget to wear their labels, vote for government solutions, it must be because they are crazy-in-love with government.

This has not been my observation. There may be some gov-o-phile out there with some pathological need for bigger, stronger, more - I dunno - intricate bureaucracy. Perhaps such an individual would be motivated by some childhood fantasy of decorative stop signs on every corner. I know lots people I think of as liberals, I come face to face with one everytime I look in the mirror to shave.

I might be wrong, but I regard statist liberals with the same degree of belief as a Dawkins follower might regard God. I believe in God. I don't believe statist liberals exist.

If I am right, and I think I am, liberals, and sometimes those who can be convinced on one issue or another, are much more opportunistic in our beliefs. We crave solutions to pressing issues. We are, by and large, as loyal to government as we are to an occasional hammer or saw if we want to construct a backyard storage shed. Government is a tool - no more than that. In fact, many of those on the left whom I have met hold government, especially government in the hands of a Bush or Cheney, with a great deal more paranoia than I can find in myself about most things.

So I think those conservatives who accuse us, or most of us, or some of us . . . okay, okay . . those who accuse me, of statism are assuming, because I don't share their hatred, that my attitude must be one of adoration. Reverse projection.

Up-front, in your face, projection makes me a little wary. I have always been suspicious of writers who explain how the common voter thinks. Even as a kid, I always sort of smirked as I read the efforts of a local columnist to speak with the voice of "the common man." The "common man" became "we." Occasionally he would actually begin with "I am the common man" and spoke on behalf of all of us who were not, I guess, exceptional. Average non-Romneys, I suppose.

But I do sometimes consult my own feelings as a starting point, testing my own suppositions against discoverable facts.

This election season, I was angry at the brazen attempts to take away the basic right of casting a secret ballot for the candidate of your choice. The attempt often took on the veneer of prevention of voter fraud. It was aimed at those without drivers licenses. If you could not produce a photo ID, you could not vote. Included in that denial would be those who ride buses to and from work, those who are elderly and have given up their licenses, those who were to be first time voters, not having completed driver education, college students living on campus.

Besides not having a license to drive, all those groups had something else in common. They were thought to have more of a likelihood to vote for Barack Obama for President.

Thing is, the number of cases of voter fraud is so miniscule, you would be more likely to be attacked by a bear, survive, then be attacked by another bear, survive again, then be struck by lightning, than you would of living in a local jurisdiction in which even one case of voter fraud occurred. The Bush administration assigned investigators to comb the entire United States for cases of voter fraud. They went through five voting cycles for local, state, and federal elections.

They actually found a handful of cases. Several folks thought they had registered and had tried to vote. Only one case was deliberate. A woman falsely registered from a location in which she did not live. She was attempting to hide from a dangerously abusive ex-husband who had a history of stalking her.

Conservatives, with the occasional exception of private conversation that was recorded (oops), insisted that voter suppression was the farthest thing from their minds. Voter fraud really truly was a serious problem. And if it wasn't it might be. If not now, then someday. An ounce of prevention is worth a few more Republicans elected, as the GOP legislative leader said in Pennsylvania.

Besides, alternative photo ID would be available to anyone who showed up with adequate identification. And it would be free. The required identification that would qualify for a photo ID just happened to be the same identification that had previously been required at the polls. So, instead of showing your ID at the polling place, you would go somewhere else and show the same identification to get another identification to show at the the polling place. And this additional hoop would prevent voting fraud. At least in the minds of partisans not disposed toward rationality.

To those paying attention, it eventually became clear as a full moon on a cloudless night on a mountaintop, what was actually going on. The free photo IDs could only be gotten at certain offices. In Texas and Ohio, many of those offices were closed down, consolidated in areas far away from concentrations of low income, African American, or Latino populations. Hours were restricted in remaining locations too close to those areas for Republican comfort.

In Ohio, workers were ordered, in writing, not to volunteer information to those trying to get to where the new free photo IDs might be issued. One worker was fired for sending a memo expressing his opinion that it was actually the duty of state employees to give information on how to qualify to vote.

After studies showed minority voters were likeliest to vote early, where permitted, or in off-hours after work, hours and days of voting were restricted in Florida, Ohio, and other areas. As a result, voters in predominantly minority areas waited in line for as long as seven and a half hours. Voters in suburban areas were in and out in minutes.

Traditional, non-partisan, let's-all-be-good-citizens, voter registration efforts had to be abandoned in Florida, where new restrictive and complex regulations combined with new and extreme penalties to make voter registration legally dangerous. The League of Women Voters suspended their quadrennial registration campaign rather than expose their volunteers to harsh legal penalties. A high school teacher was brought up on criminal charges for bringing voter registration applications to her students, an exercise she had conducted in civics class for years.

In Tennessee, a worker was surprised to find an elderly voter who kept coming back with additional evidence she should be allowed to continue voting, as she had been since Jim Crow days. The worker laughed at the unexpected determination, it was so surprising that anyone would go through that much trouble to vote. It had never happened before in her experience.

Some folks regard the partisan effort at voting denial as a normal part of politics. Of course Republicans would try to keep Democrats from voting. I confess to a bit of impatience at the assumption that voting rights belong to parties or politicians, that the issue is about who can tally more votes or reduce the votes going to other candidates. Voting rights belong to voters. Politicians have no right to take those rights away.

When I showed up to vote in 2008, it was with a sense of hope.
When I showed up in 2012, it was with a sense of profound anger.

And this is where it gets dangerous to extrapolate too much from your own feelings. It may be projection. Maybe I'm alone in my reaction.

But we can speculate about what would happen if, by some chance, other voters felt the same way. What would be the result? I think we would see a defiant turnout.

From the Pew Research Center:

Blacks voted at a higher rate this year than other minority groups and for the first time in history may also have voted at a higher rate than whites, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data, election day exit poll data and vote totals from selected cities and counties.

The Pew Center extrapolates a little from available data, but the case looks strong. Black people make up 12% of the population, but very likely composed 13% of those who voted.

These participation milestones are notable not just in light of the long history of black disenfranchisement, but also in light of recently-enacted state voter identification laws that some critics contended would suppress turnout disproportionately among blacks and other minority groups.

So did African American voters turn out in strength despite efforts to force them out of the voting booth? Or was it because of voter suppression efforts?

A tradition of encouraging every eligible voter to go to the polls once transcended politics. Anything else was unthinkable, unAmerican, in those all but forgotten days. It is tempting to believe the newer tradition of dirty politics has been shown to backfire. But we do not really know. At least not yet.

The effort to keep "undesirables" from voting continues. Sadly, additional evidence of the effect, one way or the other, can be expected in 2014 and 2016.

Those of us who have never served in the military have a respect for those who have, a respect that borders on awe.

When my stepson came back from Afghanistan he stumbled a little in answering his mother as she pressed him on his experiences. You can't actually lie to your mom. Did he come under actual gunfire? Well, yeah, "but I wasn't in any real danger."

Uh huh.

We got word the other day that he was promoted. He is now a corporal in the United States Marine Corps. When he was awarded a medal for the incident that he had kept from describing in detail for his mother, he wrote to say that he felt better about that medal than about his promotion. There are several medals that can be awarded, depending on circumstance and level of personal action, and we don't have word yet of the particulars. We are mostly happy that he is out of danger, at least for the present.

At a church service, shortly after we heard from him that his tour in Afghanistan was ended, I was called on by the pastor to relay the good news. I was allowed to speak about the time we had waited for word. We only had news of two attacks on the base at which he was stationed. As we prayed that he was not among those lost in those attacks, it came to me that there was a dark side to my prayers. We knew the number of Marines killed. In a way, as I was hoping we would discover the tragedy had missed us, my prayer was that it befall some other family. I told the congregation about the zero-sum life of waiting for news.

There came to be a touch of guilt in my relief when we eventually heard from him. He had been out of contact during his transport out of that war torn country and couldn't reach us to say he was safe. We have since learned to breathe again. There are those for whom life has become an exercise in the unthinkable: somehow learning to live when a son or daughter, a parent or sibling, will not be coming home.

I was struck by the largely unknown story of actor Charles Durning, who died on Monday. Durning is known more for his supporting roles, with a recognized face and a forgotten name. He was a corrupt policeman in The Sting and the would be suitor to the cross-dressing Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.

Behind the scenes, out of public view, his life was warped by war. He struggled after World War II to break through to the surface from the terrible aftermath of combat.

He was part of the force that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He seldomed talked about his experience, but once opened up about the perilous swim to shore. Those who were dying summoned strength to throw themselves in front, acting as human shields from the hail of gunfire. He himself was wounded, a bullet remaining in his hip for the rest of his life. Every other member of his unit was killed that day. He was the sole survivor.

In Belgium, he was wounded again, stabbed with a bayonet in desperate hand-to-hand combat. He killed the German soldier with a rock. His company was captured while fighting to free embattled US troops at the Battle of the Bulge. He was one of those force-marched to Malmedy, where Germans carried out orders to execute prisoners of war by machine gun fire. He was one of the few to survive.

Worrying as we did for our own young Marine, I wonder about the depths this soldier must have endured. Surviving by chance, the only one in his unit, protected by a host of dying combat troops, surviving again the war crime at the hands of Nazis, the brutal individual combat - up close and personal.

He is quoted about his experiences:

I forget a lot of stuff now but I still wake up once in a while and it's still there. I can't count how many of my buddies are in the cemetery at Normandy.

The flow of ribbons and medals didn't stop at the end of the war. Recognition has its own momentum. But it didn't prevent a downward spiral. For a decade, he seems to have survived in a huge vortex of trauma. He drifted from one job to another.

After he eventually found his way into acting, he still was haunted by his experiences. The New York Times recounts an interview much later in life, as he remembered.

“I was crossing a field somewhere in Belgium,” he said. “A German soldier ran toward me carrying a bayonet. He couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15. I didn’t see a soldier. I saw a boy. Even though he was coming at me, I couldn’t shoot.”

They grappled, he recounted later — he was stabbed seven or eight times — until finally he grasped a rock and made it a weapon. After killing the youth, he said, he held him in his arms and wept.

I have listened to the stories of those who have avoided death by slight chance, by inches. I am impressed most, I think, by the absolute lack of drama in their accounts. I cannot account for it. A soldier in Vietnam leaned against a tree and, in exhaustion, slid down a few inches, as a bullet smashed where his head had just been. "So it missed me," he says simply.

And a young Marine tells his mom he was fired upon, "but I wasn't in any real danger."

We can't forget those who are put into harm's way. We can't forget the cost that sometimes follows as experience catches up. We can't forget what we owe them.

And we must remember the human cost whenever we contemplate military alternatives.

Onlookers, pundits, and fellow politicians have found remarkable, and rightly so, the depths of Republican commitment to giving holders of the apex of American wealth tax breaks they would have not dreamed of in the days of Eisenhower.

Barack Obama wants to increase the very top tax rate by 4 percent, to 50% less than the top rate during the 1950s. Not 50% less proportionally as in 39 point something is 50% less than 59 point something. The Obama proposal is 50% less arithmetically, as in 39 point something is about 50% less than the 90% that was considered uncontroversial in the days of the Korean War, Soviet Sputnik, Joe McCarthy, Beaver Cleaver, and Dick Nixon's dog Checkers.

Some of us remember those days. The engaging bathos of that Nixon speech was kind of emblematic of the 1950s, along with the 90% top tax rate. In a televised speech defending gifts to his campaign, candidate for Vice President, Dick Nixon, talked about one gift - a little dog named Checkers. Aside from that, they lived on the Nixon Senate salary, even paying for wife Pat's "respectable Republican cloth coat." The Nixon kids got to keep Checkers, but all Pat Nixon got was that lousy coat. Not even a sign or button or tattoo saying "I married Dick Nixon, and all I got was this lousy Republican cloth coat."

Sixty years later, some wealthy folks got mad because President Obama violated American tradition through his insufficient respect for the moral superiority of wealthy people. God, after all, had shone His Light upon them, rewarding their virtue with material splendor. But the actual policy that proved the case, that made President Obama anti-business, socialistic, and unAmerican, was his campaign plank to raise the maximum tax rate from 35% to 39 point whatever, making their splendor a little more slender.

So pundits, and pretty much everyone else, focused on that.
Of course.

John Boehner, by secondary and tertiary accounts, and associated educated guesses, was pretty close to an agreement with President Obama. For some reason, he felt the need to create an etch-a-sketch moment. Throw the chess board off the table, set everything up again, and start playing over. He presented a pre-Christmas gift to Republicans in the House of Representatives that did increase the absolute top tax rates on paychecks for the wealthy, but only if those paychecks came to more than a million dollars a year.

This would show Republicans not only were willing to compromise, but had actually passed a bill. This would present solid decisive action to the American public. The public would be expected to applaud and force Democrats to cooperate in letting the wealthy continue along without getting hooked for more of a share of the national burden.

And that's what pundits, reporters, politicians, and everyone else buzzed about. The talk floated around Boehner's strategic move.

To make the increase in the top rate a little more acceptable to conservatives, boatloads of additional benefits were added for the wealthy. Removing limits on tax deductions forever after. Keeping taxes on dividends and profit selling way lower, forever after. Eliminating estate taxes altogether. Boehner became the tooth fairy, giving a huge bonus for each cuspid, incisor, and molar in a wide, wide set of extended dentures.

This all received some coverage, but mostly reporters talked to audiences about tax rates going up a little, but only on those making more than a million dollars. A compromise.

There was another sweetener for conservative Republicans, that would ensure the votes needed to pass the etch-a-sketch bill. Reporters referred to it as reducing the size of government. Sometimes, discussion got a little less beautiful as talk turned to entitlements. That implied that actual people might be affected. On the other hand, it also suggested what most folks kind of dislike when they encounter it: an assumption of "entitlement." A sort of presumptive arrogance. Gimme, gimme. I deserve it.

Compromise meant that taxes would be raised, and those entitlements would be lowered. After all, we continue to hear, everyone must sacrifice.

Occasionally, reflexive Republican hostility to the vulnerable in our society leaked through the reporting haze. In this case, emphasis was given to one specific entitlement. It wasn't breakfast programs for little school children, and the salaries of their occasionally endangered and heroic teachers. It wasn't medical treatment and subsequent care for wounded combat veterans. It wasn't Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. All those were included in the cuts or eliminations calculated to be popular enough with Republicans to assure Speaker Boehner of the votes needed for passage of his compromise: What would strengthen his position against President Obama.

What the cutters and slashers picked out to highlight for conservatives was one symbolic program: Meals on Wheels. You remember Meals on Wheels, the preparation and delivery of food at home, mostly for the elderly who can't get around to buy or fix food for themselves. The preparation part is done by professionals. A lot of the driving and at-home visiting is done by volunteers.

Yup. Conservatives would be enthused over elimination of Meals on Wheels.

As it turned out, Republicans liked all the cut backs and elimination of programs, or "entitlements" as pundits and politicians call them. But the increase of the burden on those with huge mansions and spacious estates, even by the little bit proposed by Boehner, stuck in their throats.

No. They wouldn't swallow it. Others may have considered the Boehner proposal extreme.

It is not extreme enough for the Republican Party.

It's an annual family tradition, one I meet on those years that weather and health coincide. A local church holds an "Eve of Christmas Eve" service. I normally attend a closer church, but I join with family each year. The people remember me and it's a little like going home.

Second rehearsal was scheduled for Thursday, but weather was bad. So Saturday was the alternate. Driving there, I tuned in to the audio part of a CNN report. Friday's Republican disintegration was one of the topics.

The current prevailing journalistic ethic of balance, even at the expense of truth, holds a tight grip on CNN. Each measure of criticism of one side must be matched in precise equality by criticism of the other. Whenever possible, equal condemnation must be uttered in the same sentence. That both sides are guilty is not a conclusion. It is a premise, one so deeply ingrained as to be less fact than dogma. That makes it hard to listen without arguing with the broadcast.

This time was easier, almost borderline comedy. Hearing reporters struggle to maintain the precision of balance that governs CNN finally had me chuckling.

They did begin with a bare bones report that John Boehner had offered a $1 million income threshold on a slight increase in tax rates. No mention that the Boehner proposal included a Christmas wish list designed to placate the harshest, meanest of Republican hostility toward anything and anyone who might benefit from government, outside of defense contractors.

For some reason, Meals On Wheels, the program to get nutrition to elderly people who can't get out of their homes, carried Friday's special bullseye.

The target of choice seems to vary with each reflexive conservative urge to attack the vulnerable. A while back it was wounded combat veterans. Before that it was breakfast programs for little kids at school. Most recently storm victims in the northeast were the topic of the day. In the case of storm victims, Republicans weren't so much targeting them directly. They were using them as hostages. No food, clothing, or shelter for storm victims until kids or elderly or veterans or someone else gets slashed.

The elderly are always a Republican target. Social Security and Medicare are the cut back vehicles. Those struggling out of economic hardship are also included as a matter of course. Medicaid is cut and cut again. Unemployment benefits are a target as well. But the elderly and those hurting financially are no longer news. They are routinely included by Republicans as those to be cut.

This time Representative Boehner offered most of the traditional groups as sacrifices to his fellow Republicans. The idea was to appear balanced, since that seems to appeal to Very Serious People, including CNN types. He would offer slight tax increases on those earning $1,000,000 and up, not counting income from stocks sales, dividends or several other categories. Those getting $1,000,000 from paychecks would take care of the plus side. And balance would be achieved with those cuts on those with no lobbyists.

John Boehner's "Plan B" was as partisan a package as could be imagined. And it was turned down by Republicans as not extreme enough. Conservative Charles Krauthammer speculated on Fox News that Boehner's "Plan C" would be Saturday's Mayan Apocalypse.

It seems that pretty much everyone in Washington is scolded about bipartisanship. Democrats struggle to achieve bipartisanship. President Obama offers to cut Social Security cost of living calculations in the spirit of bipartisanship.

On Friday, bipartisanship was forgotten. Republicans were unable to climb up even to the level of partisanship.

It is easy to see the dilemma journalists find themselves facing, as they struggle to blame both sides equally.

A CNN panel ran through the results of what host Randi Kaye called "the drama on Capitol Hill." Randi lamented that "Members of Congress get to go home for the holiday weekend. But forget about getting a Christmas gift in the form of a fiscal budget deal this season."

Ah yes. Capitol Hill. Members of Congress.

Regan talked of direct financial hits. "Well we're all going to see our taxes go up. I mean, that's the reality here. So if we go through this cliff, taxes on every American will go up. We will also see the payroll cut -- the payroll tax cut end. So that's another thing that we'll wind up paying. And don't forget, there's two million people right now that are getting an extension on their unemployment benefits. That will end as well. So a little bit less money, Randi, in everybody's pockets."

Boy, those Washington slobs. While talking about the more general effects on the economy, we finally get, indirectly, to who is to blame.

"Finally you know investors don't like the idea that Washington can't quite get it together. They want to see lawmakers be able to come up with a solution. And the idea that it's boiled down to so much political bickering really bothers them. Don't forget, we saw our debt downgraded for the first time ever because Washington couldn't really pull it together."

Washington. Lawmakers. Political bickering.

Finally, a clip was introduced. "Reporters have been weighing in on the fiscal cliff. One of them is telling lawmakers to get real."

Well, at last, some reporter is about to tell the truth and forget about balance, right?

An unnamed male voice:

...and Obama have no rules because they are not spending their own money. They keep spending and spending money with no regards to ever getting the United States out of debt. You're spending our money like drunken sailors with no regard to the future of America.

My message to President Obama and each member of Congress is very, very simple. Quit spending the money that America does not have.

Um...

What is not reported here, aside from the fact that both sides emphatically are not to blame for the fiasco, is that most economists warn against reducing the deficit before the recession has been ended and prosperity returns.

So the Republican blowup is presented as being caused by everybody. No mention of who is to be affected by the cuts Republicans insist on, no mention of what economists say will happen if austerity is imposed and deficits are dramatically and immediately reduced. And a voice over clip blames President Obama.

Dramatic events happened to the GOP on Friday, but it was a normal reporting day at CNN.

In the United States, any citizen who is at least 18 years old and not a convicted felon has the right to vote. Most of us accept and celebrate our universal suffrage. But is it a good idea? In my view, no. Not every adult U.S. citizen should have the right to vote.

- Oliver Hudson, November 13, 2012

David Wagner, of the Atlantic Wire, lists the year's 50 worst columns. Presumably, he reads them so we don't have to. Among them was a post-election contribution by conservative Oliver Hudson. Hudson laments universal suffrage.

Hudson's central point is that taxes are essentially a legitimized mechanism of theft. It follows that democratic government is primarily an agent of an immoral act. His solution is simple. Voting should be restricted to taxpayers. And more votes should be awarded to those who have the most income. The theory being that those who make the most also pay the most in taxes, and those who make the most money do so, in a free market economy, by contributing the most.

Even most conservatives, I suspect, would reject the reversion of the United States to a banana republic. Even those countries generally recognized as plutocracies are careful not to acknowledge that themselves.

Most of the wealthiest in our country would not subscribe to the Hudson thesis. But there is a sense of resentment among some that goes beyond naked self-interest. In fact, from a purely financial point of view, pretty much every person with a staff of servants and a mansion should be steadfast in voting for Democrats.

On the whole, Democratic administrations have been better for investors than Republicans. The online news organization, Economist, recently put their comparative analysis into a one minute video, based on data from Barclays Capital.

The bare facts don't really take even that long to consider. Since 1929, Democratic administrations have promoted growth. In the years of Democrats, American equities have grown by over 450%. In Republican years, the growth has been less, only 100%. Inflation should be taken into account, though. It has been higher under Democrats. We should be comparing value after inflation.

Inflation under Democrats has been 3.5% a year. With Republicans, it has been less, only 3 percent. That can add up. It affects not only return on investment. It affects return of investment. So Barclays, and the Economist, applied inflation to both sets of figures. Here is what they found:

With Democrats, real growth of investment plus return was - - - 300%
Hey, that's pretty good!

With Republicans, real growth was - - - zero
That's as good as stuffing everything in a mattress.

Well, that's Keynesianism for you.

More to the point, bankers, investors, business owners, pretty much everyone who owns a piece of America - most especially the Romney and Boehner 2 percent, would be stampeding madly toward voting booths to pull every lever they could for Democrats - from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama - if they were just motivated by money.

There is something else at work.

That something is pretty much anyone's guess. Maybe it's something different for each strain of wealthy, Country Club Republican.

I count as one of those anyones. Here is my speculation.

Many of these folks are people who made their money through a combination of skill, hard work, and luck. They took risks. Any risk brings the possibility of losing a lot, maybe everything. So they are brave as well.

It has to be tempting to regard everyone else as lacking these attributes. Those not in the economic elite have to be seen as unskillful, or not willing to work hard, or risk averse, which is to say: if not cowardly, then unbrave. Or maybe just unlucky, or as conservative Rick Santelli became famous yelling, they are losers.

Seeing oneself as a winner in a land of losers, courageous in a world of timidity, deserving in a universe cluttered with those who covet what they do not deserve, provides a sort of defensive set of obvious privileges.

It also carries an emotional drawback. The pebble in the shoe of the virtuous is the indifference that is very much a part of a democratic society. The lack of recognition of those virtues must be an irritant for some. Even occasional derision must be a little wounding for the deserving.

Knowing that you are blessed might be tempered by those who refuse to recognize the justice of your reward. Deserving honor in a society that regards you as merely equal might well promote a resentment toward the takers, the 47%.

If the accumulation of wealth was the only thing, the wealthy would be eternally enthusiastic about Democrats. There is more to life than money.

It can be lonely at the top.

What miracle is this? The magical talents of John Boehner should astonish us all. Consider. He produces an increase in taxes on millionaires and billionaires while simultaneously obtaining the public blessing of anti-tax militant Grover Norquist.

Mr. Norquist, speaking for his "Americans for Tax Reform" says this:

Having finally seen actual legislation in writing, ATR is now able to make its determination. ATR will not consider a vote for this measure a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

The Boehner plan will allow tax rates on ordinary Americans to remain low, thus avoiding the fiscal cliff.

So extremely wealthy people must be pretty unhappy about this, right?

Well, there are some compensations that might make it easier for them. As Mary Poppins wisely teaches, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. That's not all that will go down.

Capital gains rates will go down by a lot. So, when a stockholder sells at a higher price than the stock was purchased, the tax on the profit will be less. So that's actually another tax break. That can be a pretty good deal, especially for someone who makes money in speculation. Well, if you take risk, maybe you should get a bigger tax break if you win really big, right? Think Mitt Romney. Think Bain Capital.

Those who don't do a lot of trading won't get that break. But they will get a big tax reduction on dividends.

Oh, did I mention other deductions for the extremely wealthy? There is a current limit on itemized deductions. It was suspended during the Bush administration, so the wealthy don't feel it at the moment. Under the Boehner plan, it will be removed permanently.

Those who get their wealth by inheriting it will also get a big tax break. Estate taxes will go down dramatically. So the kids and grandkids and great-grandkids of Thurston Howells, right down to Thurston Howell 3rd and beyond, will be grateful.

So, by and large, those living in huge mansions with expansive manicured lawns won't be suffering.

But the top rates will go up and that's what counts, right? Not on everyone the President said should pay a fairer share, but at least some will. Or they will if you don't count those profits and dividends and other breaks.

But at least the tax rate, now scheduled to go up for middle income and low income working Americans won't go up on the Republicans schedule. That's part of the fiscal cliff Republicans demanded the last time they held the American economy hostage back in July. Everyone's taxes were scheduled to go up on January 1 if an agreement isn't reached. Under the Boehner plan, that won't happen.

Good deal.

Now there are some trade offs. The Child Tax Credit will be cut in half. If you have four kids, you will still have a tax credit, but it will only be $2000, instead of the $4000 credit you get now.

The American Opportunity Credit is the tax reduction you get on tuition if you send your kids to college. That will be slashed. It's possible you'll get partial credit, but your taxes will definitely go up if you're sending your children to a higher institution of learning.

One of America's most effective anti-poverty programs has been the Earned Income Tax Credit. That was the result of many efforts at reforming programs to get those hurting economically. It depends on working and earning an income, so conservatives would like it in theory. Problem is, they don't. Incentives to work are okay, but when it comes to actually helping the working poor, it just sucks the enthusiasm right out of some folks.

So the Earned Income Tax Credit will be eliminated completely.

Those earning under $80,000 a year will get hit pretty hard. Those who ride the bus to work, those earning $40,000 or less will really get hammered under the Boehner plan.

But everyone must learn to give a little in negotiations, right?

President Obama may object to Representative Boehner's program, but that's just because he won't compromise enough. Republicans already said the President's concession, raising the income level for any tax increase from $250,000 to $400,000 was not enough.

In fact, some conservatives are already objecting to John Boehner's plan. It doesn't go far enough in keeping taxes low on those who are responsible for generating economic activity in this country, which is to say the very wealthy.

Those of us who support the President, members of the majority who actually voted him back into office for a second term, may feel that the wealthy should pay a larger share toward keeping things afloat. After all, that was the campaign we supported.

But we shouldn't worry. Mr. Boehner does have more to offer. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a host of other programs are among those Republicans are targeting for reductions. In fact, John Boehner has already promised to cut far more from those programs than will be gotten from any tax increases. In fact, Republicans will demand deeper and more profound cuts than the President has already pledged.

The increased benefits to the wealthy and the additional burdens for the working poor and the middle class can provide an important lesson for those who thought we had voted for something different.

John Boehner's accomplishment, getting permission from Grover Norquist for an increase in tax rates, may seem like political magic. But sometimes a magic act is only slight of hand. And slight of hand almost always involves misdirection.

Under this Republican plan, the rich get richer and the poor get children.

Frank Luntz has made quite a name for himself by manipulating language. He is a political consultant, a GOP strategist with a twist. His claim to fame is euphemism. He warned the Republican Party that universal health care was more popular than they had considered. So he guided them into a mythical world of "death panels." When obstruction eventually gave way to actual votes, he helped conservatives complain about "ramming the bill" through Congress.

During the Bush years, Republicans had used what is called a reconciliation process to pass the Bush tax cuts. It is an obscure procedure that can, in some cases, dodge the 60 vote Senate filibuster. When Democrats considered it in the fight for Obamacare, Luntz coined the phrase "nuclear option" to describe it. "Reconciliation" sounds kind of folksy. "Nuclear option" sounds scary and unfair.

In an interview in 2007, Luntz talked fondly of Orwellian phrases. "To be 'Orwellian' is to speak with absolute clarity, to be succinct, to explain what the event is, to talk about what triggers something happening," he told Terry Gross, "and to do so without any pejorative whatsoever."

The "without pejorative" part is defensive. When going on the offense, describing the opposition, pejorative is just what Dr. Orwell ordered. That is how estate taxes on billionaires become death taxes on small businesses and farmers.

Small business is the current Republican euphemism of choice for the wealthiest of Americans that Democrats say should carry a small increase in the very top tax rates. When calculating effects on small business, the GOP definition of small business is expansive. Mega-corporations with offices in a multitude of countries become small businesses. When describing specific small businesses, the Republican definition shrinks to the corner store, the flower shop, or the little, but growing, manufacturing firm, churning out furniture.

The proposal President Obama campaigned on, the proposal he detailed in his unanswered opening bid in negotiating with the band of Republicans would raise the very top rates by a touch more than 4 percent. Only that portion of income above $250,000 would be affected.

Republicans have managed to convince many business people that this would be a tax on gross income, income before expenses. Thus, a California business owner recently talked about how the prospective tax would destroy the increases in productivity he had sacrificed in order to get: "Growth has kept our income low, as we’ve invested back into the company in the form of additional jobs and equipment." Tax increases would force changes: "Bottom line, raising our taxes means we’ll quit growing, lay off people and stay under the $250k level for income."

Actually, it's only net income that is affected. If you put your income back into your business, it's not income.

And, Republicans have managed to obfuscate the meaning of marginal rates. If anyone's net income goes over $250,000 a year, any tax increase would only apply to whatever is over that $250,000.

If our California business owner pockets $250,010, after all business expenses, if the income left over after he finishes plowing the rest back into the business is $250,010, the increase would only apply to $10.

The first $250,000 would be untouched.

Slate magazine crunches the numbers.

If our California business owner does pocket $250,010 after expenses, after putting most everything back into the business, that would put him into a very exclusive club.

Even though only that $10 would be affected by the slight increase in taxes, he still would be among 3 percent of small business owners to pay even a nickel more than they are paying now.

97 percent of small business owners would be unaffected.

There is a more pernicious euphemism at work. The fact is that compromise mongers, whether consciously or not, are engaged in a little word play themselves.

Let's try this:

Revenues will go up, pundits say, but entitlements should be reduced substantially, much more substantially than Democrats seem to want. Government has to reduce its appetite if the approach is to be balanced. It's only fair for everyone to sacrifice. Both sides should give up something.

It's an easy premise to accept. Fairness dictates a balance that falls between extremes. Journalists press everyone for compromise. Moderation is, after all, a virtue. Nobody should be selfish.

Thus, in a harsh and persistent recession, those at risk are dealt with as abstractions. "Bloated government" and "entitlements" are the Luntz words that obscure who we really are talking about. Imagine a lapse in euphemism lasting long enough for partial clarity.

Tax rates on those who live in mansions will go up a couple of points, but medical treatments for wounded Marines should be reduced substantially, much more substantially than those combat veterans seem to want. It's only fair for everyone to sacrifice. Both sides should give up something.

There are others, of course, who can be substituted for combat heroes. You can rewrite the brief paragraph yourself. Try putting in little kids and breakfast programs. When that wears thin, go on to elderly folks and Social Security pensions, then teachers, next police officers, and Medicare recipients.

Okay, conservatives. You can take a break from reality now. Professor Luntz is waiting patiently for you at Fox News.

In Response to T. Paine's
Obama and the Democratic Cliff Conspiracy

Mr. Deming, you write as if gerrymandering was a concept recently developed by the Republicans. Surely you know that both parties have used this tactic for generations whenever they were in power to do so. I do understand in the progressive world of today though that there are definitely double standards with which we must contend.

Next, your beloved President originally was campaigning on a “balanced” approach to our financial woes. Originally he proposed a one to three ratio of revenue increases to spending cuts, as per the Simpson/Bowles committee. Obama asked for $800 billion in additional revenue be raised with some unspecified cuts added into the mix accordingly.

- T. Paine, December 17, 2012

As always, it would be difficult not to be gratified at the generous contributions of T. Paine. That's a fact. He helps us out quite often, representing an unfailingly conservative point of view.

Hard to say where he gets his figures. It's possible that he is obliquely referring to last July's Republican hostage crisis. In that GOP threat to the economy, President Obama did revise an $800 billion dollar stance upward by $400 billion in early stages of the negotiations. His revision was in accord with, and in response to, the Simpson-Bowles recommendation Mr. Paine insists should have been followed.

As a condition of releasing their hold on the US economy, Republicans demanded and constructed the current fiscal cliff, the one we confront now. The President has issued a detailed proposal. Republicans have responded with a 3½ page screed. 2 pages are a furious attack on President Obama's proposal. It has seemed to me, in reading their expression of anger, that they are indignant that the President of the United States would have the audacity to act as if he had won an important election.

The remaining 1½ page of their angry letter consists of a demand that President Obama accept the loose set of principles that candidate Mitt Romney had campaigned on. This would be the campaign platform that those who notice such things might think was soundly rejected by the American public.

Republicans believe President Obama should be grateful for just those revenues from the wealthy gotten by closing exemptions, exemptions that will largely fall on the middle class. In return, Republicans demand much deeper cuts in medical and other benefits.

Which exemptions, which medical procedures, and which breakfast programs for little kids must be eliminated are not specified by Republicans. They demand that President Obama make those decisions, subject to the later approval of Republicans.

So far, President Obama has declined to negotiate with himself. He insists Republicans fill in their own blanks. Conservatives are furious at President Obama for insisting on a Republican response that carries that sort of detail. Although private negotiations are said to be ongoing, no Republican response has been made public, other than the demands made in their brief letter.

As to the gerrymandering, my only comment was a single sentence. I had carried an analogy as far as I could, and wound up with this:

The analogy begins to fall apart after that, because this dysfunctional family is elected, partly by popular vote (that's the Senate and the President) and partly by gerrymandering (that would be the House of Representatives).

President Obama is doing a good job of representing the people of the United States. Republicans represent their gerrymandered hold on the House of Representatives, to which they cling in spite of the opposition of most voters.

If some reader manages to infer more than that, I must share credit with some other source: perhaps the troubled conscience of anyone who extends my words beyond my simple observation.

T. Paine excepted, of course.

The fact remains that bill paying time is falsely called "the debt ceiling." Calling it that makes everyone think it's about raising the ceiling on debts. Actually what is falsely called "the debt ceiling" is a vote on whether to pay for debt that has already been created.

Not paying bills already voted on and agreed to by Congress puts our credit at risk and our economy in danger. That is why, from 1937 until recently, bill paying time was pretty much routine.

The new routine by a shrinking conservative minority is to hold the economy hostage for increasingly shrill demands. Tax breaks for the wealthy are to be preserved. Medical treatment, retirement pensions, teachers' salaries, police protection, breakfast programs for little kids, and more, must be slashed - although the President must decide how, according to Republican hostage takers.

If their ultimatums are not met, they threaten to use what obstruction they can to execute the American economy.

Republicans are currently frustrated by a President who seems determined not to play their game on their terms.

In Response to Burr Deming's
Or the Economy Gets It

The analogy begins to fall apart after that, because this dysfunctional family is elected, partly by popular vote (that's the Senate and the President) and partly by gerrymandering (that would be the House of Representatives).

Anyway, bill paying time is falsely called "the debt ceiling." Calling it that makes everyone think it's about raising the ceiling on debts. That's why you get nonsensical results when pollsters ask people about raising the debt ceiling. Actually what is falsely called "the debt ceiling" is a vote on whether to pay for debt that has already been created.

- Burr Deming, December 14, 2012

Mr. Deming, you write as if gerrymandering was a concept recently developed by the Republicans. Surely you know that both parties have used this tactic for generations whenever they were in power to do so. I do understand in the progressive world of today though that there are definitely double standards with which we must contend.

Next, your beloved President originally was campaigning on a “balanced” approach to our financial woes. Originally he proposed a one to three ratio of revenue increases to spending cuts, as per the Simpson/Bowles committee. Obama asked for $800 billion in additional revenue be raised with some unspecified cuts added into the mix accordingly.

Boehner called his bluff and proposed giving him the aforementioned $800 billion in revenue and yet to be specified cuts. Of course, the unscrupulous and duplicitous Obama reneged and said that he now wants $1.8 trillion in revenue (doubling what he originally said.) He has not offered any specific plan of his own regarding cuts in spending. Indeed, he seems damned determined to make sure we tip toe right up to that cliff and then close our eyes and jump over it. Feeling all full of himself after the low-information and ideologically rigid leftists voted for the worst damned president in our nation’s history back into office, he now has demanded that congress give up their constitutionally mandated duties of controlling spending legislation by giving him the power in the executive branch to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling as he deems necessary. And in the senate, the execrable Harry Reid has failed in his duties as Senate Majority Leader to even put forth a budget in three years now. He should be removed from office for gross dereliction of duty accordingly.

I understand we have an obligation to pay the bills we have accrued. The simple fact is that we should be looking at areas where we can stop accruing more debt. How about the $1 billion in aid to the Palestinians for starters. They don’t want to negotiate peace with Israel and decided to ignore us and go to the U.N. to be recognized as a non-voting nation member, so evidently they can live on their own merits now. I realize a billion dollars is a penny as compared to a million dollars for all practical purposes; however, there are scores of billions of dollars such as this that can be cut without hurting Americans. Instead of paying for renovation of mosques in the Middle East with tax payer dollars and funding the National Endowment for the Arts so idiots can put a crucifix in a jar of urine and then display it as art to all of the discerning intellectuals in New York City seems to be extravagances we can afford to do away with right now.

I realize that there is no motivation whatsoever on behalf of most politicians and probably every last Democrat to actually cut entitlement spending, even in duplicated or inefficient areas, so let’s start with some of the items that I think a majority can agree upon. I realize that we won’t ever reach that 3:1 ratio and we will still go over the cliff, despite your excellent, if not accurate, defense of Keynesian pump-priming notwithstanding. We can though come together on some of these smaller things to perhaps build a foundation so that we can hopefully come together on larger things down the road.

Many Republicans already put their sacred cow of not raising taxes on the table. How about the Democrats deal in good faith and put up some of their sacred cows too, such as some entitlement spending and reform? That is unless the Democrats really do want to go “over the cliff” after all. I am not one to typically buy into conspiracy theories, but in this case where there appears to be huge torrents of flames and sun-darkening smoke plumes, I think there is probably fire there.

In addition to his contributions here, conservative T. Paine also writes for his own site, where conspiracies are given credence only when accompanied by flames and smoke.

Please visit Saving Common Sense.

Despite the source, this was the most emotionally honest thing written about the shooting today.

I'm not sure it should be posted to the blog. I'll leave that decision to others.

Language -NSFW - Not Suitable For Work.

The first serious piece I've seen in the Onion: No. No, no, no

"A lot of politicians look out for themselves. They just usually camouflage it better."

- Douglas E. Gross, Republican operative in Iowa
  On New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
  Quoted in the New York Times, November 19, 2012

Governor Christie has been defending himself ever since Sandy hit New Jersey and points North. During Barbara Walter's weird curiosity about his weight, he took the opportunity to defend himself yet again over his embrace of President Obama. "I was doing my job as I saw fit to do it. And I told the truth, like I always do. The president did step up and help tremendously in New Jersey."

The anger within the Romney camp, the reportedly harsh judgment of financial backers, seemed to have surprised him. It still does. In the larger world, he is seen as a politician concerned with his constituents, bent on helping people in need, putting them ahead of political gamesmanship. In New Jersey, he is more popular than Elvis is in Tennessee.

The ability to see actual people as something other than abstractions can be a real plus to a politician, particularly if a crisis makes that apparent to voters.

When Republicans first insisted on a future fiscal cliff, the idea was that the horrible consequence of raising everybody's taxes and cutting into the bone marrow of everything from orphans to ABMs would motivate politicians to solve deficits.

Solving deficits today, right now, this minute, is a horrifically bad idea. Europe, where austerity is being applied on a massive scale, is becoming a case study in artificially constructed hardship.

Recession is the time when deficits are most needed. Deficit spending is a feature, not a bug. Solving it is what no sane person ought to want, unless that solution is applied only after recession is gone, gone, gone. Good times are when government ought to tighten its belt, take in more than it spends striving for a surplus to make up for deficit spending that was necessary to get the good times back.

But Republicans, back during fiscal crisis number 9 (I made up the 9, not having the energy to go back and count the fiscal crises Republicans have created), held the country hostage. The only way they would let go was to insist on a law that would make for a cliff worse than anything on the table right then.

Back in the old days when human beings were not possessed by Supply Side demons and red eyed Obama-hatred, the national economy ran kind of like a dysfunctional marriage where both spouses had to cosign every check. Sometimes one side would prevail, sometimes the other side would. But in the end, some budget would be agreed on.

After Barack Obama became President Barack Obama, Republicans decided to play a bit meaner. Kind of like if one spouse said to the other, remember all those bills we agreed to run up? I've decided we won't pay any of them until you meet my conditions.

What about the furnace repair? Nope.
What about textbooks for the kids? Nope.
What about rent? Nope.
Johnny's tonsillectomy? Nope, Nope, Nope. Not until you meet my demands.

The analogy begins to fall apart after that, because this dysfunctional family is elected, partly by popular vote (that's the Senate and the President) and partly by gerrymandering (that would be the House of Representatives).

Anyway, bill paying time is falsely called "the debt ceiling." Calling it that makes everyone think it's about raising the ceiling on debts. That's why you get nonsensical results when pollsters ask people about raising the debt ceiling. Actually what is falsely called "the debt ceiling" is a vote on whether to pay for debt that has already been created.

When Congress hired soldiers or janitors or arranged for treatment for a those wounded in battle, or ordered ammunition for combat personnel in firefights, that created the debt. Later on, Congress has a kind of silly second vote on whether to pay what it already said it would pay for.

It was all kind of routine since approximately forever. Okay, since 1937. That's because everyone knew the full faith and credit of the United States would fall flat, then the US economy would fall flat beside it. Jobs vanishing. People on street corners selling apples. That sort of thing.

So back during Crisis number 9, or whatever, Republicans started using the time to pay the bills as a bargaining chip. Meet our demands or the economy gets it.

This last time, everyone agreed to a future fiscal cliff. Give us what we want later or everyone gets hurt later. Seemed like a perfect plan.

But there was an election, and rates will go up and all those cuts, and everyone wants things to go better not worse. So some Republicans are saying maybe this fiscal cliff idea was all a twisted evil Democratic plot to help those lazy poor people Mitt Romney talked about. Looks like we might have to go along with some of what they want.

So there is a lot of huffing and puffing. President Obama put his plan on the table. Republicans said it looked too much like what he had promised to the American people in the election campaign he had won.

So they put forth a 4 page letter that they called a proposal in which they called on President Obama to make another offer embracing the vague outline promised by Mitt Romney in the campaign he lost. No tax increase for the wealthy, cut some deductions instead. The President should work out the math. It wouldn't be enough to balance things. So the President should specify cuts to programs as well.

It's kind of a box for Republicans. They don't want to say what deductions they'll cut, because they'll have to explain why ordinary families can't have home mortgage breaks or other deductions. They don't want to say what programs they'll cut because then Social Security retirees or Medicare patients will get mad or their relatives will after they die, or kids with no food will be on television news programs. All the fingers will be pointed at Republicans.

Here Mr. President. YOU decide. That's one of their demands.

So the fiscal cliff looks like a bust for Republicans. Pretty much all segments of the public walk on the other side of the street when they see a Republican lawmaker coming. It get's lonely in those big offices.

Some Republicans want to give the President whatever tax increase he wants on the wealthy, and whatever tax cuts he wants for the middle class. Then they can do their demon dance around the next so called misnamed "debt ceiling" like they've done since Obama was elected.

But wait! Suddenly, something else is coming up. You'll never guess.

It's all the relief that is flowing toward Governor Christie's constituents, and those citizens in areas north of the Jersey shore. They are getting help. They sure do need that help. Life has gotten primal in those parts. Chris Christie has been out there in shirt sleeves looking at the damage and begging for help.

Christie is still taking heat for it. Constituents have to come before political gamesmanship, he says. He's doing his job.

An epiphany hits, like the Lord speaking to Paul on the way to Damascus. Republicans suddenly see an upside to all their travail. There is now a movement in Congress to hold up all remaining relief to all those areas devastated by Storm Sandy. It's a new bargaining chip. Betcha didn't see that coming, Mr. Kenyan Muslim socialist President.

We'll release those funds as soon as the rest of the country meets our demands.