How Stupid is Grover Norquist (a.k.a., Has a Republican Ever Actually Looked at the Constitution?)

So apparently the latest bit of insane inanity out of Grover Norquist's multiple chin topping mouth involves impeaching President Obama if he is elected to a second term and allows the Bush tax cuts to expire. And I regretfully quote:

NORQUIST Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.

I don't even know where to start with this one. First off, let's concentrate on the "tax [cuts] lapse." So impeachment is a valid response to letting the sunset provisions of Bush's original tax bill kick in? Which would basically be the executive executing a previously enacted law. This is wrong, how? Secondly, and more importantly, what exact charges would be used in these impeachment proceedings? Guilty of not letting jowly gargoyle Grover Norquist get his policy way? Here is when the Constitution (y'know that thing all the Tea Parties drone on about) says it is appropriate to impeach in Article II, Section 4:

Section 4
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

I mean unless it is another ridiculous GOP implicit charge of treason or he's saying POTUS would be guilty of NOT bribing the top tax brackets with cuts, where exactly would sunsetting the Bush tax cuts fit in there. Such statements make a mockery of the U.S. Constitution, as well as of our general political process, and I truly hope that Norquist crawl back into whatever mole man hole he came out of. I mean, seriously, your name is Grover. GRRROOOOVVVEEERRRR (and, actually, the linked picture is a perfect description of Norquist too. Freakin' nerd monster).

(Image: Google Images)

Israel Continues to Act Like the World's Brat Little Brother (Ya, I went there...)

This week's NY Times Magazine features the provocatively titled article "Will Israel Attack Iran?" that outlines the thoughts and feelings of those intimately related to the decision making process (**SPOILER ALERT**: Author Ronen Bergman, as well as everyone else in the world, thinks that they will. Further, and somewhat more boldly, he thinks that it will happen this year). The interesting bits, to me, were when officials not named Benjamin Netanyahu were discussing the possibility of an attack on Iran and, especially, when talking about the United States. In discussing the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, the article points out that he:

dislikes this kind of criticism of the United States [about their unwillingness to attack Iran], and in a rather testy tone in a phone conversation with me on Jan. 18 said: “Our discourse with the United States is based on listening and mutual respect, together with an understanding that it is our primary ally. The U.S. is what helps us to preserve the military advantage of Israel, more than ever before. This administration contributes to the security of Israel in an extraordinary way and does a lot to prevent a nuclear Iran. We’re not in confrontation with America. We’re not in agreement on every detail, we can have differences — and not unimportant ones — but we should not talk as if we are speaking about a hostile entity."

This is almost directly contra to the view of the Obama administrations Israel policy being espoused on the right. A view that Mr. Netanyahu seems to carefully, and never quite explicitly, encourage among certain sectors of the American body-politic. Further, the GOP candidates seem pretty cavalier with American foreign policy asserting that Israel and American priorities are one in the same and virtually assuring that an attack on Iran would happen in a GOP administration. This is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, clearly the priorities of Israel and the United States are not one in the same. If you replace Israel with any country in the world and you can see how it is a priori false (or even simpler make the statement that my priorities are the same as x). Secondly, although a certain sect of Israeli officials, led by Mr. Netanyahu, believe that there would be a muted response by Iran, most of the rest of the world thinks that Iran retaliate with both barrels blazing and would recommit, to an even greater degree, to developing a nuke. It seems like the hawkish, Likud, portion of the Israeli government are stacking the deck for an Iranian strike with favorable intelligence estimates. Thirdly, and most importantly in my view, many, many people believe that an attack would be ineffectual. Former head of Mossad (Israel's intelligence agency), Meir Dagan, stated:

“The use of state violence has intolerable costs,” he said. “The working assumption that it is possible to totally halt the Iranian nuclear project by means of a military attack is incorrect. There is no such military capability. It is possible to cause a delay, but even that would only be for a limited period of time.” 

He warned that attacking Iran would start an unwanted war with Hezbollah and Hamas: “I am not convinced that Syria will not be drawn into the war. While the Syrians won’t charge at us in tanks, we will see a massive offensive of missiles against our home front. Civilians will be on the front lines. What is Israel’s defensive capability against such an offensive? I know of no solution that we have for this problem.”

This is a huge problem. Dagan is out and out saying that the current leadership of Israel is looking to provoke a war with Iran that will not even accomplish it's goal of stopping the Iran nuclear program. It will only slow it down. Minorly. Starting a was to create hiccup is not good policy, in MHO, and definitely not a policy that the U.S. should co-opt.

Listen, I totally get Israel's position (seen here: “Take every scenario of confrontation and attack by Iran and its proxies and then ask yourself, ‘How would it look if they had a nuclear weapon?’ ” a senior official said. “In nearly every scenario, the situation looks worse.”). It is eminently reasonable to worry about a nuclear Iran if you are Israel (or anyone else in the world for that matter). But what exactly is the point if your attack is just going to piss of Iran rather than stop them and create an anti-Israel, anti-US upheaval in a Middle East in transition in the process?

I'm going to have to go with the old hand Rafi Eitan's assessment on this one...

Asked if it was possible to stop a determined Iran from becoming a nuclear power, Eitan replied: “No. In the end they’ll get their bomb. The way to fight it is by changing the regime there. This is where we have really failed. We should encourage the opposition groups who turn to us over and over to ask for our help, and instead, we send them away empty-handed.”

It's the Arab Spring Summer Fall and Winter y'all... Israel should take a long look at encouraging that route instead.

(Image From: http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html via Google Images [as always])

The Usual Suspects: A Continuation

File this one under random thoughts in the shower, but how embarrassed must have U.S. Customs Agent Dave Kujan felt after the credits rolled in The Usual Suspects when he rolled back into the precinct, head hanging low, knowing that he had to tell everyone else that he just got played by mythical criminal Keyser Soze and then let him walk? I'm going to say pretty embarrassed. I mean, to start, he already broke a coffee glass, spilled coffee everywhere, and wasn't fast enough to a fake cripple (fakripple?). First of all, what the hell was a U.S. Customs Agent doing interviewing the sole witness capable of talking about this vast conspiracy, multiple murders, and shoot out at the docks. Does he even have the training for that? Who let him have at it like that? I'm guessing Sgt. Rabin got some shit for this debacle as well. Some other off the top of my head questions I'm sure he faced from Special Agent Baer and others post-credit rolling:

• Didn't someone tell you that a fax with Soze's likeness would be coming through? Why wasn't someone on that immediately?
• Oh, my bad, I forgot that you are an mother#(%^Q)@ U.S. Customs Agent so of course not.
• Sidenote, who the hell let you in there anyway?
• Oh, you let him go because you were satisfied that Keaton faked his death again? So that's what makes sense? Good police work, dickbag.
• Nobody looked into this Kobayashi character? Maybe checked out some known associates? Really, nobody? Wow.
• What kind of name is Verbal Kint anyway? Anyone look into that one? No? Fantastic. 
• Again, and I don't mean to make too fine of a point out of this, but he was the only go@%)&@#n survivor of a massacre and only witness the state has and no one thought to look after him? Maybe follow him a little bit or have a uniform take him home?
• Ugh, you are the worst. Get the hell outta here and go back to chasing down counterfeit CDs and Nikes or whatever the hell it is you actually do regularly. But, seriously, how the hell were you the one doing this interview? F&%* me in the goat ass....

Are the GOP Primaries Acting as an Early Policy Referendum by Accident?

No, Santorum does not count. As the State of the Union Address is tonight, I could venture a guess at each candidates odds agains President Obama or just pull some Nate Silver ish about who I think might win; but, as it is really Obama v. the Economy for who'll win this fall, it doesn't really matter.

The interesting part of the GOP nomination contests, for me at least, is that they are bringing to the fore issues that you wouldn't expect until the general election; namely, super PACs in the post-Citizen United world and, in a roundabout way focusing on Mitt Romney's reluctance to release his tax returns, the appropriateness of the 15% capital gains tax rate (especially as it is applied private equity shops). These are focal points you would expect to see from President Obama's team but not from internecine fighting between republican candidates. Romney and Gingrich have been going back and forth biatching about each other's super PACs. Super PACs that have already spent $30 million so far amongst the Republicans. Just today, Dr. Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate and super Israel supporter Sheldon Adelson, donated $5 million to Gingrich's super PAC. Between the husband and wife, team Gingrich has pulled in $10 million for negative adds in the past month. Despite the claim in Citizens United that the money is just speech and would have a negligible influence on politicians, quite the opposite seems to be true as I could've told you the second that opinion came out. As Barrett seems to point out, Gingrich's 90 degree rightward shift on Israeli/Palestinian issue could be from any number of reasons, including the general rightward shift in the GOP recently due to the Tea Party and the partisan shift that comes during a nominating process. However, it is hard to deny that it stinks to high heaven. As the NY Times points out,

The Adelsons’ contributions on Mr. Gingrich’s behalf illustrate how rapidly a new era of unlimited political money is reshaping the rules of presidential politics and empowering individual donors to a degree unseen since before the Watergate scandals.

The wealth of a single couple has now leveled the playing field in two critical primary states for Mr. Gingrich, a candidate who ended September more than $1 million in debt, finished out of the running in Iowa and New Hampshire and, unlike Mr. Romney, has yet to attract the broad network of hard-money donors and bundlers that traditionally propel presidential campaigns.

It boggles the mind.

Meanwhile, the very attacks on Romney that Gingrich's super PAC has financed have recently (in South Carolina at least) concentrated on his time at Bain Capital and how it affected the working man. The long and short of it being how the cold-hearted, Gordon Gekko-like, Romney acquired a vast fortune off the plight of the workers laid off by companies that had to fold after Bain Capital saddled them with too much debt in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). The companies suffered, but Bain prospered after using some of the debt to pay off their investment and management fees. This led to a further attack on how Romney refused to release his tax returns, an attack which he failed to respond to effectively, forcing him to release his returns for the past two years today. They show that he pays a rate of 13.9% as most of his income is seen as capital gains. Though most of the Republicans on the stage want either that rate or even lower, this talk is undoubtedly going to illuminate this country's income inequity and call into question whether a lower capital gains rate is good policy (especially for those in private equity). At the very least, this is certainly going to come up in tonight's State of the Union Address. Hopefully, as Andrew Sullivan has called for, it comes in a larger talk about the need to reform our tax code in general. Debt has been incentivized for too long in this country and it has caused a myriad problems. Talking about it tonight would be a good first step.

Though the GOP candidates, and their talking head puppetmasters on Fox News, will undoubtedly end up labeling him a socialist tomorrow, it is important to remember the words of the proto-capitalist Adam Smith. And I quote:

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

BONUS POINTS- State of the Union Prediction Edition: Obama uses today to launch some sort of tax reform initiative. In the midst of this, especially with the presence of Obama's secretary and with the release of Romney's tax returns, he takes the opportunity to throw out some derivation of the following line: "It is not right that people of means like Warren Buffett, with billions of dollars, are paying the same rate as his secretary, who is here today. I know that it is called the Buffett rule because of this but perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it the Romney rule, as he pays even less." Obama is probably too classy to go explicitly at Romney like that, but BELEE dat the above sentiment will be implied.

Time To Take Your Licks, POTUS

A lot of time is spent on this blog snarkily sniping at the GOP; rightfully in MHO, as they continue to come across as an entirely unserious political party ("It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man," says my progenitor). One should not take the disdain for one party as unabashed celebration of the other, however. President Obama, no matter where exactly you ascribe the blame, has failed to live up to the immense promise exhibited during his 2008 triumph. Perhaps part of that blame falls upon his supporters, myself included, who expected far too much of the man and thought far too little of the institutions in place. There is, however, one specific failure that is definitively attributable to the man and his administration and that is the failure to move ahead with pushing the proposals from the Simpson-Bowles Commission. This failure presaged numerous future problems that came up and, I believe, continues to hurt America today.

Although hardly news as it has been harped on brought up repeatedly by Andrew Sullivan and recently by the Republican National Committee in a helpful research briefing, it has yet to gain traction with the larger public. I know we are unofficially in election mode now, but it would be nice, as others have advocated, if the POTUS showed leadership by jumping back into the business of governing by reviving Simpson-Bowles. How effective would the picture he is painting of a do-nothing GOP Congress be if, a month and change after the RNC advocated the move, Simpson-Bowles proposals were shut down or hijacked with unnecessary additions. Or, even better, how excellent would it be if the proposals went through and Obama's spinmeisters got to work highlighting his leadership on the matter?

Regardless, promises were made about how this man was a post-partisan who was about what was good for the country rather than what was good for the campaign for re-election. Though there is no one on the other side who I would consider voting for (outside of Capt. Haughty-pants Huntsmann, who has no shot at being the nominee), it would be nice if President Obama was, well, presidential and completely solidified my faith in my vote. I don't want to be threatened into it again...

*** UPDATE ***
A persuasive, and conservative, argument of why it is imperative to trim our military spending. I could not agree more and can only hope that the cuts are very significant. Much like the belief that taxes should rise to around Clinton era levels, I think our military spending should fall, at the least, to pre-9/11 levels. In the balanced checkbook view of our economy, decreased spending AND increased revenue is the only way to bring down the US deficit.

Addington, Yoo Have To Be Sharting Me

Look upon the above visages if you dare, as they are they are the physical manifestation of pure evil (he said with only a bit of hyperbole...). Recently, President Obama used recess appointments to appoint a new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and two new members to the National Labor Relations Board. Appointments that were being blocked from a vote by Congressional machinations that would've shut down both agencies. Some Constitutional Law experts at Harvard, believe that the President acted well within the scope of his Constitutional powers in doing so. David Addington, he of the unitary executive theory, and John Yoo, the rationalizer of torture, however, are all up in arms about the appointments calling it "chilling" that the President is making such "sweeping claim[s]."

Keep in mind, these are two men who, during the presidency of George W. Bush, did everything they could to expand executive power. This includes institutionalizing torture during their administration and claiming that the President could do virtually whatever he wanted as long as it was during "times of war." But it is completely out of bounds that President Obama is using recess appointments? As recess appointments have along history dating back to the beginning of our country where a President would keep the work of government going by making appointments during a Congressional recess, a new method to prevent appointments has been utilize where only one Senator would show up for "pro forma" sessions of the Senate. The idea is that while there is an actual recess going on, recess appointments cannot be made because these pro forma appearances mean that the Senate is in session. It is a cheap way to make sure that there never has to be an up and down vote on Presidential appointments. Considering what those two ass clowns above instituted during the previous administration, they have some real brass balls to come forward with these asinine objections now. I almost respect it if I didn't think they are up there among the most evil, motherless rat bastards on this Earth...

That Power-Hungry Little Weasel Eric...

I am, of course, talking about Eric Cantor (though the Billy Madison allusion is particularly apt...). Cantor has always been a little weasel and he stepped it up another notch recently on an appearance on "60 Minutes". At one point during the interview, Lesley Stahl brought up Ronald Reagan, obviously a hero of the GOP generally and Cantor in particular, and how his ability to compromise, including on the raising of taxes. This is simply a matter of fact and is repeatedly pointed out by Bruce Bartlett, who helped work on tax and banking policies for both Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Cantor hems and haws for a moment before his press secretary swoops in off camera and calls Mr. Stahl a liar.

This is not completely surprising considering the baseness of the current GOP. As demonstrated in the debt ceiling debate, neither the truth nor what is good for the country is important if it does not fit in with the GOP and increasingly the nutso Tea Party agenda. The American people instinctively felt the dangers of the debt ceiling intransigence, but now the negative effects are being shown as the economy starts to bounce back to around where it was before that "hostage taking" (as demonstrated on this chart). I hope people actually start taking these more extreme politicians, on both sides, to task for the dangerous and increasingly prevalent move towards increased partisanship in the next Congressional election cycle. If not, I do not know when our broken government will actually get back to business of governing.

J E T S Crash and Burn

No Santonio, it is not okay. There have been numerous post-mortems (here's one from Grantland and Football Outsider's terrific Bill Barnwell citing leadership problems) but, honestly, there were probably too many problems with the team too pinpoint just a couple in an article. Clearly leadership is a problem on that that team is an issue, but this starts at the top with Rex Ryan and Brian Schottenheimer rather than with veterans like Santonio Holmes (don't get me wrong... Holmes is a schoolboy biatch). Rex Ryan has already taken the blame, as he should, but Schottenheimer has somehow remained above the fray. As a Jets fan (I know, right? Pray for me...), I hope that Schotty gets hired for a head coaching gig in Jacksonville or somewhere anywhere else. As long as he is their problem and no longer making inexplicable play calls from the Jets sideline. I know the United States in general has had a long history of children trading on their father's name, but how long can Schotty keep this con up? In my mind, he has to go. Preferably like 2 years ago. So if you have a timeline Rexy, that would be handy right about now.

The rest of the Jets' offensive problems are a bit harder to tackle. Holmes' recent contract extension (good call on that one guys... not at all premature) makes it very difficult to get rid of the erstwhile "Captain." The running game has been borderline non-existent and is not looking to get much better with the possible probable loss of LaDainian Tomlinson, and his pass catching ability, to free agency or retirement this upcoming off season. The offensive line, another leading cause of the inability to run, is another hard fix. Although some of it had to do with injuries, they just looked bad as a unit throughout the season (wasn't D'Brickashaw Ferguson supposed to be good?). After a season that started full of promise, the future looks somewhat bleak right now. This season's post-mortem, as most post-mortems are I guess, is terribly depressing (and I didn't even talk about Cromartie. PLEASE do not get me started on Cromartie...).