Behaving Badly

There's a lot of cultural nonsense about how enlightened Europeans are versus the boorish behavior of Americans. Then things like this happen and we're reminded that anyone from any nation or any culture can behave like a total dick.



.

The Tax-Cut Gnomes

Step One: Cut Taxes
Step Two: ?
Step Three: Make Profit!

Tax cuts are supposed to be some miracle cure for economic woes, period. That's the deeply held faith of so many Republicans, Libertarians, small-l libertarians, Tea Partiers, and Right Wingers. That's what they sell in their political marketing to America.

If it was really true, where are the jobs? The United States has some of the lowest tax rates in our nation's history. Many of the states with the lowest tax rates also have the highest rates of unemployment (Georgia & Louisiana). Low taxes, tax cuts, tax loopholes, and all the subsidies our governments provide haven't been able to provide any national economic security for a decade. Jobs haven't been created or retained. Wages have only increased for the top 1%. New industries and businesses have had trouble opening. The only way the powers-that-be could pretend our nation made any economic gains in the last decade was to give us a shell game, where our whole economy become less dynamic, more dependent on cheap energy that no longer exists, a house of cards real estate bubble, and illegal labor.

In the face of all this truth, how do the right wing's political marketers reply to the burning wreckage of policy that is their biggest and most successful advertising?

Why, they double down on the bullshit and blame the economy on a make believe tax hike orchestrated by a tax cutting President, that's what.

.

Illegitimate Elections

After all that bellyaching we heard about ACORN affecting elections in our representative republic, I'm shocked, SHOCKED there isn't more mainstream media outcry over stunts like this.

.

How Do You?

Dump on USC and Auburn University at the same time?

This.

.

The Lawyers Went Down to Georgia (Updated)

I guess by writing about this on Facebook and Blogspot, I'm part of the "firestorm in the blogosphere and elsewhere" described by Judge Amanda William's libel suit against Ira Glass and This American Life.

I'm honored to have, in some small way, participated in an actual, legally described "firestorm." I think it might be my first.

Of course, Glass' lawyers responded with quite a smackdown.

(HT: Alli)

Update: Maybe some of the Georgia press will actually start paying attention to all this. Atlanta's Creative Loafing has a report. The Tribune-Georgian out of Camden County (also under Judge Williams' jurisdiction) also ran a story.

But here's the thing, the original story in This American Life didn't actually get much media attention. By pursuing legal action against a nationally recognized radio personality and program, and by submitting documents on the legal record exposing how her court works, won't this only raise the profile of the report?

Looks to me like it already has.

.

Where Are the Jobs? (Updated)

For a generation, the GOP (and a bunch of Democrats) has been telling us that the way to stimulate economic growth is to cut taxes. And people love to pay less and get more - our entire consumer economy is based on that idea - so it is usually a political winner to talk about tax cuts. These low taxes would put money in the hands of the taxpayers, which they would in turn spend, increasing demand for goods, increasing the economy, and generating more revenue through sales tax.

Just like a perpetual motion machine!

So, for the last generation, the nation and the states have cut taxes, and cut taxes, and cut taxes, and cut taxes. The last President to nominally raise taxes was George H. W. Bush, and he lost his reelection bid because of it.

Based on the bill of goods we've been sold, where are the jobs? Where is the economic growth and dynamism that is supposed to come with low, low taxes? Why does it feel like we are closer to 1929 than 1999?

And you can't tell me "it's because we're spending too much money." Even if our government has to borrow money to pay for programs that were already put in place through the process of lawmaking, how does that affect the low taxes that are supposed to be putting more money in the hands and increasing the buying power and economic participation of the consumer?

It doesn't. And it wasn't supposed to.

The plan was that the low taxes would lead to a hot economy that would produce more revenues through other taxes to pay for our levels of spending. Has that happened?

No.

When it comes down to it, only one - one - conservative I know has been able to explain what is going on with taxes and jobs in a way that makes sense. That's Dante. He has brought up in the past (I can't find the link) that people are being taxed somewhere else and this is affecting their buying power & participation in the economy.

I absolutely agree. They are being taxed somewhere else, especially at the state and local levels. I don't even want to get into the feudal ways property taxes are used in a certain southern city to subsidize blighted properties and land speculation.

Lagniappe "taxes" can be found elsewhere, too, as private industry colludes with government to take advantage of the extra buying power tax cuts "provide." Insurance premiums keep going up and up for home ownership, auto-ownership, and medical coverage. Working families have to pay for child care. If you live in a city without a functioning public school system (that you already pay for), you have to pay for your kids to go to private school or get extra tutoring to make up for the shortfall. Your city can pay contractors to provide public services that you can also recieve a bill for. Best of all, cities and states can offer subsidies to businesses and sports franchises to welcome or keep them in certain places, while the "jobs they create" will be taxed higher to make up for the subsidy.

And that's where your "taxes" come from. And why no jobs are created by keeping tax rates low.

Update: Weigel at Slate investigates where the "Washington doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem" narrative comes from.

Update: As if on cue, the Georgia GOP Delegation ties together their constant work towards keeping taxes low while repeating the "spending problem" meme.

.

Actions & Words

Hey, look! Ridiculous words lead to ridiculous actions.

I wonder what all these jokers are going to do when their own state government has to let Obama on the ballot because he has all the paperwork proving he was born in Hawaii? This won't end there, because it isn't really about the integrity of elections, it is about demagoguery and Obama being labled "other."

If it were about integrity of elections, they'd be talking about the ridiculous way this country handles redistricting.

Update: I wonder how much her veto of this bill will hurt Jan Brewer's reelection chances?

.

The Glynn County Life

Finally, someone exposes the bullshit stinking from behind the bench from the Glynn County Drug Court. (HT: patsbrother)

Luckily, like in the Middle East, when cracks first appear in the despot's reign, things start to happen. Hopefully, people will start taking notice and start realizing how much power local authorities have over your life.

.

The Threat of (False) Violence

Continuing coverage of union make-believe thuggery in Wisconsin, a local Indiana deputy-prosecutor suggests Governor Scott Walker stage an attack on himself in order to discredit political opponents.

That's a pretty extreme measure required to discredit someone. Hasn't anyone heard of robust, open, public debate?

Of course, right-wing talk radio will soon discover that this deputy prosecutor is really a secret liberal, doing all he can with this fake email to discredit Governor Walker...

.

The Senate Switcheroo

A plan to redistrict Louisiana state senate seats in order to concentrate "evangelical power."

.

Crimes Against Testing

Well, this pretty much encapulates every wrong priority about public education these days. Let us count the ways:

1. The Atlanta Public Schools are accused of withholding teacher contracts in order to intimidate teachers not to testify against possible APS wrongdoing under state investigation. This is not the first time state investigators have raised concerns that the APS is conducting a campaign of witness intimidation.

2. In the "PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONZ ARE TEH EBIL SOCIALIZMS" narrative, the APS here represents "the taxpayer" and the teachers being intimidated represent the leeches on society. Georgia is a right to work state, with a teachers' association, but with no rights to collectively bargain.

3. The narratives say that the main thing wrong with public education is the existence of all the "bad teachers," who the unions and labor laws protect against being laid-off without cause. Systems, as narrated representatives of "the taxpayer" should be able to hire and fire at will. The narrative trusts the systems to make the right decisions and not to abuse these powers. Until they don't.

4. Also representing "the taxpayer" are the state investigators, who might seem concerned that teachers - as witnesses to a crime - are being intimidated into silence by the APS. But make no mistake, the investigators are not interested in the well-being of these teachers, they are interested in the well-being of high-stakes standardized testing.

5. But don't worry, this news does not violate any tenet of the "bad teacher" narrative, as the state investigators are looking for "bad teachers" to take a plea deal and roll on the "bad APS."

That means representatives of "the taxpayers" are fighting other representatives of "the taxpayers" and using the employment of public sector employees as part of their interagency competition. This serves as proof that, in the new educational-industrial paradigm, the only time it is NOT OK to hold teachers' contracts or get rid of teachers without cause is when the teachers might be witnesses to crimes against testing.

Because you'll notice that the high-level state investigations only started in response to a scandal involving the testing. I cannot, however, recall any serious investigations into why so many public schools in Georgia are unable to get the resources and support necessary to adequately educate their students.

.

Unions Oversimplified

Saw this easy to distribute explanation of unions on Facebook. It is a stunning oversimplification, that revises whatever history it doesn't ignore. Unions have problems and so do state budgets, to be sure, but why can't those folks who play "conservatives" on quirky internet videos discuss the real issues? Why do they feel they have to make stuff like this up?

Once these clowns are done destroying the rights of free Americans to assemble and petition for grievances from their employers, I can't wait to see what other civil rights they go after.

The quirky video they make to explain how integrated schools are bad is going to be a doozy!

.

Two Acts of Violence

There are tens of thousands on the streets right now demonstrating support for Labor and "liberal" causes. So why isn't the mainstream media telling you about all the incidents of violence these thugs are accountable for? Because the list really isn't that long.

If you want the media to treat conservative activists as generally good people who have bad apples and assholes in their midst, you have to treat left-wing activists the same way.

.

Upping the Ante

Andrew Breitbart must be jealous that Glenn Beck has recieved the lion's share of crazy conspiracy theories attention this month. His allegations against President Obama coupled with his newest explanation of the Shirley Sherrod video (it was all a part of this larger investigation of course) would be tough enough to believe at face value.

But coming from the already widely discredited Andrew Breitbart? Whatever. Burden of proof doesn't even begin to describe what he has to bring to the table before this fantastic tale of vote-buying and tax-fraud can be considered half-serious.

And still, folks wonder why I lump him in the same category as Beck.

.

The Mess

Combine government over-reliance on contractors, kickbacks from contractors to politicians to ensure said over-reliance, and the fact that few individuals pay attention to what is actually going on in their local governments and how it affects their lives and finances.

What do you get? This.

If you're ever wondering why our national, state and local governments never seem to get much return on investment for our tax dollars they are "investing" in contracted services, there are rather simple reasons.

.

Selling the Drama

Y'all remember how, after a disaster, there's always complaints about some unscrupulous relief agency or another using sympathy for the disaster to collect donations for other projects? Doesn't it piss you off?

Y'all also remember how, after the flood in New Orleans, a lot of complaints nationwide were made about New Orleanians wasting all the Billions they'd got for disaster relief? Didn't that piss you off too? (For different reasons, as Americans wondered why it cost so many Billions, and New Orleanians wondered "what Fing Billions are y'all talkin' about?")

Well, put those two rememberances together when you think about how a whole lot of relief tax credits marketed (or stigmatized) as "New Orleans' recovery" ended up going elsewhere. Only 3% of the $7.8 Billion in Louisiana GO Zone tax credits ended up in New Orleans.

Now, I ain't got a problem with the rest of Louisiana taking advantage of tax credits and subsidies for some capital improvements. This state suffers while other states and the Federal government make money off her resources. A lot of other places got hit by the direct or secondary impact of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, and a lot of places had to deal with the fallout of the flood in New Orleans.

But 3%? Seriously? I guess that answers the reactionary and infuriating question "why should we spend our tax dollars rebuilding a city below sea level?" with the true answer "you ain't, really."

And I guess this is one of the answers to Dante's questions in an earlier comment thread. The proof that the 'richer you are, the more proportionately you benefit from the system' is in the puddin':

The GO Zone bond program’s limited success in New Orleans is largely a function of market forces, state officials from outside of the city say. Before the national economy tanked and the credit market dried up, banks could make a healthy return on the tax-free bonds. Even then, however, the businesses that qualified for the bonds must meet the bank’s investment standards, something tough for companies attempting a project in high-risk New Orleans.

“If you didn’t have the money you couldn’t qualify to get the money,” State Bond Commission Director Whitman J. Kling said in an interview Wednesday.

Yeah, I added that emphasis. Expect to see that quote a few more times on this website, as one of my main theories on life is that our system is specifically set up to benefit and subsidize the well-off at proportionately greater levels than your average middle class worker. But I digress...

Coupled with the Stafford Act, where local entities - some which were facing more than total losses - had to match certain financial benchmarks to qualify for disaster aid funds, the recovery of New Orleans is still going on in fits and spurts, 5 years after the storm. If you have to have money to qualify for recovery money, that's a tricky system.

At the same time, the multi-billion dollar price tag is being politically marketed as a government waste-of-tax-dollars boondoggle, as "$7.9 Billion was spent on a city-below-sea-level, and look at the fat nothing they've done with that opportunity."

And don't act like that ain't the narrative, we've been hearing it since before Katrina's outflow bands had completely cleared the Florida coast.

.

The World's Longest Press Release

Or maybe the world's longest op-ed. Perhaps the world's longest navel-gaze. Any way you cut it, all Newsweek did with this spread was give Michelle Rhee four pages of advertising, and exactly zero journalistic verification of her claims. There are so many flaws and contradictions in what she wrote that I can barely begin to discuss them.

I'll just let you read the article yourselves. Don't worry if you feel sorry for her, or excited about educational reform when you're done reading. Through all my pop-culture conditioning, even I was relating to her at some points. Some. Before I got too far into that, I realized I have a well-developed suspension of disbelief that comes from a life of reading science fiction and horror novels. That was the part of me that was relating to Rhee - the part of my brain that can sketch dragons and unicorns and read zombie fiction all night.

Meanwhile, the reality-recognizing parts of my brain, the part that went through a year of "education reform" in the Recovery School District in New Orleans and the accreditation fight back in Glynn County, Georgia, that part of my brain saw thiw for what it was.

Four pages of fluffy, self-aggrandizing nonsense.

.

Fruit of the Poison Tree (Updated)

The UGA - Auburn college football rivalry is one of the oldest and most storied in the sport. I've had a fine time in the past when I have tailgated with Auburn fans, and every two years, when this game is played in Athens, it is an event almost without parallel.

This fun, evenly matched rivalry was what growing up in the South is all about. It was one of my favorite things about college football. Even with a history of questionable, and dare I say, dirty plays, that have been an undercurrent of the game in the past, it always seemed that was a part of playing Auburn.

Until last Saturday.

Maybe this is a result of excusing unacceptable behavior for too long, maybe it is just a panicked reaction to Alabama's success of the last 3 years, but this got out of control. I think the Auburn players, coaches, and fans have absolutely poisoned the well this year, and I'm not even talking about the big controversy. But from the dirty play and fighting to their coaches cheering it on to their fans excusing it after the fact, a corner was turned here.

This game is going to burn bright in Georgia's memories for a long, long time. Much longer than two timeouts.

Which is a shame, really. This was a better rivalry than that.

Update: Thanks to Ryan, who sent me an email link to this post, which pretty much has all the video and photo evidence you'll need to understand what I'm talking about.


.

Kill the Gerrymander

One unsung issue in this campaign season is the coming redistricting of state legislative and US Congressional seats. Many states complete redistricting after each 10-year census, as states gain or lose Congressional seats based on population trends. You know who gets to design the districts? Your state legislators!

Now, we've always had a problem with Gerrymandering down South, as establishment politicians traditionally attempted to dilute minority voting blocs. The idea was basically divide and conquer. One reason this nation enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to stop this sort of thing from happening.

While noble in purpose, the end result was simply Gerrymandering with more complex equations. Instead of dividing minority voting strength, these districts compacted minority voting strength, while taking party affiliation into consideration. This leads to populous districts concentrated along urban and minority voting patterns surrounded by suburban and exurban/rural districts.

(If I may be so bold as to exhibit the local examples of Louisiana Congressional District 2 and Louisiana Congressional District 1. Zoom in on the Mississippi River for the howler.)

This also leads to fewer legislative or congressional seats that are actually competitive. In many such districts, your primary election basically determines your office holder, and basically disenfranchises political opposition. This leads to our current situation where extreme views and incumbency are incentivized at the expense of pragmatic candidates. Our issues also become more polarizing, and our investment in the political process wanes - the political class and the media caste make their livings off this situation while the rest of us pay for it.

But two things happened Tuesday night that give me a big silver lining to hold onto. In Florida, voters overwhelmingly supported Amendments 5 & 6, which will take the redistricting process for state legislative seats AND US Congressional seats out of the hands of the legislature.

The new amendments require that both legislative and congressional districts be compact, equal in population and make use of existing city, county and geographical boundaries. The amendments prohibit drawing districts to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party.

Also, California voters continued their two year redistricting reform by voting for Prop 20 and rejecting Prop 27.

Proposition 20 would double-down on the still-forming citizens' panel, allowing it to draw maps for Congress too. Proposition 27 would scrap it entirely.

Of course, there are plenty of opponents and interests gathered against both Florida and California's proposals, and a lot of them are establishment Democrats who directly benefit from the current way of doing things. But make no mistake, sensible design of districts has a better chance of benefiting all Americans in the long run.

.