GOP Lies About Obama Deficits

Take It Easy on the Oligarchs

They're really frightened.

The billionaires have had to tranquilize their Congressmen.

These days the billionaires are "throwing plenty of spaghetti" against the walls to see if any will stick.

Some of this "spaghetti" -- frantically ladled from a particularly rancid pot -- smells even worse the the rest. Interestingly, amid the flames and smoke of the ill fated Benghazi Gambit and the terminally confusing Email Caper, the billionaires' "hate machine" has now taken desperate refuge in one of their old, favorite topics. Granted, their horrific "media thing" runs on tar and coal, but this time around, not even the strangely willing hill billies and bigots of the GOP base seem to be able to make sense out of what they have been commanded to believe.

Amazingly, the oligarchs have decided to once again begin "discussing" the Federal Budget deficit. And yes, someone's installed "rock concert" sized speakers on the Clown Car.

In the dismal absence of traction for any of the rest of their stuff, they've fired up their old lie machine. We all need to be familiar with the information presented in this POLITICUSUSA article so we'll be ready to engage in "political discourse" with our fellow citizens.

Obama Saves America From

Republican Failure 

By Bringing Deficit Below 50 Year Average

By: Sarah Jones

Thursday, October 8th, 2015

This hat makes Republicans gag.[for photo and quoted article POLITICUSUSA]

“Big government and debt doubled under a Republican administration,” 2016 Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul said. “And it’s now tripling under Barack Obama’s watch.”

Those are some scary words, and they feed the willfully ignorant frenzy driving Republicans to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. That and their failure to understand what the debt ceiling actually is.

As we head into yet another GOP shutdown showdown allegedly over Republicans unwillingness to pay off the debt they’ve already spent, it’s worth noting reality for a moment. The Congressional Budget Office put the deficit for the just ended fiscal year at 2.4% of GDP, below 50-year average, and also, 2015 was the sixth consecutive year in which the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP.

The federal government ran a budget deficit of $435 billion fiscal year 2015, CBO estimates—$48 billion less than the shortfall recorded in fiscal year 2014, and the smallest deficit recorded since 2007. Relative to the size of the economy, that deficit—at an estimated 2.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—was slightly below the average experienced over the past 50 years, and 2015 was the sixth consecutive year in which the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP since peaking at 9.8 percent in 2009. By CBO’s estimate, revenues were about 8 percent higher and outlays were about 5 percent higher in 2015 than they were in the previous fiscal year. CBO’s deficit estimate is based on data from the Daily Treasury Statements; the Treasury Department will report the actual deficit for fiscal year 2015 later this month.

We can’t have an honest discussion about the deficit without noting that “the FY2009 federal deficit was running at a rate of $1.2 trillion on the day he (President Obama) took office in the midst of a financial crisis.”

Also, Factcheck continued (note this was written in 2014):

But a fact that may surprise Obama’s critics is that Obama’s spending increases have been historically modest — much smaller than his predecessor’s, and well below the rate of inflation. Federal spending in the current fiscal year, which ends this month, is running only 7.9 percent higher than it was when the president took office. This increase is well below the 12 percent rise in the Consumer Price Index, which we’ve mentioned.

…

But the spending increase under Obama would be even lower — only 5.9 percent — if we used the most recent estimate of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office from August 27. CBO puts the current year’s outlays at just over $3.5 trillion. The final, actual spending figures for this year should be announced sometime next month, and we’ll report on them in our next update.

And right when I was about to credit Republican austerity for some of this:

To be sure, some of the spending restraint has been forced on Obama by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Even so, the contrast with the Bush administration’s spending increases is quite dramatic. Federal outlays rose nearly 33 percent during the first four fiscal years for which Bush signed the appropriations bills (FY2002 – 2005) and rose again by another 34 percent during the next four fiscal years, even subtracting $203 billion from FY2009 to adjust for Obama’s additions that year.

PolitiFact checked Rand Paul’s claim and found “Quite a few readers asked us if the debt has tripled since Obama took office in January 2009. We took a look at the numbers, and it hasn’t. It’s increased about 1.7 times.”

Want to know how Rand Paul’s “office” justified his claim? Watch the shells move (my bold): “Looking at the whole statement — not just the second clause — Paul wasn’t saying the debt has tripled under Obama alone. Instead, he was saying that it doubled under President George W. Bush. And since Obama took office, it has risen to a point that is triple what it was when Bush first took office. By this measure, Paul’s statement is closer to accurate. Let’s go through the numbers.”

Jobless claims also fell to near a 42-year low today, after the Department of Labor released their update:

In the week ending October 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 263,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 1,000 from 277,000 to 276,000. The 4-week moving average was 267,500, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 250 from 270,750 to 270,500.

So what we have here is a President who has set historic records for continuous private sector job growth, has lowered spending increases dramatically – in fact they have been “historically modest”, and the deficit for the just ended fiscal year is at 2.4% of GDP, below 50-year average.

What’s it all mean? It means that President Obama is not the big spender Republicans make him out to be, unless they really want to blame him for picking up the tab for their 2007 financial crisis and the two unfunded wars they started and put on a credit card. So when Republicans talk about not raising the debt ceiling due to their objections to “spending”, not only is this irresponsible because the money has already been spent, but it’s irrational and ridiculous. For a big spender, see Obama’s predecessor – the entitled “decider”.

In other words, President Obama is the only adult in the room.

4/4 The GOP Billionaires: Dr. Freud Will See You Now

"So, we been a little crazy... have we? Well, Dr. Freud is not available, 
but MeanMesa can see you."

The Types and Character of Republican Billionaires

Having "set to flight" all these unexamined misperceptions about the players afoot in this grisly game, we can enjoy much more clarity when we seek out the "kernel" of those concocting this anti-democracy mischief.  Further, before we indict ourselves as "negligently inattentive" or out rightly naive, we might find mitigating comfort from remembering that the deception was designed by experts, sold out psychologists, with a formidable "expertise" at manipulation far more sophisticated than their lesser peers charged with selling us new cars or more expensive tooth paste.

So, let's look squarely at the billionaires.

We can quite comfortably divide the denizens of this remarkably small, moneyed demography into four, more or less, specifically defined groups.  Because this post targets primarily only the last three, we can dispatch the remaining category as a population of plutocrats which has little to do with the "present problems,"  that is, as plutocrats retaining the fundamentals of more or less "normal" human values in spite of their great wealth and accustomed privilege.

We can easily cite examples of this relatively rational, philanthropic and occasionally progressive group: John Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, [Republican] Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Andrew Carnegie and so on.

However, this "values" business is relevant mainly because of an interesting commonality which runs through all the categories we will mention.  The "commonality?"

In modern cases almost all of these fortunes were inherited by their current owners.  This means that the billionaires in this discussion essentially lack the human experience of ever worked a single shift for an actual wage.

Of course, there are exceptions.  A few have "clawed" their way to top as inventors or entrepreneurs [i.e. Gates, Tesla or Zuckerberg], manipulators of public money  [i.e. Cheney], bankruptcy vultures [i.e. Romney -- although he emerged from a very wealthy family], hedge fund magnates [too numerous for examples] or simply opportunistic corporate CEO's who "never quit" after penetrating the "economic force field" of the Country Club class.  More than a few of the current crop accumulated the "seed money" of their fortune by marrying it [without a pre-nuptial divestiture contract...].

On the other hand the modern economic "genetic nobility" such as the Koch brothers inherited billions of "old money" and pursued every opportunity attached to that good fortune since then.  Politically active billionaires such as the Walton family, while only one generation removed from a modest poverty, apparently developed the characteristic avarice in childhood.

MeanMesa presumes to attribute a general definition to the dream to these "starters" of the now massive, oligarchic dynasties.  Those sturdy, "all work, no play" capitalists at the historical roots of these fortunes dreamed of creating wealth so great that:

1. it would be perpetually self-expanding, permanently dynastic;

2. it would be largely immune from even the most disruptive economic "turns of events;"

3. it would elevate generations of future progeny to such a rich state as to embellish the family name; and,

4. it would create influence through which the "ideology of the founder" could continue to shape and direct social history.

Naturally, the "ideologies of the founders" of these financial "megaliths" of "free enterprise" -- at least when compared to the ideologies of their modern trust fund idiot progeny -- leaves something to be desired.  Ideas which may or may not have actually driven these suspiciously successful ancestors have long ago succumbed to the pathological avarice of their off spring now stalking among us.

The choices of applicable cultural fantasies is, actually, as limited as the dryly ossified social values of these "billionaires by birth."  The model of the brutal, pre-civil war Southern plantation owners clearly has an enduring appeal, but the violent largess of the viciously pragmatic robber barons of America's monopolistic era is a strong competitor

We see a disturbing allocation of habits corresponding to the psychology of the three remaining types of billionaires presently financing the remnants of a failed Republican Party.  MeanMesa will attempt to "rough out" this picture with a few [3] carefully chosen, general profiles.

Type One:  Traditional "Orthodox" GOP "Success Stories"

This group follows the general model of "businessmen" who have prospered in some Congressional region sufficiently to be seen as a "can do" bunch with at least the widely held image of having a possible expertise in operating the business affairs of the government.  Once in office, they can be identified by their absolute lack of any legislative interest in topics other than those which would interest a shop owner.  There will be no involvement in social or justice programs beyond cutting expenses.

Because of this mind set valuing every possible opportunity to increase profits -- first, of course, for themselves and their friends, but also, more expansively for other businessmen with similar values -- we see them legislating to "promote business" while reducing costs.

The particular "cost cutting" which infatuates their "profit is everything" personalities will inevitably find its way to the destruction of organized labor, exporting manufacturing to places with lower wages, the desolation of expensive benefits and the demolishing of expensive regulations on every business activity from banking to burning coal.

Because they abhor being forced into any type of social responsibility, lowering taxes is, naturally, at the center of all their machinations.  The automatic -- and inevitable -- paradox in their political motivation is their almost hypnotic avoidance of the demand side of economies.  They typically cannot see beyond "increasing profits + lowering costs = more profit."  When their economic policies constantly degrade demand, they see only diminished profit.

Historically, this type resembles a benign parasite.  There is never any deviation from the hackneyed myth of the exclusively "supply side" economy.  Interestingly, this type is -- among the three -- the most "bothered" by the "cost impact" of something like the government shut down.

Type Two: Ideological Republican Sociopaths

A dictionary definition of the sociopath sets the stage:

a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

MeanMesa will expand the definition slightly to more adequately encompass the nature of this type of Republican billionaire.  This type of sociopathy leads to a state where "lesser people," their difficulties, their frustration, cannot even be seen by the sociopath.  The cruelty found in the behavior of such billionaires is seldom based on malice or is even the result of a conscious decision.  Instead, it is simply callous.  They are systemically unaware of the existence of lives so economically disparate from their own.

When applying inherent values as they produce thought products, these sociopaths work in a mental field hosting a world exclusively similar to their own.  Often, during the formative years of their childhoods, they listened to adults who routinely denigrated all those less fortunate, attaching classicist explanations for the lower states of their existence.

The "explanations," once the child reaches adulthood, have become axiomatic, that is, "mistaken certainties."  Consequently, thoughts constructed on such aberrant platforms elude the automatic condemnation of a more or less properly functioning conscience such as might be found in more normal people.

They are sociopaths.  They have no functioning conscience -- only the fear of exceeding the limits of tolerance of their victims.

When their detachment from their victims reaches a certain completeness, the limiting rationality of this fear buckles, but when these sociopaths segregate themselves from the surrounding reality even further, this fear of a retributive reaction also slips.  For sociopaths the desirability of a government shut down relies solely on its impact on their interests.  They are prone of "over reaching," but they are never apologetic for it.

Type Three: Fully "Detached From Reality" Republican Megalomaniacs

We can begin again with a standard definition of "megalomaniac:"

1. A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.

2. An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions.  A condition or mental illness that causes people to think that they have great or unlimited power or importance.

This class of billionaires has a "supra-transactional" bent to their already questionably stable personalities. Healthier people portray a transactional nature, that is, healthier people derive happiness or satisfaction from transactions in which some compensation is gained.  Of course as such transactions unfold, these healthier folk exchange, trade or expend some strength or resource they have for some other strength or resource they find more desirable in comparison.

The megalomaniacal billionaire never quite completes such a transaction.

When more normal folks observe their normal peers in such transactional processes, the purpose of the transaction is clear, or, at least, comprehensible.  This is not the case with this class of billionaires.

Instead of more common destiny of encountering challenges and occasionally overcoming them, receiving the relief or reward which accompanies victory, the megalomaniac values the position of being able to express power, influence and wealth more than such a tangible reward which would hold so much value normally.

For them resources and power exhibited in their megalomaniacal process need not yield some exchanged value at all in order to satisfy them.  For them simply exercising that power is what yields and produces that satisfaction.  In most cases such individuals already own so much -- so many things and such great wealth -- that there is no real possibility of further enhancing pleasure with the addition of yet something else.

In the economic sense, while extremely powerful and influential and while bathed in almost unimaginable wealth and luxury, they are "anhedonistic." [No longer capable of experiencing pleasure.]  They lack the capacity to feel enjoyment by the addition of still more assets to their fortunes.  This frequently occurs when the scale of wealth becomes so great that even its casual neglect comes to be considered an indulgent luxury.

They have so much money that changes in wealth, that is, having more or less money, no longer matters.  The day after the market collapses, the asteroid hits the planet or a violent war suddenly begins unexpectedly, they will still be thousands of times richer than almost anyone else.

The definition speaks to the "delusion" of immense power, but for these megalomaniacs. this is not delusion -- they have immense power.  For them the delusion concerns the meaning of that immense power, and they suspect that it doesn't mean being an "immense," that is perhaps "a widely respected" or "a widely envied" person, but only a rich one.

All this could easily be a statement about being rich, but set that aside in favor of speculating about the inner psychology such a position would foster.  Think about a tragically skewed world view and a bizarrely twisted identity for one's self.  Think of the self-suspicion and the hollow pain.

This, rather than the accumulated "prizes" of the power and privilege, explains much of this otherwise incomprehensible behavior.

The Strange, Uncommon Dreams 

That Come With Having Endless Money

Just as the alcoholic who, already inebriated to utter stupefaction, finds himself  driven blindly to seek another drink, there is an equivalent obsession with the billionaire.  In the financial sense the plutocrat's obsession with the prospect of accumulating even more wealth strangely parallels the drunken alcoholic's obsession for even more alcohol.  Once inebriated with what has already been drunk or owned, the prospect that another addition will provide another increment of pleasure is the narcotic deception inflicted on both.

Nightmares are personal. (artwork source)

Remember, with these boys it's not about what could be done with more wealth.  Their joy comes from extracting it -- not somehow enjoying it later.  If that "extraction process" reaffirms the fundamentals they learned in their unusual childhoods, their glee is correspondingly greater.

So, what blind ambitious shadows can fill such dark and empty dreams?

This is not a mystery.  In fact this part of the story is brazenly obvious.

Naturally, anything which will divert money otherwise spent in the benefit of those they consider so far beneath themselves back into well disguised corporate coffers attracts their attention immediately.  However, even beyond the lower taxes, subsidies and the rest, non-union factories assembling parts made in their low wage, off shore plants are appealing only partly due to the savings in costs, but also because they represent an opportunity to elevate themselves even higher above those they leave in the bottom rungs of their dynastic ladders.

The larcenous avarice doesn't end there.  The full, three act dream includes the conversion of the nation into a "plantation-like" subservience, that is, into a state of economic, dynastic "war-lord-ism" where the mere mention of their family name elicits the same rapt attention and obedience as that of a Senator or President does now.

Absolutely any legislative act the billionaires can coerce or bribe their Congressional [state or federal] minions into providing for them is welcome so long as it adds even one grain of sand to this mountain they dream of building.

In their accounts today we see that this tiny minority of a few thousand billionaires own more of the United States than the 150 million Americans in the bottom class.  Their wealth has increased 300% in the last four decades while middle class wealth plummeted 40% in a few days in September of 2008.

It's a mistake to presume that these billionaires are personally infatuated with their highly visible, destructive penchants for war making, union busting, abortion, deregulation, gun ownership or twisted propagandistic abstractions such as "freedom and liberty."  They are consumed with a blind appetite for wealth and dominance -- increases leading to even more wealth and even more power -- at any cost and through any means necessary.

Domination of the vast population around them represents as much or more of an incentive as increased wealth.

[MeanMesa note:  This discussion could have been "packed to bursting" with specific examples in every one of these cases, but we're looking for the "big picture" here.]

While often providing a fixation for unexamined envy, these oligarchs behave hatefully.  For those of us with "enough years under our belt" to fully acknowledge this, the next conclusions emerge at once. 

Obsessions are tormenting.  Obsessions which knowingly injure the lives of others find no respite.  They are torture, and the misery which accompanies even successes among their execution is constant.

Perhaps enthralled with the prospect of an increased interest payment or cruelly excited by a further elevation of their comparatively elite positions, these GOP billionaires are, most likely, quite comfortable not only with the government shut down, but also with the even graver consequences of default.

After all,when the US and global economies have plummeted into the abyss, these oligarchs will still be richer, will still own more, will still be more secure than all those they see suffering around them -- if they even see them.

Is is an exaggeration?  Some easily repeated "talking point" that MeanMesa has found attractive?

Hardly.

Current economic estimates of the cost of the "first tier" defaults set the damage at 23 times to total damage of the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008.  That Chapter 11 dissolution racked up an estimated $1, 400 Bn in losses if the Wiki article is accurate, but -- more importantly -- visitors to this blog know first hand the scope of the catastrophe, the Great Republican Recession of 2008, which followed.

Years later the planetary economy is still "punch drink" from the hit, so:

1. think about what a $30,000 Bn hit might inflict, and,

2. try to imagine being a GOP billionaire, knowing that this would be the effect of your Congressional influence racket, and then, still doing it anyway.

Okay, Americans -- Now Kiss Your Kidnapper

GOPCon Ransom as a "Garden Industry"

The situation reminds MeanMesa of the similarity to other civilizations when they were threatened by brigands.  In each case, given time, prevailing "social distaste" arose about kidnappers, grave robbers, protection extortionists and pirates.  As conditions worsened, that is, as the crimes became more and more egregious, societies responded, not always in a manner entirely consistent with the higher ideals they might have held in quieter times.

Hostage Taking, GOPCon Pirates (photo: Chris Bennion - source)

House Tea Bags Think That Hostage Taking IS Statesmanship

Oh dear, is MeanMesa careening off the tracks again? Blasting out overly dramatic epithets, exaggerated, inflammatory rhetoric, about "hostages," "ransom" and "kidnapping" and the like?

Maybe. Particularly if claims about such criminal enterprises must cross above a certain metric before becoming legitimate. So, exactly where do such complaints ascend from routine "bitching" to the level of actual crimes? How about reviewing the nature and amounts of the ransom payments?

The Tea Bags Snatch the Children

During the lame duck, GOPCons were holding unemployment benefits hostage. The ransom price was a $125 Bn tax cut for their billionaire masters. If the oligarchs were not to be satiated with another nice, economy wrecking, gigantic tax cut -- an extension of those first established in the original Bush "looting festival" -- millions of Americans would be denied unemployment checks. The petty GOP criminals sent out to follow these orders were able to report back that tax payers were "sitting ducks."

The billionaires took it from there, immediately formulating a whole series of further repetitions of the crime. This time, a craven Republican leadership could be counted on to "run scared" before the tea bags all around them in the House Chamber. The "gloves were off." The newest bunch of tea bag thugs obviously didn't mind running their racket in broad daylight.

Traditionalist Boehner, always accustomed previously to handling such matters cloaked in the shadows of back rooms filled with lobbyists, was predictably nervous about so much glaring transparency. Still, fortifying himself with a few dozen "Rob Roys," the shivering Speaker bravely hoisted the flag and sounded the attack.

A "rolling media circus," (not a problem when one owns the media, that is, if one's bosses own the media) the continuing scheme would migrate little as the tea bag strategists formed a giant pincer movement around the shell shocked Democrats remaining in power.

On one side, the GOPCons would unleash the imaginary tea bag horde -- all 1,300 of them -- demanding "spending cuts" in the fetid wreckage of a quagmire of obstructionist sabotage to all recovery bills and the resulting, sickening paucity of job creation. On the other side, the bags would "salt" every spending cut with another selection from their rabidly unpopular "social policies" which could not be sold under any other circumstances to either the Congress or the American voters otherwise. 

So, what exactly was the scheme going to be?  MeanMesa can offer a speculative version of conversations in the famous, smoked filled, whiskey "aromatique," GOPCon back rooms.  What do we think the crooks were saying to each other?

Stinky GOPCon Back Room Conversations

"If they want jobs so badly, we'll give them spending cuts and a relentless, overly broadcast myth that the two are the same thing."

"If they want to government to keep running, we'll give them last decade's policy disasters and call that the price to be paid. You know, the ransom."

"We'll start right away saying over and over that Americans blame both parties for the shut down. Call all the networks and give the order."

"We'll attach 'illegalizing abortion,' 'deregulation of the banks,' 'a cessation of all environmental controls,' 'the abolition of all consumer protection policies' and 'a stake through the heart of the health care reform bill' for starters. We can make the Democrats 'eat' this grisly lunch, and each time we can hold a government shut down over their heads to make them dance."

"Each time we stagger forward to the next 'shut down' date, we can add a few more 'spending cuts' along with a new collection of social outrages from our throwback policy 'dream bag' from the '50's."

"If it works, we'll be able to drive the entire country back to the good old medieval days of the 1950's, a very reasonable ransom for allowing them to have the government they've already paid for continue to function.  If it doesn't work, that is, if the Democrats finally find enough gumption and gonads to draw the line, and the government shuts down, we'll have FOX News and the rest of our media convince the voters that the reckless, socialist Democrats -- including, of course, 'the Black Man' -- did it.

With every dirty shirt Kentucky preacher salivating at the prospects of refilling his dwindling congregation with drooling tea baggers once again inflamed with right wing righteousness, the GOPCon Gang will, once again, be re-labeled the party of God."

"If they start murmuring about cuts to military procurement spending or non-negotiated military service contracts, we'll hit them with a full dose of 'flags and blood.'  After all, we have direct orders from the bosses -- no military spending cuts.  Now, back to the plan for gutting Medicare..."

Boehner Wishes He Could Hide in the Cloakroom

The Speaker has his own problems with this latest over reach.  Wow.  In fact  recently some of his new tea bag caucus members spouted off -- to Boehner's horror,  on media microphones -- that if the entire government didn't immediately cave in, they would just pass a bill and it would automatically become law.  Of course, Boehner back tracked, saying that his party's new "death grip" actually only encompassed half of one third of the government.

Unhappily, the vast tea bag hordes, already inebriated with the prospect of seeing starving old people and abandoned children, heard nothing.

Boehner, while still being well paid to viciously attack the Presidency, is now caught in a string of broken commitments belonging to him, personally.   Three times the Speaker has agreed to a negotiated spending cut settlement with the President and the Democrats.  Three times, he sat there in "career terror" as he brought the agreements back to his tea bags only to see them gleefully reject the proposals.

Senate Majority Leader Reid, almost always far too complacent and agreeable for MeanMesa's tastes, has sat like a troublesome toad on a log as Speaker  Boehner has repeatedly displayed his lack of control over his own caucus.  This time, however, Reid's formidable, imperturbable  stoicism could not have been more confidence wrecking for the busy little guy from Ohio.

Even so much as an emotional crack from  Majority Leader Reid would have provided the tea bags with enough imaginary ammo to sustain their drunken plunge, but they got nothing.  Obama probably needs to visit the White House doctor for all the bites he made on his tongue trying not to break out laughing while he witnessed the process.

Oh Yes, the Next Ransom Note

MeanMesa recalls a decades old advertisement encouraging folks to subscribe to the National Lampoon magazine.  There was a photo of a darling little puppy on the card which came in the mail.  Of course, this was a humorous "tongue in cheek" effort entirely consistent with the publication, but below the picture was this caption, "Subscribe to our magazine or we'll kill this puppy."

The GOPCons apparently have something similar tacked on the wall of the restroom outside the House Chamber.  On their version of the comedy, a portrait of their last, heavily soiled, ultra-creepy "government shutdown" expert, Newt Gringrich, is smiling broadly.  The caption?  "Don't worry.  The voters can't remember last week, much less fifteen years ago.  This is going to work great this time!"

ACORN is gone.  The jihadists don't seem to be cooperating with the GOPCons by providing another terrorist attack.  The hill billies and bigots are dozing off under too much complicated GOPCon fear mongering, and, the Republican Party's national socialist prophet, Glenn Beck, has been sent staggering back to Utah by the profit-Waffen-SS at FOX News.

But, does this mean that all is lost for these sturdy tea bag GOPCons?

Hardly.  They can still kill the puppy.

(image source)

Watch Out - They Can't Drive It and They Can't Park It

Rolling along unnoticed at the side of what is unfolding in Madison, the Congressional GOPCon (RINO's - Republican In Name Only) scheme to redefine debt and wealth is churning along under full steam.  The spokesmen charged with the task of selling this train wreck as anything by the direct redistribution of wealth -- upward, ever upward -- are the same schills who created most of the debt in the first place.  "Created?"  Yes, the loudest right wing stooges are exactly the same ones who voted all this di$a$ter into law during the autocracy.

"Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet?" (image source)

The strategy so carefully formulated by miscreants such as the national socialist Koch Brothers and the high tech image manipulators at Dick Armey's Freedom Works is to extract the last little dab of cash left in the Treasury, give it to the oligarchs, then leave the bill with lower class tax payers.  Those of us in the lower class are already familiar with this scheme.

"Lower Class?"  What the hell does MeanMesa mean with such an inflammatory term?

Heh, heh, heh.  MeanMesa said it, and MeanMesa "owns" it.

The top 3% of "earners" enjoy slightly more than 80% of all that's earned.  The lower 80% of earners share 7%.  In "MeanMesa talk," this spells "l-o-w-e-r ... c-l-a-s-s ,"  and it is a "spelling" which requires no hyperbole, either.

The GOPCon tirade has been presented with plenty of hollowed out Tea Bag threats.  The most menacing of these threats is a government shut down unless the Congressional Democrats agree to slash every nickel which isn't bolted down, which, of course, refers to not bolted down to military spending and other neo-con favorites.  You know, stuff like food stamps, heating assistance, pre-school education and stuff like that.

Well, the "shut down the government" threat seems to be gaining traction among the new Congressional GOPConBags.  This isn't too surprising.  The plan has always had disastrous results for the neo-cons in the past, so there should be little surprise that its main features attract them again, today.

Because MeanMesa's neighbors rely on many of these "soon to be eliminated" government safety nets, we issued another index card message a few weeks ago.  The card is shared here with the idea that MeanMesa visitors may wish to use it to warn their own neighbors about this latest GOPCon wealth redistribution attack.

So, download it, change what needs to be customized for your own neighborhood, print up a couple of hundred on 4" x 6" index cards and spread the word!

MeanMesa Neighborhood Alert Card