Only three days after my post entitled Scandal Quest, wherein I discussed the only significant White House scandal, President Obama caved faster than a Bourne Ultimatum Jenga match. Sorry to drone on about this, but do you know why Obama is addressing my concerns? (Hint: they’re real.) Do you know why he’s not addressing the GOP’s concerns? (Hint: they’re not.)

The real issue is—and has been—the gross expansion of executive power that occurred post 9/11. Yeah, I’m done following Republican “logic”. It’s like watching my screen saver on ‘shrooms…and I’m never doing that again.

12 Hours Later:

Was that a unicorn? Anyway, I am sick of the GOP’s version of reality. Hell, I get more real meat off the Del Taco value menu.  And I’m not alone, it seems the White House has also been unable to crack the GOP’s Liable Code. Here’s my related cartoon this week:

Acronym Scandal Kit Score (ASKS): Benghazi: WTF? Solyndra: MGEIP (More Green Energy Investments, Please) Fast & Furious: HST (Happening Since Truman) NSA: MPB-GOP (Made Possible By GOP) AP: MPB-GOP (Made Possible By GOP) IRS: NLWH (No Link to White House) Scandal Score Meter Reaches “Meh”

Sullivan weighed in on the IRS scandal:

“Watching Bill O’Reilly argue – with no evidence whatsoever – that the Obama administration had decided after the 2010 mid-terms to target Tea Party groups by using the IRS as a politicized bludgeon. This utterly unsubstantiated claim is now the dominant meme, the working assumption of the propagandists at Fox News.”

—Andrew Sullivan

There is no link between the IRS’s behavior and the White House. My funny take here. Listing this alongside the rest of your bullshit scandals is….(see: bullshit).

I am not protecting Obama; this is simply an accurate assessment of the facts as we know them. I still marvel the GOP isn’t curled up in a ball sobbing somewhere. Talk about collective wrongness. They’re like the emotional support Borg. Consistence is futile! And I can’t believe some of the comments from the Bushies on this shit. Politics on the far right continues to be surreal². Case in point, Yoo weighed in on Obama’s drone program:

“Neither of these standards — near certainty of the identity of the target or of zero civilian casualties — applies to wartime operations. President Obama is placing impossible conditions on the use of force for what can only be assumed to be ideological reasons.”

—John Yoo

So we shouldn’t strive to protect the innocent? I was initially in favor of our drone program, hell, I thought police action/surgical military strikes were the only way to go in the Middle East. The Biden model…you know, “the moron” who just happened to voice the only sane approach to the War on Error.  Yeah, that guy.

Meanwhile, Greenwald looks back at a rare voice of reason—a person who Fox News-types crucified at the time:

“Barbara Lee’s lone vote against the 2001 AUMF (Authorization to Use Military Force)—three days after the 9/11 attack—was an act of incredible and rare courage that is worth commemorating in its own right. But it was also prescient and wise, using America’s past bad acts to warn of the dangers likely to be unleashed by enacting it. If Dick Durbin wants to acknowledge his gross error in voting in favor of such a blank check for presidential war-making—one that led to 12 years of war in numerous nations with no end in sight—he should do so honestly.”

—Glenn Greenwald

The GOP doesn’t acknowledge “gross errors”. They’re position simply “evolves” into the gross error of the moment (GEMs).  And by evolve, I mean, stumbling around in a semi-decomposed state craving brains.

“All things are treasonous under Obama…even the shit we did.”

—John Q. Republican

Not three days after my post, Obama showed regret about his new powers, which is not a coincidence….okay it is, but Gallaher has a worthy read on the matter over on slate:

“Obama seemingly acknowledged that his administration has come down too often on the side of secrecy over transparency, and of excessive security over liberty.”

—Ryan Gallagher

Is Obama going to restore anything? No. Such invasions of privacy will remain the law of the land. See Winslow’s take here. But again, I appreciated aspects of Obama’s speech. It is, once again, a step better than the GOP’s stance of:

“We haven’t quite figured out yet—nearly a decade later—that we created this problem.”

—John Q. Republican

Liberals are not likely to fix this. No one is. But I appreciate a meaningful discussion. The GOP seems ever more devoid of this ability. They remain reminiscent of, well, this says it best:

Look GOP, you can’t have it both ways, on each and every issue, regardless of the facts or the outcomes. Lately I’m finding less spin over at the coin-op laundromat on Mad Dog. The GOP, particular Dick Cheney, warned Obama if he didn’t use these tools and we got hit again, the blame would be all his. Could you imagine the outcry of a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil after Obama rolled back this expansion of executive power? I am not condoning any of it, but I predicted all of it. It’s not rocket surgery. Besides, I believe there is at least a chance that Obama will create some oversight for these programs.

As for the latest problem, Syria, there are no good options, aka, the GOP demands action! Hell, I liked inaction. It’s a much better move 9 times out of 10. The GOP will charge in where angels fear to tread…not because they’re brave, but rather because they’re certifiable. I really blame Clinton on this one. You’re going to have the GOP advocating for the wrong move, every time (see: history). They are very easy to ignore at this point.  But apparently the international pressure and the recent Dem pressure became too much. Obama was dragged kicking and screaming into this cluster, but I will not kid myself, the fault will be placed on him…and rightly so.

Final Rant Alert (FRA):

Sorry, but I watched 8-years of mind-numbingly poor decisions/scandals under Bush—after which I predicted our country would never be the same—but now during our fragile, improbable recovery, the GOP has the balls to spend their scant political capital either making shit up or pointing to their own pile of dookie and crying foul? Really?

“If society lacks the unity based upon the commitment of men’s wills to a common objective, then it is no more than a pile of sand that the least jolt or the slightest puff will suffice to scatter.”

—Émile Durkheim

I don’t understand why this whole NSA thing is a scandal. Don’t people watch the news, Fox or otherwise? How many times have people gotten nailed for sexting, porn site cruising, or questionable phone usage? Why is this news? You’d have to be an idiot to think that the Big Brother ain’t watchin’. Orwell was right, except 1984 just turned out to be a lame Van Halen album.

I’m “in the biz” so to speak, so maybe I know more about this than the average Joe, but you’d have to be naive think that anything you do across a public network, phone, internet or otherwise, is not being monitored.

Let me explain how the internet works. At a high level, when you type in “http://whatever”, your web browser sends “whatever” to a DNS server, which will return the address of the “whatever” server. This transaction is recorded. Then your browser sends your request to the address of the “whatever” server. If the server understands and can fulfill your request, your ninja porn comes back to you the same way your request got to the server.

At a low level, messages out of your machine go to Verizon, or Comcast, or whomever your ISP is (it’s like a tube, well, not at all really). From there the message is broadcast out on the internet in the hopes that someone else’s router will pick it up and pass it on. It’s kinda like hot-potato (potatoe?), each router passing the message on toward its destination. Anyone passing the potato can take a bite. There is also a thing called a “packet sniffer”. Now, this is not a crack ho, but rather a piece of hardware or software that can listen for messages matching the criteria set up by the user. THIS MEANS THAT ANYONE CAN LISTEN IN ON ANYTHING GOING THROUGH THEIR NETWORK! Anyway, your message gets to its destination at which point the server looks at it and sends back its reply in the same manner.

That said, every email you send bounces across a number of servers after leaving your desktop and before hitting the destination server. It has been said, wisely, that you should never put anything into an email that you would not put on a postcard (remember those? People used to send those when on vacation via snail-mail). Every server between here and there is going to keep a record of the message and it will be viewable by any number of people from administrators to hackers.

Cell phones are a bit different in that the traffic is usually local to the cellular network (which is keeping a record of everything). That is, until you get into things like apps, Facebook postings, twitterings, etc. These all go through the internet like everything else.

Essentially, everything you do on any of these networks is seen by a whole host of “people” for lack of a better expression. If any of them have the inclination, they can check out whatever you’re doing, which is why I have one of these: no data package, virtually no texting capability, no theft risk…

With this Associated Press/NSA “scandal” everyone is acting like this is some big revelation, and that this all new. The public nature of the internet has been around since Al Gore freed it. As far as the government monitoring everything, this is also nothing new. You may remember a guy named W. He and his cronies came up with this thing called the Patriot Act. Yeah, that basically gave the president permission to surveil anyone anywhere with little or no due process. Remember, back when everyone thought it was such good idea? …well everyone but me and a few other notable Zanos. This is not illegal. It may be ethically questionable, but so is Zano. These activities are marginally necessary given the nature of terrorism these days and the apparent effectiveness of doing it, but it is not illegal. How many terror plots have been disrupted in the last few years? How fast did they catch/kill those assholes in Boston? How do you think they did that? Oh, and USA Today brought this whole thing to light back in ’06. Where was the moral outrage then? Oh, yes, it was the W administration. Sorry, what was I thinking?

Keep in mind, we’re talking about millions of terabytes of data. To expect the government to have the desire and ability to sift through every last bit looking for what you had in your coffee this morning is ridiculous. They’re not interested in the little phone thing you have going on with your secretary. Now, if you’re a loaner living in a small, unfurnished apartment, and you’re making and receiving phone calls from a phone number linked to a known terrorist in Kabul you’re either really pathetic or worthy of surveillance. I have no problem with that. I’m, actually, pretty sure that I’m on a watch list somewhere (have you seen some of the shit we post?). I just hope it results in page views so I can get this thing to generate some F-ing revenue someday. Get these MFing page views on this MFing site!

Interesting fact: the Israeli government downloaded every last article, cartoon, news bit, Ghetto Shaman column, etc., about a year ago. Now that’s surveillance, and they made no secret about it. I think The Ghetto Shaman’s The Tao of Skullschlepping probably peaked their interest. It was during his Yiddish period.

Keep in mind, also, that the US government is getting the meta data, i.e. the dates, times, durations and phone numbers of the calls you make. They are not getting the contents of those calls (unlike back in ’06). That still requires a court order. An order that they can obtain after the fact if they determine that you’re about to blow up Wal*Mart (although I may not have a problem with that) and need to stomp on your ass immediately.

And the government is not the only one doing this. Aren’t you curious as to how Google puts up ads for grills when you just so happen to be in the market for a grill? And how about those amazingly applicable auto-filled search topics? Is it a coincidence that you’re getting those penis pump spam mails and you have a small penis? (Republican joke omitted). Every search, every purchase, everything you do is in somebody’s database somewhere and is sold as marketing data.

So, people, take this with a grain of salt. You may not like it, but you were all in favor of it 10 years ago. Now you have to live with it. Oh, and you have been for 10 years so get over it.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

—Benjamin Franklin

What’s the over-under on how long it takes them to get that Snowhard guy? I’m betting before this gets posted.

Historically liberal presidents have kept social programs afloat while lowering deficits. President Obama had the hardest time, for obvious Reagans, but it’s finally working (sorry, couldn’t work Bush into that one). The GOP, on the other hand, is forever shifting all resources to a handful of people while turning our country into a deficit-ridden slum. The fact none of them have deciphered their own mission statement, not to mention their own historical record, is a testament to the Matt Drudge’s of the world.

The facts are in. We’re all Keynesians now. An austerity-only approach failed over in the UK and everywhere else:

“What is being done here in the UK and also in much of the eurozone is worse than a crime, it is a blunder.”

 – Martin Wolf, Financial Times, lamenting about having not listened to Zano.

And, it was an avoidable blunder, covered on The Discord in 2011 here. Now we also see Japan finally emerging from their fifteen year GOP-style, austerity-only slump. Let’s give Japan some credit; it took a lot of courage to recover from both Fukushima and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.

As soon as Japan switched to the Keynesian-stimulus model, Japan’s economy started pulling out of its tailspin. Kamikaze anyone? They are now amidst a rather robust recovery, or, as the GOP calls it liberal propaganda.

“Japan is simply faking a recovery to further embarrass the GOP.”

—John Q Republican

I still support a balanced approach of spending cuts to fake money, but the GOP’s brilliant plan was to create the great recession—through lowering taxes during a couple of unnecessary and poorly managed land wars—and then shut off the Federal Reserve spigot amidst the inevitable collapse. Had we listened to them…well, it’s kind of like reaching the end of those old economic maps where blank areas are simply labeled Here Be Bachmanns.

Stephen Moore was on Real Time with Bill Maher awhile back, and he started off his rant, “We have the highest corporate tax rates in the world at 35%.”

Then Bernie Sanders said, “We have the highest nominal, not effective, that’s the difference. What people really pay is the lowest. It’s 12%.”

Sanders then goes on to say most large corporation don’t pay anything at all.

So Moore counters by saying, “That’s why we need to overhaul the entire tax code.”

Because corporation don’t pay enough taxes? Huh? When confronted with reality he goes for the total reversal. He’s not this stupid; he’s just a foxeconomist. It’s like when you take the Fibonacci sequence, which occurs everywhere throughout nature, and then stuff it up the ass of Newt Gingrich during the mid-terms.

Remember when the GOP said, “Well, we can’t really explain it, but Paul Ryan is our brain-trust and his budget makes sense”?

Then we look at his proposal and it has nothing to do with western civilization’s understanding of mathematics. They have no real plan, or numbers, or facts…ever. When you peel away layer after layer of this onion, there’s less in the center than a Michael Bloomberg approved jelly donut (MBAJD).

No matter how much evidence surfaces to indicate their economic cluelessness, the GOP will forever cling to their false narrative (guns and Bible joke omitted).

“The world is in deflationary spiral, not an inflationary one. Just as Keynesian economists predicted, and as conservative economists insisted could never happen.”

—Paul Krugman

Meanwhile, here’s what Obama is doing with the deficit. Sorry, the facts are in from govtspending.com:

Deficit under George W. Bush

Deficit under Barack Obama

The rest of the world isn’t fairing so well. I think I only gave Obama a 15% chance of pulling this shit off. Wow! Kudos. I still say my estimate was accurate, our recovery post-Bush was a long shot, aka, Ask your doctor if Facts are right for you

What’s worse about our disparaging political zeitgeist is the distance between parties is actually growing. This rightward drift is accelerating out of control like a meth-fiend’s Toyota. The GOP’s dysfunction is scary; their inability to identify their own dysfunction is scarier still.

Ezra weighs in on this troubling drift:

“If you imagine a policy spectrum that that goes from 1-10 in which 1 is the most liberal policy, 10 is the most conservative policy, and 5 is that middle zone that used to hold both moderate Democrats and Republicans, the basic shape of American politics today is that the Obama administration can and will get Democrats to agree to anything ranging from 1 to 7.5 and Republicans will reject anything that’s not an 8, 9, or 10. The result, as I’ve written before, is that President Obama’s record makes him look like a moderate Republicans from the late-90s.”

—Ezra Kline

This is why nothing will pass. Today’s GOP will not allow Obama to govern. Our president is doing surprisingly well, considering. There’s a consensus that Reagan wouldn’t make it in today’s GOP. Hell, anyone with a normal EEG isn’t going to make it in today’s GOP, or the Bachmann Effect as it is known to neuropsychologists.  Sorry, I have to get in my last Bachmann jokes (there’s a shelf life).

The GOP always works from the same playbook:

When real evidence emerges = change the subject

This has been their modus Foxerandi, and this stunt continues to work on about 40% of our population. It makes you want to Google Map your nearest clock tower.  Fox of the world, mom!

Could you imagine a McCainian land war in Syria, just as we started implementing the Ryan Plan? Who am I kidding, we would already be at war with Iran, during a depression. I can’t think of a worse scenario for this country…well, aside from Bachmann/Palin 2016.

Any topic the GOP touches turns to shit (the Bias Touch?). If Obama does avoid a double dip, the Republicans are finished as a species and they know it. It’s one of the few things they’ve figured out thus far. Well, they got the NSA thing right…er, after supporting such practices for nearly a decade. 

Reform or disband. There is no try.”

—Yoda