Good News For a Change

It's been a long time since we've had any good news to report. Luckily, the Supreme Court last week handed down a grand total of three positive decisions.

1. In Burwell v. King, the Court upheld, yet again, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. This means that the law is here to stay. GOPers can still run against the law, though, without worrying about having to replace it.

2. In Obergefell v. Hodges the Court ruled that marriage is a right that belongs to all people, not just those who want to lead an "Ozzie and Harriet" lifestyle.

3. In Texas Department of Housing v. Inclusive Communities, the Court stopped an attempt by the state of Texas to do an end run around the Fair Housing Act.

Lately, there has been much as to whether President Obama is "really" Proressive. The fact that he appointed Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court is significant in itself.

First Person Shooters and Roaring Rampages of Destruction

On June 17 2015 a murderer killed 9 people at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston SC. The victims at the African-American church included the Pastor Clementa Pinckney, who was also a State Senator. The murderer was a self proclaimed white supremacist named Dylan Roof. When you look at the history of White American racism you notice the propensity to attack African American churches and religious ministers. American Racism has never recognized any principles of morality or religion, but has always possessed a blind almost animalistic quality to it. It seems to be a hereditary mental illness. Some people build their identities on hatred. The so-called Libertarians proclaim "the right to discriminate." This is the sickness of a society that doesn't want to face its problems, but only look for scapegoats.

1975: The End of Affluence

This year is mostly being remembered as the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. We should remember that 1975 was important for another reason as well. The US economy went into recession in November of 1973 and it continued until March 1975. By May 1975 unemployment reached 9%. That may not seem a high by today's standards (unemployment reached 10.8% in 1982). Nevertheless, the recession 0f 1973-75 marked the end of the post WW2 economic boom. The end of WW2 had brought about the "Age of Affluence," or "the Good Old Days." When people thought that the world economy had gone on an "upward curve" of rising standards of living.

Since the seventies we've had worsening economic conditions worldwide. The seventies marked the decline of Keynesian economics and the ascendancy of Friedmanite Monetarism, which in a vulgarized and dumbed down form has become the dogma of recessionism. In the US there have been 2 boomlets (1983-87, 1996-2000), but the only result has been that the rich have been getting richer at everyone else's expense. Since 1975 it has been downhill all the way.

Texas Bullshit

It's funny how Texans hate "big government" ie. Washington DC. Except that now, the Repub controlled state legislature has passed, and the asshole governor has signed, a so called "Border Security" bill that asks the Federal Government to pay them $800 million dollars. This is on top of the 5 billion dollars in FEMA aid that Texas has received over the past few years. I guess we're not going to hear any more bullshit about "Texas Independence" for a while at least.

Is Europe Going Over the Edge?

Economist Joseph Stiglitz posted an article "Will a Grexit Be the Lehman-Like Trigger of the Next Global Financial Crisis?" It's strange because a few months ago we heard that the Greek problem has been "solved." It now turns out that it wasn't. Stiglitz summarizes the situation thus:

they believed that, by cutting wages and accepting other austerity measures, Greek exports would increase and the economy would quickly return to growth. They also believed that the first debt restructuring would lead to debt sustainability.

The troika's forecasts have been wrong, and repeatedly so. And not by a little, but by an enormous amount. Greece's voters were right to demand a change in course, and their government is right to refuse to sign on to a deeply flawed program.

In other words, the solution imposed upon Greece by the leadership of the European Union--the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund--is actually making the economic situation in Greece worse. Stiglitz outlines the dangers for Europe thus:

We know that the structure of the eurozone encourages divergence, not convergence: as capital and talented people leave crisis-hit economies, these countries become less able to repay their debts. As markets grasp that a vicious downward spiral is structurally embedded in the euro, the consequences for the next crisis become profound. And another crisis is inevitable: it is in the very nature of capitalism.

This is an ominous situation. The only lesson we can learn is that we need to ditch the Recessionist Economic dogma.

Hastert the Pervert

Dennis Hastert, ex staunch GOPer, ex-Speaker of the House (1999-2007), and prime example of genetic drift back into primate status. Since leaving politics, Hastert became a "high powered" Washington lobbyist and made a ton of money in the process. But now Hastert has been indicted for making illegal bank withdrawals which he used to pay over three million dollars to an "individual" with whom Hastert had a "relationship." The individual has not been identified, but is allegedly a male student with whom Hastert became involved when Hastert was a High School wrestling coach in Yorkville High School in Yorkville Illinois.

Hastert was always a despicable piece of humanoid garbage--even before we found out about this. This shows the GOP has sunk to the depths of moral bankruptcy. You almost run out of language to condemn these scumbags.