The Postman (Won’t) Cometh, Drought, Democracy Insurance, The Mittstorm Cometh X: Nemesis, Walk The Plank, Extreme Catering, Actual Voter Fraud, Frivolity, and the End Of All Things.
Welcome to the Daily Sausage.
First up, we have two articles from veteran scribe Charles P. Pierce.
Why is the Postal Service in default? In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which required the Postal Service to pre-fund future retiree health care and benefits, to the tune of $5.5 billion annually over 10 years to cover 75 years worth of liability. No other business or government agency is required to do this. None. Not one. Just the USPS. The USPS can’t make the payments, which it shouldn’t have to make, and Congress is hopelessly gridlocked to the point where it can’t fix the problem it created, even if it wanted to.
People like to say that in the era of FedEx or UPS and email, that the Postal Service is an anachronism; that it no longer serves a purpose and should be shut down. This is all well and good, except for the fact that the USPS keeps prices down at FedEx and UPS, and both FedEx and UPS use the Postal Service to deliver packages to less profitable routes.
We need the USPS. Congress is just too messed up to fix the problem they created, and we’ll all suffer as a result.
Next up: drought. If you live anywhere outside a major urban area, you have probably noticed that the country is experiencing a massive drought. Today we focus on Wisconsin.
23 counties are natural disasters. Small farmers are getting killed by the lack of rain. Google-Eyed Homonculus Governor Scott Walker has authorized the Wisconsin state government to provide loans guarantees to farmers that are expected to lose 40% or more of their crops.
Scott Walker, by the way, is scheduled to speak to the Heartland Institute, one of the political chop shops leading the fight against the truth of climate change. Make of that what you will.
Jessica Pressler of NY Magazine has a great article titled “The Other Barbarians at the Gates”. She interviews Jeff Greene, a billionaire, who lives in constant fear that the huddled masses he and his rich friends have so righteously screwed for fifty years are getting desperate enough to start trekking out to the Hamptons and start kicking in doors and raiding the family silver.
The best quote, from some old money high society hag:
“Obama wants to take my money and give it to do-nothing animals,”.
Also:
“At some point, if we keep doing this, their numbers are going to keep swelling, it won’t be an Obama or a Romney. It will be a Hollande. A Chávez.”
They should be afraid. They should be afraid because there’s 3 million of them, and 327 million of us. They should be quaking in their boots behind gilded gates because for all their money and power and success, they are as human and frail as the rest of us, and for them the fall from their pedestals will be very, very long, and the landing very rough indeed.
The rich have a responsibility to give back to society that has enabled them to have so much, but that fundamental social compact has been broken, and it’s up to the people to restore it.
And now, time for our regular installment of The Mittstorm Cometh X: Nemesis.
A Romney aide cursed at the press while at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Poland, telling the New York Times to “Kiss my ass. This is a Holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.”
This is Mitt Romney’s problem. He can’t even take a trip that should be a glorified photo-op without stepping on his own dick. This should have been a few weeks of “Look how Presidential Mitt Romney looks!” and instead its “Look at how much of a doofus Mitt Romney looks!”. For all his money, Mitt Romney can’t buy the essential elements of humanity that make people successful politicians. If he can’t handle this, how would he handle actually BEING President?
Aggregate Mittstorm Rating – Level 10: Completely and utterly unqualified to be dog catcher, much less President of the United States.
Speaking of political acumen, the Democratic Party is set to add marriage equality to the national platform, with buy in from the President, Congressional leaders, and prominent Democrats.
In the words of Vice President Joe Biden, “This is a big fucking deal.”
Congressman Richard Hanna (R-NY) blasted his own party as “willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes in this moment in history”. He went on to call the GOP “incapable of governing”, “not a lot of value there”, and said “the friends I have in the Democratic Party I find… much more congenial – a little less anger.”
To Richard Hanna I say this: fuck you.
If you believe that the GOP has been taken over by extremists and is truly incapable of governing, by continuing to run as a Republican, you attach their name to yours, and therefore tacitly endorse their ongoing insanity. I applaud you for calling out the madness that has taken over the GOP, but I rebuke you for refusing to take a stand and say “either I go, or they go” and either run as an Independent or as a Democrat. The type of madness you describe is why the GOP is virtually extinct in the Northeast and West Coast, and why it’s slowly being driven back into the South and Southwest. Defending a party that is sick to the core does nothing but prolong the sickness.
Next up: actual honest-to-god voter fraud! A candidate for Pinal County Supervisor in Arizona has dropped out due to allegations that he casted ballots on behalf of his deceased girlfriend. This goes along with Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (R), who was convicted of voter fraud earlier this year. Worth noting: none of the voter ID laws would prevent either this or Charlie White’s type of voter fraud.
Why is it that every time Republicans campaign against things like voter fraud or gay rights, they always get caught either committing voter fraud or soliciting gay sex in airport bathrooms?
Florida Governor and Batboy Rick Scott has spent almost a million dollars on legal costs fighting the PPACA, the welfare drug testing law, plans to privatize prisons, changes to the state retirement plan, and the ongoing voter purge. Governor Scott, meanwhile is cutting $3 billion from public classrooms and often speaks about cutting government speaking, lowering taxes, and removing social safety nets.
Finally, we have an article from Ezra Klein about the state of wages in this country.
When you look at Ezra’s chart, you see things pretty closely grouped together until about 1981. Then the 95th, 90th, and 80th percentiles start going up, while the 50th, 20th, and 10th percentiles drop. You don’t see a change until about 1996, where everyone’s wages rise, but the top percentiles rise more. Since then, wages for the middle class have remained stagnant while the wages for the top percentiles have continued to rise.
The United States, as an idea, is built on the foundation that if you work hard enough, anyone can make it in America. No one ever talked about the British Dream, the Russian Dream, the Chinese Dream, or any other kind of dream. It was The American Dream. A house in the suburbs with two point five kids, a white picket fence and two dogs. It’s been the standard most of the world aspires to for seventy years, and now it’s not even a reality in America.
For thirty years, the middle class in this country has been getting systematically screwed by the richest of the rich. Every gain that society has made has gone into the pockets of those that already have too much.
I don’t know how to solve this problem. I don’t know how to forcibly extract money from the super wealthy without the help of government, which the super wealthy have bought and paid for with candidates like Mitt Romney. Of course, the alternative is just taking it. After all, the wealthy live in houses, breathe the same air, drink the same water, etc. as the rest of us. As Jeff Greene noted in his interview, how can the rich live so large and leave so little for the rest of us, before the people get so desperate as to take what should have been theirs to begin with?
In Batman Begins, upon his return to Gotham City Bruce Wayne notes that things have improved, before being corrected by Rachel Dawes into noting that it was only the death of Bruce’s parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, that shocked the wealthy into action.
Who will be our Thomas and Martha Wayne? Which uber-wealthy socialite will be gunned down in the street by someone desperate enough to turn to crime? What will be the tipping point that forces the rich and powerful into action, purely out of their own self-interest? I don’t know. What I do know that a storm is coming, and the 1% better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, it’s going to blow the doors off this joint.
