The Tea Party vs. The American Dream

The debate over the deficit and debt ceiling has been dominated by talk of spending cuts without consideration of what spending is really necessary to maintain the United States as a great nation. The right wing falsely equates freedom with cutting government spending. They believe that we could have our economic prosperity without most of the infrastructure and benefits which we obtain by pooling resources for the public good.

Despite false comparisons to the founding fathers by misappropriating terms such as the Tea Party, the vision of the right wing is to turn the United States into a banana republic which, while it might have a smaller government, would be dominated by a handful of large corporations and religious zealots. It would not resemble anything which most Americans would desire. Such a society would definitely not be more free in any sensible use of the word.

Thomas Friedman wrote on this topic today. While I question the value of some of his suggestions, he makes some important points. He ended by pointing out the toxic message from the Tea Party:

Anyone who says that either entitlement reform or tax increases are off the table does not have a plan for sustaining American greatness and passing on the American dream to the next generation.

Alas, that is the Tea Party. It is so lacking in any aspiration for American greatness, so dominated by the narrowest visions for our country and so ignorant of the fact that it was not tax cuts that made America great but our unique public-private partnerships across the generations. If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission.

Unfortunately the Tea Party risks not only taking the Republican Party on a suicide mission, but risks taking the entire country down with them.

Why Global Warming Denialism Should End Now

Greg Laden explains why global warming denialism should end now. A portion of his post:

This year, we have experience the most expensive year of weather disasters in our history. The total cost of disasters this year, and we are still only in July, is in the tens of billions of dollars, perhaps 32 billion. A typical year in recent times has been about 6 billion. The cost in human lives has also been high, with over 600 people killed from flooding, tornado outbreaks, and other storms.*It is hard to attribute specific damage or death to global warming, but guess what: It is also hard to attribute specific deaths to influenza during the influenza season, but we manage to count the effects of flu anyway. For the latter, certain categories of morbidity or mortality which are known to be linked to influenza are monitored all year, and we see an increase during flu season while at the same time a smaller sample of people are showing up with influenza demonstrated through blood tests. Similarly, with global warming effects, we can see a broad association between heat and storms, and we know where that heat is coming from. We know that because the science on this is pretty good.

2011 will almost certainly turn out to be the hottest year on record. 2010 and 2005 were previously tied for the hottest. June 2011 was the 315th consecutive month above the 20th century average. The last time we experience a month with global temperatures lower than the 20th century average was February. February 1985.* Five years before I wrote that article I mentioned.

The arctic sea is no longer covered with ice as it used to be. Now, the ice cycles are fundamentally different. The change that is happening there is difficult to track and a few more years needs to pass before we’ll fully understand it. But ice that has not melted in many many years has melted, and ice that normally forms no longer does.

The denialism should end, but it won’t. The facts never matter to right wing propagandists.

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Karen Gillan on Craig Ferguson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3DlGjN-yuc&feature=player_embedded

Karen Gillan on Craig Ferguson last night. Craig and Karen talked about porn, and Craig showed Karen his TARDIS. The interview with Matt Smith will air on Friday.

Quote of the Day

“Sarah Palin is becoming a grandmother again (or for the first time, who knows). It’s not Bristol – Bristol, of course, is re-saving herself for marriage. This is Palin’s oldest son Track. His wife is pregnant. They got married two months ago, and now she looks like she’s six months pregnant. So you do the math, because certainly the Palins can’t.” –Bill Maher

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan on Craig Ferguson

With Craig Ferguson being a huge fan of Doctor Who, it comes as no surprise that he interviewed Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, presumably when they were in the area for Comic  Con. He will be airing the interview with Karen Gillan tonight, and with Matt Smith on Friday.

How The Bartlet Administration Handled The Debt Ceiling Vote

Quote of the Day

“Republicans are blaming President Obama for bringing the heat from his native Kenya.” –Jimmy Kimmel

The Republican Contribution To The Current Crisis

Ezra Klein wrote about the problem we have been seeing for a while–Republicans can win at brinkmanship because Democrats  re more likely to want to avert crises such as the United States defaulting on its obligations.  As I’ve pointed out many times in the past, Republicans have been blaming Obama for the deficit that Republican policies created.  The previous posts linked here show a variety of graphs and tables to demonstrate this. Ezra Klein demonstrated this another way:

Besides having far less impact on the deficit compared to Bush’s spending than one would expect from all the screaming from the Tea Party types, Obama’s stimulus spending has ended. In contrast, Bush’s contribution to the deficit, including from his tax cuts and the Medicare drug benefit, continue  to have an impact. Bush even threatened to fire the chief Medicare actuary if he testified before Congress as to the true cost of his plan.

Obviously there are limitations to the use of this graph. Republicans could claim that many programs they oppose, but which are not represented here, also contribute to the deficit. It is debatable whether to blame the Iraq and Afghanistan wars entirely on Bush. On the one hand, Obama has continued spending on these wars. On the other hand, he would have never gone into Iraq but felt forced to remain there.

Despite the potential problems with this table, the key fact remains valid that Obama’s stimulus spending is hardly the real reason why the deficit is now so large.  It is also notable that Obama’s health care reform cost less than George Bush’s changes in Medicare.

Doctor Who Panel at San Diego Comic Con

Here’s the video of the Doctor Who panel at Comic Con. For those who don’t have time to watch the entire video, a summary can be found here.

The biggest Doctor Who news to come out of SDCC was that the second half of Season 6 will resume on August 27, and that Karen Gillan says she will be returning for Season 7 (video here).

Doctor Who: The Second Half of Season 6

Above is the trailer for the second half of Season 6 from Comic Con. The biggest news from the Doctor Who panel today was the announcement of the air date in the US and UK for Let’s Kill Hitler, the first episode when the season returns from hiatus. It will air August 27. There will also reportedly be lots of cliff hangers in the second half of the season, and Karen Gillan, who earlier stated she will be returning for Season 7, teased: “My secret, I’ve still got. And you still don’t know it. It’s so exciting! I feel so powerful now.”

I hope to have video of the Doctor Who panel later tonight or tomorrow to post.