Learning: Citizen United's First Year

Everybody Doesn't Win, but Everybody Learns

It's been a year since the Citizen United decision appalled most of the country in January, 2010.  There were a few Americans with enough Supreme Court savvy to dislike the activist nature of the thing or, perhaps, be unsettled by the striking break with precedent.  There were a few who found themselves unnerved by the hubris of the fascist, Bush strewn remnants of the court.

However, the complaints and laments of 2010 were of an academic nature.  The theory of the new possibilities was troubling, but the decision's future, material ramifications still amounted to nothing more than terrifying Constitutional hypotheticals.  Americans were far too toughened by the steady stream of outrages since the 2000 election to "waste time" worrying about as of yet unrealized future judicial calamities.

In fact, the same bunch who were secretly salivating at the prospect of actually buying an entire Presidential election in 2012 had effortlessly reduced the country to a desperate, nearly coast to coast poverty, extracted the wealth which had taken decades to secure and successfully remained untouchable behind the cover of their now subservient media.  Interestingly, MeanMesa heard no voices publicly speaking in support of the judicial concept of the decision.

That silence was a clue.  Someone must have like it.  But silence, nonetheless.

One might have imagined that bottom feeders such as the Armeys, Roves, Kochs or the WalMart Waltons might have let slip something positive about Citizens United, but nothing.  Perhaps such conversation and opinions were carefully reserved for Country Club salons where no spoken word has ever escaped.

quod est necessarium est licitum

"What is necessary, is lawful." 

Our Latin omits just a few pregnant questions, but especially the question of "necessary."  Necessary to whom?  Why necessary now? 

Those in power were compelled to make the Citizens United decision.  Both the flavor of prevailing circumstance and breathless perspiration of this moment in time demanded that risk be taken, gauntlets cast down and all chips placed in ante for the game approaching.  There is, actually, a game in progress.  It is not a game that we here at the bottom might ever glimpse until it's final, bloody, last hand has closed, but the result of its very soiled consummation will be a "free horizon" for the oligarchs, opportunity, raw, soulless and completely unfettered -- unfettered by anything in the world.

Estimates at the time of this posting place the Citizens United "war chest" in the $4 Bn range as it gorges itself in preparation for the 2012 election.

Of course, the rampaging avarice for power has become cash.  Even Citizens United leaves a few, perfunctory "rules" in place, tattered shards of the old democracy, but such temporary obstacles are not permanent.  According to the plan, they will simply be left on the "to do" list until the takeover moves closer to completion.

Citizens United was necessary, given the stakes of the current political game.  The scheme to transform the republic into a modern oligarchy has made a significant, durable progress, but it is progress which still has foundation problems.  The conspirators have, indeed, increased tension during the Obama Presidency at an explosive rate, but neither the schedule nor the path has not been well managed.

In fact, those "increases in tension" have not turned out to be all that steady.  Yes, the hill billies and the bigots in the reactionary base have literally "gobbled up" the pablum, but that success was also supposed to ensnare more rational voters who weren't paying enough attention to the details in the flood of misinformation, voters who could be drawn into the maelstrom for no reason any more compelling than the number of reactionaries who were already there.

Like the teasing near orgasm of a drunken bus station whore, the feverish pitch seemed moments from "victory" six months ago, but in the ensuing time, every pain of the Great Republican Depression of 2008 has patiently settled in like an enduring toothache.  The pain is no longer theoretical or conveniently ideological.  The pain has become far too material to lend itself to the cheap redirection the scam enjoyed before.

Over Funded, Over Reaching

and Under Sophisticated

MeanMesa stood both horrified and despondent during the scheme's early successes.  It seemed that the entire country had become even more illiterate, uniformed and uninterested over night.  The daily barrage of propaganda victories of the early campaign was supposed to saturate progressives with a strangely pervasive yet ambiguous hopelessness, and it did.

The 2010 election played its part in revving up the hopelessness, but it also signalled the effects of the scheme's early strategy to dishearten voters.  The oligarchs' Congressional scheme of total obstruction lent itself well to the popular but synthetic, horror fantasy "that all politicians are alike, that both parties are alike, and that the President is ineffective." 

However, the recent developments were not all bad.  What we had expected from Citizens United in our darkest moments never materialized, at least, never materialized in the form of the hideous juggernaut we had at first anticipated.  The takeover scheme was churning along at full throttle for a while, but as time slipped by, interesting pieces of the evil plan began to fall off the machine.

We progressives gradually realized that we had over estimated the sophistication of the uber-rich but not their cynicism.  Emboldened by their early successes, the oligarch strategists immediately over reached.  Their ambitions drove them mindlessly, miles too far from their own carefully constructed supply lines.  Their "supply" of impulsive and determined base followers faltered.

Their tea bags slowly lost their fervor as more and more of the corporate spine of that movement was illuminated.  Their nationwide voter suppression moves caught the attention of the Justice Department.  Literally millions of Americans rose up against state capitols which had been considered unassailable bastions only days before.

Governors and State Senators were being recalled.  Reactionary, class based legislation was going down in flames in electorate initiatives.  Not even the corporate media could downplay the gravity of these events, although they tried mightily.  The spigots for more and more Citizens United cash were opened wide, and the psychology departments of the think tanks flew into "fix it" mode.

And trouble for the oligarch class didn't stop there.

Their own fierce cynicism had assured them that American voters would be unable -- or unwilling -- to discern the distance between obvious truth and their glacier of propaganda.  The stock of the "lie catching business" began to rise as fact checking progressive enterprises took advantage of the eternality of modern video and internet technologies.  Poorly prepared and poorly designed [i.e. too stupid] reactionary candidates began to encounter the worst, most embarrassing  possible parts of their own history on a regular basis -- on television.

The ghostly block of Republican unanimity cracked in "debates" and negative ads from other Republicans.  Even worse, the audiences at GOPCon "debates" began to routinely humiliate themselves with jeers at active military men, cheers for executions and an immoral disinterest in everything from health care to women's rights, birth control and an affordable end to military colonialism.

No amount of Citizens United money could fix that.  No amount of Citizens United money could keep such things a secret.  These events had been engineered and financed by Citizen United money.

The bizarre over reaching began in earnest.  Candidates without campaigns -- Cain, for example -- were created with a straight flow of cash rather than any of  the traditional enthusiasm of voters.  Arcane "throw-aways" such as Perry were inflated to momentary importance with huge amounts of oligarch dollars in the expectation that if only a candidate "looked like" a candidate, the zombies would elect him.

The oligarchs had actually created a "supply side" political problem for themselves.  Their problem was that there was simply not enough of a "supply" of zombies to keep the game going.  Further, they were gradually discovering that -- even with a Citizens United check book in hand -- their purchasing agents were reporting back that the "shelves were bare."  They had already purchased -- and consumed -- the entire supply of malcontents and idiots.

No amount of Citizen United cash and no amount of meat handed, adolescent political incendiaries seemed to be able to refill the ranks.  The public opinion polls finally began to sag.  There was no more excitement to be had, just the toothache.

The Beached Whale

The Citizens United "coup d'etat" (image source)

The beached whale will smell awful by November. And, the toothache will remain more than a fleeting memory.

Almost anything else will smell better.

Republican Candidates Selling the Dream

Fantastic Images of Economic Recovery

Go ahead, the first one's free.

Prosperity is, uh, "Just around the corner?" (image source)

With a large percentage of Americans now deeply wounded by the unregulated antics of the autocracy's eight year "looting festival," we can collect a troubling package of "unrealistic expectations" about recovery.  Worse, these expectations are already presenting a non-economic reality which may prove even more damaging than what's been done to house prices and 401K accounts.

Although what is revealed in the shadow of that gloomy visitor doesn't have a specific dollar cost associated with it, the cost is still rising.

"Non-economic?"  "Cost still rising?"

What are we talking about here?

Since it hit with its full force, the 2008 Great Republican Recession has exposed all sorts of dismal, unexpected things about the American economy.  Further, this growing, modern understanding of it has not been simply an education about what it looks like in recession.  Instead, Americans have been receiving daily doses of hard numbers reality about what this economy has been all along -- even before the Republican calamity of 2008.

At least, some Americans have been receiving these distasteful new understandings.  Importantly for this post, far too many Americans have yet to even begin their education -- both about the recession and about what was transpiring before it.

The "gloomy visitor" mentioned above is neither particularly a new political reality nor an exclusively mechanical economic creature.  It is the "collection agent" for an even greater deficit.

After six decades of utter failure, the horrible results of the US educational system have, finally, come home to roost.  Even while they face the necessity of voting to rectify this mess, the vast majority of its American victims have no idea about what is actually going on in this latest, massive crisis.

Great Expectations

This conclusion would not amount to much without a bit of evidence to support it.

So, let's look at the evidence.

We see it most clearly in the expectations of those who are presently suffering through this.  What do they expect in terms of economic recovery?  Perhaps even more disturbing, why in the world are they expecting these things?

These expectations of theirs are derived primarily from an admittedly flimsy view of what has always happened in the past.  Recessions are nothing new in a country determined to accept casino capitalism as a necessary part of our traditional system.

The "flimsy view" comes from years of public education which has provided neither the facts nor the logic to successfully interpret what we see before us.  The "root" of these problematic expectations comes from the expectation that this recession will "work itself out" in roughly the same manner as the others we have experienced before.

To put it more provocatively, Americans both lack the education to make sense out of this and, worse,  the interest to get that education, then make sense out of this.  The first casualty of this inadequate analytical capacity is a realistic grasp of the scope of the damage and the gravity of its consequences.

Beginning with this conceptual deficit, the journey to all the false conclusions employed as foundations for ridiculous expectations is "all down hill."  

Americans expect that their housing prices will "rebound" when the foreclosure surplus subsides. They expect that their retirement accounts will start to refill themselves once the market recovers.  They think that their incomes will once again begin to rise if the just "stay the course."  They think that their college educated children will get good jobs and live in a nice, traditional American prosperity.

Unquestionably the most dangerous by-product of such expectations arises in the political arena.  Election decisions are, as we speak, being formulated on all this nonsense.  Candidates are allowed to relentlessly promise this sort of imaginary recovery as if it amounted to nothing any more complicated than a "walk in the park."

Discerning the Past, the Imaginary Future

and the Real Future

At this point, MeanMesa could start plastering charts and graphs one after another, each time examining one of the various "hot dreams" listed above.  However, selecting a salient example to carry the general idea is easy:  unemployment.

For decades the US unemployment rate rumbled along at around 5%.  In the public schools of the 1950's where MeanMesa learned about such things, 5% was considered "healthy," that is, at 5% folks who wanted jobs could find one and companies who wanted to hire people still had plenty of choices.

At 4%, the economy was getting "too hot," and at 6% the economy was in recession.  Further, if unemployment did either of these two things, the economy would almost immediately begin to adjust itself back toward the magic 5% levels.  Of course, the nation was, at this time, firmly under the control of a nice bunch of grey haired white men.

In fact, we can share a couple of charts from News Junkie Post dated November of 2009.  (Read the entire article here.)

Job Growth and Decline under past administrations.

And,

Over all job creation by administrations of each party.

The information which drove both of these charts in 2009 came from the history of unemployment during recessions which the country had experienced up to that time.  However, breathing this historic data into what's happening to us right now is a mistake -- a mistake which the GOPCon candidates are employing as their current "buggy whip" to keep the American Legion bar goers on fire against re-electing Obama.

Even after the "Pearl Harbor-9/11" bombing of the national economy in 2008, these drawling GOPCons still hope to rewrite the contents of the country's recent cultural memory to somehow fit into this latest "shoe box."  Exactly what's missing in the minds of the educationally challenged GOPCon base is the information in the chart which follows.

Job Losses and Recoveries of Previous Recessions Compared to This One (data source)

(A MeanMesa Note:  This chart was originally broadcast of PBS NewHour, Oct. 7, 2011 See video)

We see that President Obama, despite the obstructionist stranglehold of the House tea bags, has managed to "bend" the job loss numbers back to a positive slope.  However, the repeated image coming from the reactionaries on the right suggests that, somehow, he should have already completely remedied the job loss

damage of the autocracy's insatiable and thoroughgoing mismanagement.

We can see a crystal clear image of the results of the House tea baggers efforts to "create jobs" by examining the right half of the current unemployment record.  Even worse, the same reactionaries are touting daily that, in fact, they can solve this problem if we would only elect even more of them.

Yet, Republicans are not only running of their horrendous record of instigating the massive unemployment in 2007 (the left edge of the chart), but also on their "record" of job creation since they took over the House of Representatives in 2010.  This would be bad enough, made nightmarishly real by the number of American voters willing to extend the carnage, but perhaps the most awful of all is found as an unanticipated consequence in the background of their insane scheme.

Setting Our Sight Squarely on Imagining the Imaginary

Adrift in a swamp devoid of fact, the GOPCons have sought out the imaginary rather than "dirtying their hands" with the real -- or even, the possibly real.

The vast majority of those hoodwinked into pulling the voting level over an "R" will believe that a return to 5% unemployment is "just around the corner."  The best estimates of the case suggest that 2014 or 2016 are both still narcotically optimistic, and even then only after a breathtakingly provocative, non-traditional series of previously unheard of economic measures.

The point here is that the prospects of an imaginary, impossible unemployment recovery have been artificially -- and artfully -- incorporated into the Republican platform.  As usual, the entire focus is on winning the election at any cost.  They assume that the inevitable disaster afterwards can be handled by their media.

They can't govern, and they know it.  They've already proved it to us, and now, they are sailing solely on their own denial.

In forty-five days toward the end of 2007 a Republican government sponsored the unregulated extraction of 20% of the entire accumulated wealth of this country since its beginning in the late 1790's.  In 2008 the "demand side" of the economy collapsed because so much money had been removed and redistributed.

Job creation responds to demand.

Oooops! Was That A "Boner?"

MeanMesa is delighted to once again elevate our clean little blog with the latest White House rebuttal to the endless "gloom and doom" messages from House Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-Ohio).

This guy could completely fill an entire blogspot with nothing besides his own ranting.  MeanMesa promises that our postings will not get stuck in this swamp of misinformation, and this commentary from the White House is a good way to put that plan in motion!

From the White House Blog: Recovery Act.  Read the article here.

An Increasingly Awkward Dance

Posted by Jared Bernstein on August 25, 2010 at 04:09 PM EDT 

 

Ever since the Recovery Act passed last February, Congressional Republicans who opposed this economic rescue plan have had to do an awkward dance around the truth.  After all, when you declare from the beginning that the Recovery Act won’t create a single job, you’re going to be forced to do a little two-step around the facts as week after week leading economists, the nation’s governors, and even your own constituents say otherwise. 

But yesterday, when Representative Boehner declared that “all this ‘stimulus’ spending has gotten us nowhere” on the same day the nonpartisan CBO said the program has created or saved as many as 3.3 million jobs nationwide and his own home state’s Department of Transportation said nearly 9,500 construction workers were on the job in July just on Ohio Recovery Act transportation projects alone… well, let’s just say that dance got a little more… awkward.   

Now, Representative Boehner was one of the first to declare the Recovery Act dead on arrival - the day it was signed into law, he declared it would “do little to create jobs.”  But as soon as June 2009, as funding for Recovery Act transportation projects began to flow into Ohio, he said those dollars would be used for – get this – “shovel-ready projects that will create much-needed jobs.”  [Boehner.House.gov, 6/15/09]

And then when the nonpartisan CBO, Congress’s top watchdog and an institution widely respected on both sides of the aisle, began weighing in on the job impact of the Recovery Act, the dance got a little more complicated.   Check out these quotes from Rep Boehner, followed by the facts:

AUGUST 2009: Maintains that stimulus hasn’t created any jobs:  “You know, after the $1 trillion dollars stimulus bill that didn’t create any jobs.”  [Hugh Hewitt Show, 8/29/09]

• NOVEMBER 2009: The nonpartisan CBO announces the Recovery Act created or saved as many as 1.6 million jobs through September 2009.  [CBO Report, 11/30/09]

JANUARY 2010: Says the stimulus “clearly hasn’t worked”: “Their trillion-dollar stimulus plan from a year ago clearly has not worked.”  [NPR, 1/27/10]

• FEBRUARY 2010: The nonpartisan CBO announces the Recovery Act has created or saved as many as 2.1 million jobs nationwide through December 2009.  [CBO Report, 2/23/10]

MAY 2010: Still asking where the jobs are: “Where are the jobs?” [Boehner Statement, 5/7/10

• MAY 2010: The nonpartisan CBO says the Recovery Act created or saved as many as 2.8 million jobs through March 2010.  [CBO Report, 5/25/10]

And then, of course, yesterday was the most difficult dance step of all: on the very same day that he declares in a major speech that the Recovery Act has “gotten us nowhere,” first,the nonpartisan CBO announces the Recovery Act has created as many as 3.3 million jobs nationwide and lowered the unemployment rate by as much as 1.8 percent through March of this year [CBO Report, 8/24/10], and then the Ohio Department of Transportation announces that nearly 9,500 construction workers were on the job on Ohio Recovery Act transportation projects in July, the highest monthly total since it began.  [Columbus Dispatch, 8/24/10]

I suspect those nearly 9,500 Ohio construction workers and 3.3 million Americans at work thanks to the Recovery act would disagree with Rep. Boehner’s statement that the Recovery Act has “gotten us nowhere.”

Rep. John Boehner - The "Tangerine Dream" Ain't Done Lyin'

MeanMesa feels strangely energized by the "stick-to-it-iveness" of the White House spokesman and the Obama administration.  They have clearly decided to remain "nose to nose" with the neo-con mouth junk machine.  The irritatingly orange Congressman, House Minority Leader "Boner," continues in his desperate mission to inflame the hill billies with lies, great lies, small lies, and more lies.

Mr. "Boner" (or the oligarch billionaires who own him) is sinking deeper and deeper into the morass of half-ass lies which have "come home to roost."  Yup.  Stuff that already didn't make sense last year begins to stink even worse when Mr. "Boner's" orders came down to add more poop to the pile.

These guys have a real problem with a competent, elected black man in the White House not to mention the Constitution or the idea of a middle class.

In better times, "The Boner" would be no more than a tragic, dancing puppet of his GOP masters.  When his outrageous comments sabotage the economic recovery those masters so joyously foisted on the rest of us, his continuing lying approaches the criminal.

Enjoy the latest posting on the White House Blog:

The White House Blog

Who’s Fighting for Whom?

Posted by Jared Bernstein on August 12, 2010 at 06:33 PM EDT 

 

In a blog post on this site yesterday, we noted that if Congressman Boehner really wants to end the stimulus, then he really wants thousands of Ohioans to lose their jobs.

In response, the Congressman was quoted as saying that our administration owed his constituents “…an explanation of how raising taxes on small businesses will do anything but further hinder job creation in Ohio and across the country.” 

Again, Congressman Boehner is confused.  So we thought we’d take him up on the invitation to explain to the people of Ohio who has been fighting for small businesses here in Washington and who’s been obstructing that fight.

President Obama has consistently worked with anyone who would join him to help small businesses lead this economy back to health.  But in virtually every case, House Republicans led by Rep. Boehner have opposed our attempts, while Republican Leaders in the Senate have used procedural gimmicks to keep them from even coming up for a vote.

Most recently, and most egregiously, House Republicans voted against the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010 (the Democratic majority passed the bill, only to have the vote blocked by Senate Republicans).  This bipartisan bill would have reduced taxes on small business by zeroing out capital gains taxes on their investments, “bonus” depreciation, and immediate expensing of equipment purchases (all three of these significantly lower their investment costs). The bill would also create a fund for small, community banks to lend to small businesses.

So here’s a bill that helps small businesses and small banks, strongly supported by the White House (and, for that matter, small business advocacy groups like the Chamber and NFIB), yet Rep. Boehner’s team opposed it.

Unfortunately, that’s not a new position for them.  They tried to block the HIRE Act (a tax cut for businesses that hire the long-term unemployed), Recovery Act loan guarantees and fee forgiveness supporting around $30 billion of small business lending, and let’s not forget their opposition to a $40 billion tax credit for small businesses that provide health care to their workers.

What, then, was Rep. Boehner talking about in that quote?  He and his team want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest households, and they’re trying to do so under the guise of helping small business. 

Again, the facts of the case point exactly the other way.  Virtually every small business would benefit from President Obama’s plan to preserve the tax cuts for families with incomes below $250,000.  Only three percent of filers report small business income above that level, and they’re mostly high-end professionals like someone with a small legal practice—perfectly worthy business folks, of course, but not the small entrepreneurs we’re trying to reach with the plans the Republicans continue to block.

Check out this graphic to see for yourself who benefits from the tax cut Rep. Boehner is advocating.  Compared to what the President wants to do, it delivers less to the middle class, and, at the expense of adding billions to the deficit, massively delivers to millionaires.

So, collecting his positions over the past couple of days, Rep. Boehner wants to: a) end the Recovery Act that has put more than 100,000 Ohioans to work, b) add $37 billion to the deficit by cutting taxes of the wealthiest households, and c) block tax cuts and new lines of credit to middle-class, small businesses.

It all sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?  That’s because it’s precisely the policy prescription that got us into this mess.  And it’s the last place we want to go back to.

Jared Bernstein is Chief Economic Advisor to the Vice President 

MeanMesa's compliments to the President.