Kelly and I agree ... sort of ... well, not where it counts

This weeks Jack Kelly column "The NSA's close shave: For now, let's hope that government incompetence will protect our privacy" is interesting for the reasons I describe below. What is below is a copy of a comment (mostly unedited here) I made on the online PG edition.

I found this Jack Kelly piece pretty interesting. First of all, I found I agreed with large parts, although not his ultimate conclusion.

Second, I will encourage people to read this Glenn Greenwald Guardian UK OpEd piece where he asserts that the Republicans do not block every Obama program as Democrats like to say. On this bill, as Jack Kelly suggested, the House Democratic and Republican leadership made common cause in voting against this bill. Now, if I say it should give the White House and Nancy Pelosi pause to be making common cause with John Boehner, maybe I am being too partisan. But I think I am on safe ground when I say that this White House has a considerable problem with its whole "anti-terrorism" program, that is increasingly looking like a domestic comprehensive surveillance program.

Third of all, I am confused by Kelly opposition to the Amash amendment. He says it "would have removed the legal authority for the National Security Agency to collect communications "metadata" on U.S. citizens." Well, then he goes onto to clarify the amendment would "permit surveillance only if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decides that individual business records are relevant to a specific investigation." Frankly I thought that was how the Patriot Act was supposed to work anyway, that if a suspected or suspicious foreign person contacted a US citizen (at least on US soil), the NSA would make a request to monitor that US citizens "metadata" to the FISA court. I guess that was blown wide open (or made wide shut) in 2006, dropping the FISA court part if it had ever been there. As I have been reading, there was a debate to that effect in 2006, the last year the Republicans held Congress under Bush.

But if we are not going to rely on the FISA court to at least keep a record when it rubber stamps every NSA request, then what does Jack Kelly suggest we should do? He suggests nothing, which I suspect will always be is position.

This *is* an interesting Kelly piece, in that Republicans appear to be tying themselves in knots over whether to consistently oppose the President or in this case to preserve the ability to spy on American citizen for the next Republican President who comes down the line (whoever that might be and whenever that might be). And some Democrats show how little they care for what are supposed to be their principles, and rubber stamp White House that also should be following principles.

Martin/Zimmerman again

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So I am trying to participate in this "Blogging Trayvon" or "blogging for justice". I have been writing about this incident on the PG OP/Ed comment section for months now. I have watched those who supported George Zimmerman evolve over those months. Many started generally saying that while it was self-defense Zimmerman should not have gotten out of his car, but after the verdict they hardened into a positon that by attacking Zimmerman, Martin sealed his own fate. This is what the gun rights advocates (or absolutists, as some say) seem to feel.

One thing that has been interesting to watch is the efforts to make a logical case for profiling Trayvon Martin. Actually this effort to use logic to justify one's position permeates the PG comment pages. There is a great deal of (something like) "if they would only take responsibility for themselves" and in the Trayvon Martin comments (something like) "It's a fact that African Americans commit (some number, I have seen as high as 76%) of (some crime - robbery, murder, etc)". This is all done in isolation, as if the only history we have are these crime statistics, there is no other history or context.

But this brings me to a first point about context. Much of what we know about what happened comes from George Zimmerman, and I would suggest he has strong incentives to paint himself in the best light possible. But there are a couple of things he said when he was talking to the police dispatcher that I want to note. First of all, early in the conversation he said "these assholes always get away". Shortly after that he tells the dispatcher Martin is running, and Zimmerman starts running after him (what he was thinking I can not imagine). The dispatcher asks Zimmerman if he is following Martin (as Zimmerman is evidently breathing hard) and when Zimmerman says yer the dispatcher utters the now famous "OK, we don't need you to do that".

I want to pause briefly to point out that Martin did not have a history of violence that I am aware of. Some possible petty theft and marijuana use, but not violence (and most people will say that marijuana promote lethargy, not violence). On the other hand, Zimmerman had once shoved a cop and once had domestic violence charges leveled at him. These did not come to much, but there they are, along with the mixed martial arts training and the concealed handgun.

So at that point that particular evening Zimmerman had lost Trayvon Martin (or so he said) and is supposedly returning to his vehicle. Trayvon Martin reappears. According to Zimmerman Martin "sucker punches" Zimmerman from behind, but it doesn't seem like that is born out by the testimony of Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with Martin up to the final confrontation.

We already know that Martin had tried to run away from Zimmerman. Why had Martin returned? Well, one possibility is that Martin had turned in a thug bent on beating Zimmerman to death (despite having no history of violence). Another possibility is that Martin, unfamiliar with the neighborhood, had gotten lost trying to get home, and in desperation had gone back towards where he had seen the creepy guy since he thought the house he was staying at was back that way.

So we have this claim by Zimmerman that Martin sucker punched him, which is made doubtful by other testimony. What if what actually happened is Zimmerman repeated to Martin a version of the thing he had said earlier to the dispatcher - "You are not going to get away with it"? What if to make his point Zimmerman life his shirt to show a gun concealed in his waistband? What if he did all that without identifying himself as a neighborhood watch volunteer who had call the police?

If those things were true, it is easy to see that Martin, already frightened, might feel his worst fears were confirmed, that he was dealing with a crazy person about to kill him for no apparent reason. Martin, only 17, might well have reacted instead of asking what was going on. As a member of the football team, Martin would have had some experience with tackling a person and taking him down to ground. Being terrified at that moment, Martin would had reserves of adrenaline and the training needed to overpower a heavier man (whose fitness at the time is apparently an open question), could well have knocked Zimmerman to the ground and if they were on the sidewalk (at least one witness put them on the grass, but whatever), could have wrung Zimmerman's chimes.

Am I justifying Zimmerman's claim of self defense? No I am suggesting what seems the strongest possibility is that Zimmerman provoked the situation at every step, right up to the point the kid did not cooperate by collapsing to the ground crying. Zimmerman played with fire and it got away from him and bit him in the ass (so to speak).

Much was made in the trial that Zimmerman had no obvious hatred of African Americans. Perhaps not, but how should we look at Zimmerman's automatic assumption that the suspicious figure he saw, who he knew was black, was "getting away" with something? The insidious casual racism can be seen as worse, in that it is so ingrained that we can overlook it. Supposedly at least a couple of the jurors started deliberations leaning towards a guilty verdict for Zimmerman (either of second degree murder or manslaughter), but were persuaded otherwise by the rest of the jury. And as I said earlier, even here in Pittsburgh, commenters on the PG online refuse to look at the totality of the situation of African Americans, instead only seeing violent criminals or at best welfare cheats and abusers. This is a problem that seemingly has been made worse by the election of an African American President during an economic downturn that has swollen the ranks of the unemployed and the welfare rolls.

The other point I want to make is how this all fits in with the logic of the gun debate. Gun rights advocate want to say that this has nothing to do concealed carry law laws or the stand your ground laws, except to prove that they work. But I think that gun rights advocates have based a lot of their arguments on the notions that gun owners are responsible, and therefore to do not need to be regulated. But we know that the neighborhood watch had training that said volunteers should not follow and especially should not confront suspicious people. We know the police dispatcher essentially reminded and reinforced that point with George Zimmerman that night. We can reasonably assume the purpose of saying those things to volunteers was to avoid the risk of injury to either volunteer or suspect. Yet Zimmerman ignored his training and what the dispatcher told him.

"Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun". So sayeth the NRA. But was Zimmerman a good guy with a gun? Does a good guy with a gun take unnecessary chances with people's lives? As I am sure others have concluded, George Zimmerman, taking chances and with a casual racism, went from neighborhood watch good guy with a gun to reckless vigilante, the guy who kept Martin from zlways getting away with it. Problem was, Martin did nothing except maybe get scared and then killed when he tried to defend himself.

What responsibilities does concealed carry place on you? In the State of Florida, apparently very few. And if things do go bad and a black man is shot, you can be confident people will decide he brought it on himself.

What can be said about ZImmerman?

I believe several Pittsburgh bloggers are posting about the Zimmerman/Martin case tonight, unless I have missed them doing some earlier time. Whether or not I might have missed the group, I am doing this tonight.

Like so many others, I have been following this case. It certainly seems to have had a polarizing effect, down predictable party and liberal/conservative lines. For liberals, Zimmerman profiled Martin, decided he was up to no good and in danger of getting away with whatever he had done, and literally hunted him down. For conservatives, Zimmerman was merely doing his neighborhood watch duties, apparently thought Martin would elude police, and so followed Martin.

What seems like undisputed facts are that somehow Martin approached Zimmerman and took him by surprise. I do not know if any words passed between them, whether maybe Zimmerman showed Martin that he had a gun in his waistband or a holster, but we do know the two proceeded to start fighting. I think at least one witness said the two were rolling in grass, one or more may have supported Zimmerman's story about Martin being on top of him, another one or more may have said Zimmerman was on top of Martin (possibly post gun shot). Martin may have been fighting harder than Zimmerman expected, possibly because Martin was fighting a man who he thought was about to shoot him. In this context, one can make a case for both the man and the boy invoking self defense, but only one of them had access to lethal force.

Having said all that, I actually want to step back and discuss events directly prior to the fatal confrontation. I want to talk about rules governing our behavior. I know that saying "I was only following orders" is practically an archetype of a certain form of (perhaps bureaucratic) evil, yet I will say I think many of the individual acts of evil in history come from people deciding to ignore orders. The My Lai massacre leaps to mind immediately, although the specific orders in that situation may have been somewhat ambiguous.

But my point in bringing up orders is that as a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman had a set of parameters that were supposed to govern his activities while watching the neighborhood. He was supposed to be the eyes and ears of the police, but he was not supposed to pursue and absolutely not supposed to confront. Yet when Zimmerman left his vehicle to follow Martin that night, he knew he was risking confronting Martin. Why would the neighborhood watch rules say not to follow and risk confronting someone suspicious? Exactly because of what happened next.

In a way, the Zimmerman trial is a simplified version of the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration alleged Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that it was going to give to terrorists in the near future. After we invaded, we did not find any WMD's. I maintain that if you looked at the total history of the weapons inspections after the Gulf War and the sanctions, unless you literally had a nuclear bomb or canister of sarin gas in front of you, it simply was not credible that Iraq had any kind of WMD's, and that's what turned out to be the case. Yet George Bush was never held accountable for thousands of American deaths, and as many as a hundred thousand or more Iraqi deaths.

Similarly, George Zimmerman decided not only that Trayvon Martin looked suspicious, but that he must have committed crimes in the past, and was looking to commit a crime in the immediate future. All that based on zero evidence connected to Martin himself and zero evidence of any crime Zimmerman had heard about occurring that night or anything Martin did besides walk. Zimmerman then departed his car in direct violation of neighborhood watch training as well as what the police neighborhood watch coordinator told him on the phone at that moment. Yet Zimmerman is not going to be held responsible for violating his instructions and the eminently predictable death that resulted from his actions.

After a week's delay, Jack opines ...

Below is a copy of a comment I made on the PG website about this weeks' Jack Kelly column, "Obamacare on hold" Curiously, last Sunday's Kelly print column never appeared online. No idea what that means.

I read somewhere that the election was the major reason for this new delay in implementing part of the ACA. Apparently a number of companies decided maybe Mitt Romney had a chance, and he *was* promising to repeal Obamacare (although *how* he would do that was not clear). So businesses are behind on their reading and taking the steps necessary to implement their part of the ACA. And in fact businesses should be glad that the administration is giving them more breathing room.

But Republicans/conservatives/Tea Party Types are determined to undermine national universal healthcare as best they can, even though they have *never* had a coherent plan to replace it.

In fact, some say it is reasonable to say the entire party is now irrational.

But of course gerrymandering will insure that Republicans will keep the House for decades to come (no matter what is done with the filibuster in the Senate).

I'm back, though "Jack's back" would sound better

Jack Kelly is an Opinion section columnist, so he has no obligation to reveal his sources for his claims (and some commenters here will say his sources are the only unbiased sources in the media universe). Today's column"We work for the government - And we just want to help ... ourselves" is a good example.

Looking around the internet, the only source I found for Mr Kelly's claim that we have spent more on the war on poverty is the Heritage Foundation, and their listing for their source: "research".

This paper ran an opinion piece by the co-director of Pitt's Office of Child Development on Head Start on March 24th of this year, which acknowledged how kids in and out of Head Start at the end of first grade seem to be doing the same, but said that later the Head Start kids do better. Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't, but surely Kelly was aware of it, and it is quite rude of him to ignore it.

Ms Englebrcht's (or Engelbrecht, it appears both ways on the internet) group started to fight voter fraud curiously only finds fraud as "largely a Democratic party problem" (from the "True the Vote" Wikipedia page)(again, so commenters here will say that only democrats committing vote fraud accurately reflects reality). Her group has been accused of voter intimidation, which if it occurs only of Democratic voters amounts to working for one party, which is to say one candidate in an election. Among other claims, True the Vote apparently stated (and I recall Jack Kelly claiming) that voters were being bused in to swing the recall election in Wisconsin. No license plate of a bus was ever given, apparently. Ms Englebrecht's supposedly primarily educational group does this, and then complains it is being examined for engaging in political activity?

This group True the Vote was formed out of a Tea Party group King Street Patriots. Was a member of KSP ever involved in domestic terrorism? Evidently the FBI would like to know, but Jack Kelly would stomp his boot on the necks of FBI agents, intimidating them when they try to do their jobs. And by the way, Ms. Englebrecht's shop has a license to make guns. Commenter's around here complain the ATF doesn't do its job, Jack Kelly complains when it does.

Show me a driver who doesn't speed (knowing full well it is against the law), and then tell me about about breaking federal laws.

Harper and Ravenstahl

I have been wanting to say something about the resignation of Nate Harper since it happened. It should be significant for the Mayoral primary coming up, except that Bill Peduto and Michael Lamb are simply going to cancel each other out, and Ravenstahl will win re-election.

But here's the thing about Nate Harper. I wondered back in 2007 whether Nate Harper was somehow the administration's apologist if not fall guy (http://cognitivedissonancepittsburgh.blogspot.com/2007/10/boy-who-would-be-mayor.html). One thing significant to me about the story about Ravenstahl's guard detail making up to a hundred grand was Nate Harper's comment (made presumably with a straight face) that the Mayor works from six in the morning to after 1 or 2 am the next morning. A) that statement was made while the Mayor was still married and B) it made me wonder what the Mayor had on Harper that Harper would stick his neck out for the Mayor like that. I guess maybe now we know.

Kelly back to defense

This is a comment I made on the PG website about today's Jack Kelly column Obama is weak on defense.

So this is a column about the opposition to Chuck Hagel for Secretary of State, but it starts and is shot through with complaints about Benghazi. If the President had come forward and stated that there was a CIA facility at Benghazi, and that the CIA had successfully resisted efforts to reinforce and otherwise protect Ambassador Chris Stevens, Jack Kelly would complain that Obama is hampering US intelligence. Instead Obama (and also Susan Rice) repeated the information the CIA had told them after the Benghazi attack. Conservatives say Ms Rice should have researched that information herself before going on the Sunday talk shows the weekend after the Benghazi attack, and gathered her own information. How would she do this; the people she would talk to were the ones telling her the video caused the attack.

Jack Kelly's criticism of Chuck Hagel is first that he was a Sargent, not experienced at running a giant bureaucracy, which means he is not qualified to run the Pentagon. Of course Kelly frequently complains that Democrats are too enamored of bureaucracies and what we need is someone who will cut through the doubletalk and get to the truth (see Kelly on Ben Carson). Yet Chuck Hagel is not a Democrat (despite what the ideological purists want to say) and did co-found and run the Vanguard cellular company, as well as serving as President and CEO of the USO.

Jack Kelly finishes by saying that foreign policy disaster is almost upon us. But then conservatives (including Jack Kelly) have been predicting hyperinflation since Obama took office, even some saying it is already happening (look at the price of gas!), yet is has not now nor is likely anytime soon to happen. Makes you wonder about the foreign policy thing.

Kelly plays the race card.

This is a copy of a comment I made on the the PG on Jack Kelly's column today "President Benjamin Carson?".

I have no doubt that Dr Carson is a talented doctor, although I wonder if or perhaps just when he decides to defer to the bible rather than science in a diagnosis or treatment recommendation.

Which is by way of pointing out the glaring hypocrisy in Dr Carson 's quote about how doctors have "learned how to make decisions based on facts, empirical data, rather than on ideology" should be involved in politics and then suggesting we should base tax policy on religion.

Carson's assault on political correctness that shines a light on what is clearly becoming a glaring double standard in America. Conservatives on these comment threads jump all over any innocent person who expresses a concern about "assault weapons", any one who expresses a concern about "income equality", even anyone who points out that Wall Street was the cause of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Republicans/conservatives/the Tea Party now want to silence discussion about certain issues, actually condemning saying certain words. Liberals have ALWAYS questioned and essentially condemned the idea of politically correct speech, but now Republicans march in lock step and say that there can be NO discussion about certain issues, to the point of not speaking certain words.

This is the rational, empirically-based approach that Jack Kelly advocates. Of course.

And by the way, where are conservatives complaining about Jack Kelly playing the race card? Or are all of you that intellectually dishonest (as a libertarian recently accused me of on a PG comment thread)?

Jack Kelly - waterboarding is not torture, but everything Obama does is wrong

This is once again a copy of something I posted to the PG as a comment on today's Jack Kelly column.

This is an interesting Jack Kelly column. He walks a twisty but interesting path. Water boarding isn't torture, but Obama is trampling the constitution. That Kelly supports his contention about waterboarding not being tortu by saying that journalists volunteered to have it done, and that it is effective because of a scene in a movie is absolutely repugnant. I would invite Kelly to either allow himself to be water boarded every day for the next ten years or admit that he has no idea if it is torture.

As far as drones go, Kelly is very late to the party. I took major grief on these comment threads when I repeatedly referenced over a couple of years Glenn Greenwald 's several columns on the use of drones. Go google "Glenn Greenwald Salon" (Greenwald is now writing for the Guardian). Yes, liberals have ignored the issue for some years, but so have conservatives. Greenwald has been almost alone (in the wilderness?), but there he was, and Jack Kelly has ignored his existence for years.

George Bush ignored the briefing that gave him the information that would have prevented all of this. Since 2001, the Republicans have set up all the problems we face now. Bush failed to capture or kill bin Laden in December 2001 and for seven years after, invaded the totally, totally, totally unrelated country Iraq based on lies, opened the Guantanamo detention facility, approved the at the very least morally ambiguous technique of waterboarding. And yet Republicans turn around and blame Democrats for any thing that the American people find questionable. Together with their incredible fiscal irresponsibility (which again they blame on the Democrats even when they were in control of Congress and the Presidency), Republicans have essentially by themselves caused the major problems of the last decade. When will they take responsibility for what they have done?

Kelly on debt

This is a copy of a comment I made on the PG website on today's Jack Kelly Column "Dance of the debt ceiling: Going through it wouldn't be as bad as people think"

If Jack Kelly had been remotely fair in this column, then I would be more prepared to accept some of his conclusions. It is a matter of record that George W Bush publicly stated that the (Clinton) was the government keeping the public's money. He explicitly and on purpose unbalanced the budget. He cut revenues by cutting taxes, he allowed Congress to spend like drunken sailors, he ignored the coming financial crisis. And yet Jack Kelly wants to label Obama a hypocrite for speaking out against Bush's spending.

Of course some on this thread will say that I am a hypocrite for defending Obama. Yet Obama's deficit was caused by dropping tax revenues (caused by the financial crisis and the contraction of the economy), automatic stabilizers like unemployment compensation, Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps for those of you who don't follow politics) and of course continuing to fight (when he cam into office) two wars started by George W Bush but kept off the books to make his administration look better. The stimulus saved or created up to three million jobs according to the CBO, so it was clearly a good investment. And otherwise conservatives can tell us which unemployed people should become homeless and starve.

Right now borrowing costs are still effectively negative, but Jack Kelly wants to cut programs that help the poor and cut taxes for the rich. Just like every other Republican/conservative/Tea Party type.

Jon Stewart Versus Paul Krugman

So Jon Stewart and Paul Krugman have been having a halfhearted battle of words with each other. It started when last Thursday evening Stewart made some fun of the idea of minting a trillion dollar coin and depositing it in the Treasury, an idea that Krugman had somewhat promoted recently. Now, Stewart said this sounded like a silly idea all on its own, and also a silly way to pay down the national debt. In that context, Stewart mocked the amount, why not make it a 20 trillion dollar (our current debt being 16 trillion)or some other utterly absurd amount.

Let me say right here that in the absence of any other information, the coin does sound pretty damn stupid or silly.

But anyone who reads Paul Krugman knows the trillion dollar coin is not about paying down the debt per se, it was intended to be an option should the House of Representatives refuse to raise the debt ceiling (again) without the President agreeing to eliminate Social Security, Medicare or both plus Big Bird.

OK, even in that context the trillion dollar coin is still pretty silly, but at least we can see at as a sign of how bad things are getting in Congress, that a President might have to do something like that.

Now, I have to admit the CNN piece the Daily Show first aired to describe the coin mentioned paying on the debt, but Stewart's researchers should have gone out and actually read a Krugman column or blog post, or any of the other economists or columnists talking about this. Not doing so, or doing so and then allowing Stewart's comedian writers or Stewart himself to get the issue wrong seemed at least lazy.

Which is what Krugman said on Saturday in a blog post, and again on ABC News (This Week with whats his name?). Krugman stated that he thinks the Daily Show tries for "knowing jokes", intelligent humor, but their take on the coin was just dumb. That the Daily Show was damaging it's "brand".

Stewart countered on Monday with a series of (in my opinion) weak statements - he thinks the Daily Show's brand is dumb (yeah, sometimes), Stewart admitted there are other points of view but implied he didn't have time for them, and then stood by his characterization of the trillion dollar coin as a dumb (expletive) idea.

Again, yeah, the coin is dumb but Stewart totally ignored the context in which the coin was proposed ... again.

Now, if the Daily Show were some program on Fox News, or CNN, MSNBC or even the late, apparently unlamented Current TV, then we might well shrug. But the Daily Show is two things that separate it from those other shows. First, it is fairly smart. Daily Show viewers are among the best informed people compared to other channels and media outlets. Which I believe Stewart himself has mentioned on occasion (while being modest about in an insincere way).

And second, the Daily Show regularly goes after news programs on other channels, particularly on Fox News. Being the show that knowingly mocks other news shows places a burden on the Daily Show to get its own coverage right. If you want to skewer Bill O'Reilly for some piece of hypocrisy, there is no hiding behind a "We're just a dumb comedy show" when you are caught peddling your own misinformation.

Instead of, on Monday, a) claiming stupidity, b) making a vague statement about other points of view and then c) repeating that you think the coin is stupid, Stewart should have said a) we learned/knew the coin was intended to be a means of temporarily raising the debt ceiling by executive order, b) we did not describe the context that was forcing people to resort to outlandish ideas like a trillion dollar coin, namely, the Republican intransigence over the debt ceiling, and the devastating consequences if the Republican controlled House refused to raise it. And that point Stewart would then be entitled to a c) the coin is still a pretty stupid idea anyway.

We would have all laughed but also breathed a sigh of relief that Jon Stewart was not, in fact, turning into Steve Doocy (ow do you even spell that name?).

Stewart did say he is a fan of Paul Krugman, which is nice, although clearly Stewart is not a regular reader of Krugman. The Daily Show should have Krugman on soon as a guest, although it occurs to me that there are also any number of skit things Krugman could do.

Kelly on confirmation

This is a (cleaned up) copy of a comment I made on the Post-Gazette's pages. It is on today's Jack Kelly column "Obama's insecurity team - His national security nominees are weak as he seeks to cut defense spending"

Apparently Jack Kelly's standard for being qualified to be on the national security team is simple - did you support George W Bush's policies? Bob Gates did, while secretary of defense for Dubya, for example, but Hagel did not while in the Senate; hence Gates qualified, Hagel not.

And apparently our enemies and allies, knowing the records of Obama's nominees, will see us as a great power in decline.

Honestly, how does it work that with one breath Republicans/conservatives/Tea Party types can call for massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, federal housing assistance and unemployment because our national debt is our greatest security threat, then with the next breath call for reduced taxes on the rich (although calling for an increase in taxes on the bottom 47%, the poor, to force them to have "skin in the game") to stimulate the economy and then with a third breath complain that defense is being cut to the bone? No one sees any contradiction in the cumulative effect of these three policy philosophies?

I guess no "true believer" would

Kelly on Keynes specifically ....

This is a copy of a comment I made on the PG opinion pages. Today's Jack Kelly column is "John Maynard Keynes, the conservative (The economist was right about much, but his prescriptions have been misapplied)"

Well, there is a fair bit here that I would agree with. One thing I will say off the bat is that I would/am extremely reluctant to put words in Keynes mouth, but I do tend to go by what those who study Keynes say. Also, by now anyone paying attention knows how conservatives hate Paul Krugman, who Kelly (almost) subtly ridicules here.

The funny thing is that I swear when Kelly writes that Keynes said "The market system is "the best safeguard of the variety of life," preserving "the most secure and successful choices of former generations," " that Krugman has quoted (or at least paraphrased) Keynesian on exactly the same subject, to the same effect. Kelly writes that economists feel Keynes repudiated classical economic theory and that is true in the sense of changing policy prescriptions in economic downturns. But Keynes was neither Marx nor Lenin, and, as I understand it, Keynes firmly believed the basic economic tenet that the market is the most efficient method of allocating scarce resources, all things being equal. Now things are frequently not equal, so to speak, but then that is the entire study of economics.

Kelly also gives us this paragraph "The great flaw in Keynes' thinking was his assumption government could act wisely and impartially to stimulate the economy. Spending is popular, tax increases unpopular, in good times as well as bad. So politicians run deficits year after year. Debt mounts. Inflation eats away the savings and investments of the industrious and prudent." Well, there are several things wrong with this. If Keynes says that deficit spending is good only when you are in a economic downturn, but should be avoided when the economy is growing, then why blame Keynes for the deficits of Ronald Reagan and George W Bush? And by the way, why isn't Jack Kelly praising Barack Obama for running a deficit during the current deficit (which started on George W Bush's watch)?

But I have read on these comment threads time and time again liberals saying that balancing the budget and even running surpluses is a fine idea when the economy is growing. And liberals have referenced Bill Clinton as an example of a Democrat who not only said he supported government surpluses, but did his part to actually achieve them.

(A brief aside, something I did not put on the PG - one might ask about the cost of government programs to aid the poor and provide assistance. Strikes me they can be put into two groups, those like education and public transportation that are really sort of investments, and those like health care and food assistance that are humanitarian. Neither group is really that big an item compared to the big three of defense, Social Security and Medicare, and can likely be funded out of general revenue. And since Medicare and Social Security have their own dedicated taxes, they should be discussed separately as well. In any event, I believe spending that is an investment should be the last item cut. But efficiency standards should always be applied.)

I am not nearly as familiar with the theories of Hayek, but to the extent they involve going on the gold standard, I can not possibly agree. But to the extent they involve promoting market like efficiency in government, I believe Keynes, Krugman, certainly myself and apparently Kelly could all find ourselves in agreement. And to the extent that makes Keynes a friend to conservatives, I can believe and agree with that. But Republicans/conservatives/Tea Party types refuse to believe that liberals believe in economic efficiency as much if not more than conservatives (and this comment thread is likely to fill up with personal attacks and lies).

Taking away guns ...

In the wake of the Newtown tragedy I have tried to follow some of the discussions about possible solutions. In many, probably most instances I have seen comments about how liberals want to take away guns.

In my own comments in these conversations I generally preface them with a statement that we would be better off if there were no guns, or at least no handguns and no semi-automatic weapons that can hold more than seven rounds. This would hardly end violence, but it would make mass killings more difficult and would go some distance toward reducing gun deaths.

But then I go on to say I believe taking away guns or certain types of guns is a practical impossibility. Only a willful misreading of my comments would cause one to think I support taking anyone's guns away. And i believe no one else has suggested taking anyone's guns away. But that is what many, many gun rights advocates say that liberals are saying.

Which shows that a reasonable discussion is not possible, because gun rights advocates will actually lie, not to mention refusing to compromise in any real way.

And there is one other thing I want to take note of. The NRA is calling for a national database of the mentally ill. As I recall, the NRA has successfully fought against a national database of gun owners. I suppose the notion is that of "good" people versus "bad" people. However, the practical effect is to protect "straw" buyers, making it difficult to track guns that have found their way into the hands of criminals.

So you tell me, is the NRA being hypocritical, in both philosophical and real terms?

Kelly plays a card

This is a copy of a comment I made on the PG on Jack Kelly's column today "Racist Liberals".

What should we take away from this column? Jack Kelly praises Tim Scott and some successful NFL players. Mr Kelly does not express affection or concern for any persons of color who are not Republicans, and it is interesting that the only Black Republicans he does show an interest in are wealthy ones. Considering Mitt Romney's statement about the "47%" and repeated and insistent calls for an end to food stamps, Medicaid and unemployment compensation, what jack Kelly seems to really being saying is that any wealthy blacks who want to be Republicans are welcome, as long as they are willing to act to make all low income people (including a disproportionate share of persons of color) poorer.

Time after time when anyone raises the issue of treating Barack Obama differently or suggests attacks on the meager food stamps program, unemployment compensation and Medicaid are attacks on people of color, they are accused of "playing the race card". Yet it is fine for Jack Kelly to point to the maybe ten persons of color he can identify as Republicans and then screech that liberals are racist and "What does it say about liberals that so many think only losers and whiners can be authentically black?" ?

No one says Tim Scott is not black. He has joined a party that is attempting to find ways to not only protect the wealth of the uber rich, but actually increase by ending assistance to the poor and force the poor to have "skin in the game" and end all tax credits and deductions for the poor so they pay taxes not matter how small their income. Of course, when I say end all tax credits and deductions I don't mean the tax loopholes the rich use. Republican calls for fairness in the tax system are hypocrisy of the highest level.

And by the way I find it interesting that Jack Kelly has so far dodged the issue of gun control in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.

Jack Kelly's version of a cliff

This is a copy of a comment I made on the PG about Jack Kelly's column today "The real 'fiscal cliff' (It plunges down from our mountain of debt)".

I could say something about living through stagflation and Reagan's record breaking (in size) deficits (and remember the true hero was Paul Volker). I could say something about the "Dubya" years spending. But I will just reference Dick Cheney quoting Ronald Reagan - "Deficits don't matter". Not that I am saying that I agree with Reagan/Cheney, I was fan of Clinton's balanced budget and surpluses. Republicans, by their actions and statements when a Republican is in the White House, believe otherwise.

Conservative commenters here will disagree and screech I am playing the race card, but Kelly's largely unspoken message is that this is all the fault of and will not solved by the BLACK DEMOCRAT (socialist, communist, Islamic, terrorist). Now, surely there is a point where we can go so far in debt that we do get into a terminal level of trouble, but if we look at how the market for treasury bonds is behaving now, people still treat the US as so safe (compared to the rest of the world) they are willing to pay us a small amount to hold their money.

It is possible Republicans/conservatives like Jack Kelly will be able to damage us so much they can get more than just Citigroup to lay off 11,000 employees. Remember, Republican intransigence managed to get our credit rating reduced, according to the company that did the reduction.

This is a copy of the comment I made on Jack Kelly's column today: "Freedom spawns prosperity (Economic growth depends on freeing our natural creativity)".

There are two significant lines in this column, in my opinion. "Most of us have difficulty seeing beyond the here and now" That is clearly the case for Jack Kelly. He sees an economic downturn and declares the growth of GNP dead. Actually, Kelly sees a black Democrat in the White House and calls the current government "overbearing". This despite the fact that someone with such unimpeachable conservative credentials as Bruce Bartlett calls Obama a centrist or even center right politician.

Which brings me to the other significant line in this column: "If Americans become again as free as once they were to pursue their dreams, economic growth will resume, probably greater than ever before.". American enjoy the lowest ax rates in at least thirty years, and really probably since income taxes began. Yes, there are safety rules for workers and rules for what companies can do to the environment, but is Jack Kelly really saying that workers have to work 60 hour work weeks, be maimed or killed at work and the rest of us be poisoned by corporate waste and pollution in order for people to invent things?

Jack Kelly truly is delusional at this point.

Jack Kelly today - his version of reality

This is a copy of a comment I made on the PG for today's Jack Kelly "The right will rise: Conservatives first must take the culture back from liberals"

This is simply the extension of Jack Kelly's world view, presumably the exact Tea Part line. Kelly treads a twisted, cognitively dissonant path, suggesting (for example) that "young people today" are i"so massively ignorant of history, civics, economics, geography, physics and basic math", yet his choice for Republican candidate in 2016 calls the age of the earth one of life's great mysteries, essentially (as I understand it) equating science and religion.

But the really insulting thing is the contempt Kelly has for the voters and really all the citizens of this country. Simply because the President won, Kelly assumes that voters were persuaded by lies. Instead of advocating for truth, Kelly tells us that Republicans need to spend money the way liberals do, in co-opting the young. Kelly doesn't advocate for truth because when some 97% of climate scientists all feel one way about climate change, you can't (credibly) say it is another, or even just suggest the issue is not resolved.

Simply saying that newspapers and colleges/universities are "technologically obsolescent" does not make it true. Newspapers have had issues responding to the 24 hour news cycle, but comment sections like this one are one innovation, and newspapers/magazines (like Mother Jones) can do the in depth stories, with lots more facts (sometimes only words) than TV can provide. But conservatives are threatened by the in depth knowledge provided both newspapers and Universities. Conservatives would like to make the case that both groups lie and spread propaganda (I guess because conservatives lie so reflexively), but newspapers are the oldest popular information source and Universities are the oldest learning institutions around. Both have long standing procedures ad mechanisms for being truthful, and I guess that annoys conservatives.

Could I find agreement with Jack Kelly?

This is (another) straight copy of a comment I made on the PG on today's Jack Kelly column "Sex sells, but what about Libya? (The Petraeus affair raises big questions)"

This is sort of frightening. I agree with a lot of what Jack Kelly says here. We do have a fundamental disagreement about who was deceiving who in the government, but I will agree there are things to investigate.

I agree that we (the nation) were lied to by our government about who was behind this Benghazi consulate attack. I think we do *now* know who was behind it, and I hope our government is pursuing them, if only to send a message to other terrorist groups. But I think that if conservatives continue to say our government is *currently* lying to us, they are just being irritating and ultimately silly.

Where Kelly and I part company is in this paragraph - "The White House claims no one there learned of the affair until Election Day. This strains credulity. Gen. Petraeus may have misled the House Intelligence Committee Sept . 13 about what happened in Benghazi to hew to the administration line that the attack had mostly to do with a protest over an anti-Muslim video. Why would he do this? Conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol have raised the possibility that the administration blackmailed him with knowledge of his illicit affair." The point about when the White House knew about the affair is worth investigating (slightly, although if the affair was over, then the only question was whether Paula Broadwell would be arrested for violations of secrets rules), but much of the rest of paragraph defies common sense. I seriously doubt Petraeus "hewed" to any administration line, rather I think the CIA was running its own game, and feeding bad intelligence to the administration for some time period after that attack (a week, two, honestly I don't know).

Actually, I disagree with Kelly's last bullet point as well, for pretty much the same reasons I gave above.

I am still personally convinced that Petraeus was forced to resign because he fed the administration bad information after the attack, that the CIA essentially let four Americans die at Benghazi, and that they gave conservatives a fairly juicy issue right before the election. I think investigating the President on this issue is at least the wrong place to start, if not down right absurd. Let's talk to the people who had/have a facility inside the consulate, who managed to put a big target on the consulate. Let's investigate the CIA on this.

And by the way, although it is premature, if I had to suggest where ultimate blame should lie, I would divide it evenly between Bush and Obama. Bush started this resurgence of covert operations and suggested weakening FISA, but Obama has certainly carried on and even expanded this new philosophy. If you kill Americans without due process, if you direct the CIA to assassinate suspected terrorists with drones and then allow the CIA to target their funerals, killing children along with adults, then you have little room to complain if they use consulates as intelligence facilities, and don't bother to warn anyone.

Kelly's sorry (we chose the wrong man) ...

This is a straight copy of what I posted to the PG comment section about today's Jack Kelly column "Eating crow, expecting trouble (I was wrong about the election; now I fear for the future)".

Well, it's nice that Jack Kelly is admitting he was wrong in his predictions of a Romney victory. He admits that he read the politics wrong. Of course, Kelly only goes so far. He gives no credit to Obama for turning another Great Depression around. He thinks that the (admittedly surprising) new Democratic coalition of voters could be easily split if the Republicans advance a Hispanic candidate. Now, we all remember how the Republicans screamed about Obama's lack of experience in 2008, yet Kelly simply insults all of America by suggesting candidates with no national experience at all.

It is already looking like Republicans will continue their practice of total intransigence in Congress. If we do drop into another recession, it will be clear who is to blame (hint - not George Bush). And Kelly's parting shot at "the gravy train" is beyond insulting, but of course neither Kelly nor the PG will apologize for that.