Barack Obama

The President speech on the Federal deficit marked a brilliant return to what might be called his "holographic" style. Like a hologram, the President's speech was beautiful and evocative and shimmered with light. But like a hologram, what you see depends on where you stand.

Many progressives will hear a brilliant defense of government's role in the economy, and of the role that progressive taxation plays in a fair-minded economic system. Conservatives(those who aren't absolutely nuts) will hear a ringing endorsement of a plan that would downsize government and benefit the wealthy. And they'll love the President's "debt triggers," which could force the government to enact drastic cuts if targets aren't met.

This holographic quality, the ability to present himself as all things to all people, is the President's unique gift - unless, in the end, it turns out not to have been a gift at all.

What were the positives in the President's speech? It made a long-overdue case for government's vital role in society. It skewered the conservative notion that taxing the rich is unfair. And it took the right approach to Medicare by emphasizing the need to cut costs, not benefits.

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Last night the President took a lofty, almost disinterested stance regarding budget deadlock in Congress. He seemed to chastise Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner equally, focusing on the consequences of a shutdown and ignoring the consequences of making a bad deal to avoid a shutdown.

A Federal shutdown would have "real consequences for real people," said the President, mentioning one "real" person by name: J.T. Henderson of Louisville, Kentucky.

So let's talk about J.T. Henderson - and about all the other J.T. Hendersons who are just as real, and just as important, as our friend in Louisville. You'd be surprised how many there are.

Meet the Hendersons

Who wasn't the President talking about when he mentioned the name "J.T. Henderson" last night?

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Oh, Democrats, Democrats, Democrats. Your party's symbol's an ass - a word that was on John Boehner's lips this week, and maybe some other people's too.

Here's how it went down: First House Republicans proposed $32 billion in cuts. The President offered $6.5 billion. The House passed a bill cutting $60billion. Then the Tea Party demanded $100 billion. Now we're told that everybody has agreed to a "compromise" number: $33 billion.

That's just one billion more than the Republicans in Congress originally demanded. Way to negotiate, Democrats!

That's why we need an independent movement that will fight for the public's best interests.

Put up your hands and fight like a gentleman, sir!

In the bloodbath that is modern American politics, the courtly Dems still want to fight by Marquis of Queensbury rules. In the budget battle, they've once again put up their dukes for a polite "bout of fisticuffs" while their opponents pummel them with knives, clubs, brass knuckles, numchucks, AK-47's, and tactical nuclear weapons.

The imagery's just a figure of speech, of course.

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If you're a banker who bought your estate with the millions you made from mortgage fraud, relax.  The Justice Department isn't looking for you.  But if you're an illegal immigrant who's working on that banker's estate, look out.  The Department of Justice is ignoring your boss and devoting most of its resources to catching you.

And the Justice Department's "mortgage fraud" unit doesn't prosecute bankers.  It protects them.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times  contrasts the legal treatment that was given to one high-flying borrower with that received by Angelo Mozilo, CEO of the fraudulent lender Countrywide.  But if stories like this one are bad, the numbers are even worse.  

If you also take a qualitative look at some of the Federal government's other well-publicized mortgage fraud efforts, like its "Stop Fraud" website, the picture becomes pretty stunning - if not downright infuriating..

Justice by the Numbers

The TRAC group [1] at Syracuse University gets information from the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act, then analyzes it and makes it available online as an interactive database.  Here are some interesting findings:

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The bankers are endangering innocent people, their pals are roughing up the law, and the people who should be helping out are sitting on the sidelines doing nothing You can almost hear Tex Ritter singing "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin'," the theme song from High Noon.

You remember High Noon. That's the movie where Gary Cooper plays Will Kane, a retired gunslinger who can't find anybody to help him defend the town from a dangerous gang. In fact, the townspeople give him almost as much trouble as the gang does.

The financial system has its own sheriffs, and bankers behaved like an unruly mob with one of them this week. Meanwhile Democrats were characteristically diffident and Republicans formed a stone-throwing mob of their own.

Red Lights Everywhere

The lawmen - both women, in this case - were being baited, taunted, and thwarted at a time when the economy's dashboard is flashing red with warning signs. A lot of people think Wall Street banks are healthy again because it's making a lot of money. But they were making lots of money right before the last crash, too.

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The President's budget has just been released, and so has a Republican alternative from the House Appropriations Committee. Reading them is like watching two people play a video game and confusing it for the real world. These budgets don't reflect competing visions so much as they do competing priorities within a commonly-held set of assumptions. They both share an artificial view of today's reality - both economic and human - that warps our vision and limits our choices. The President may be playing the game as well as he can, but what he really needs to do is stop playing altogether.

The rules of this videogame are: 1) Accept the fact that the ultra-rich will keep accumulating ever greater amounts of wealth, and will continue to exert undue influence on the political process. 2) As a result, accept the fact that we can't resist the fundamental changes to our way of life that will create. 2) Sacrifice a large part of the social programs which gave us 75 years of shared prosperity, since they're incompatible with this change. 3) Preserve and expand your political power within this virtual-reality construct.

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Slasher-Movie Economics

A vicious, savage, axe-wielding killer stalks the political landscape, yearning to draw blood, slash victims, and amputate limbs. That's not my description of austerity economics - that's how its fans talk about it.

"Austerity" is defined as "the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures)." Austerity economics, on the other hand, is the practice of denying others things that they need while at the same time ensuring your own continued privilege and comfort. This practice is usually accompanied by a round of self-congratulation for showing such courage and discipline. Its usually sinister spell has seduced Republicans into aiding and abetting felons with budget cuts that would make them de facto accomplices to a thousand crimes. And what the president's about to do will literally send chills down a million spines.

Anne Applebaum nearly worked herself into a case of the vapors when Austerians got elected in Great Britain, when she palpitatingly repeated the phrases used by journalists there to describe the new government's budget. The new British leaders, said journalists, were "axe-wielders" who were inflicting "vicious," "savage," and "swingeing (sic) cuts." (Is that what "bangers and mash" really means?)

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Why don't the CEOs of AIG and JPMorgan Chase give a damn what you think? Because they don't have to. The Third Chamber of government, that unelected body of lobbyists and wealthy executives symbolized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has insulated them from public outrage.

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's nonstop narcissistic tirade against any and all criticism of banks is entering its third quarter. The CEO of AIG, a company I know from the inside, just insulted millions of his company's owners, rescuers, and customers. Every day brings more evidence of the Third Chamber's growing power. These CEOs and others like them will continue to be protected and enriched at public expense until more pressure is brought on politicians from the President on down to make it stop. more »

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Not the wars. Not greenhouse gasses. Not even the deficit. The issue most important to Americans is jobs.

Despite that, jobs failed to make an appearance in the State of the Union address.

The talk was all about business. Business was doing better. Business needed taxpayers to help pay for research and innovation. Business will get government help to eliminate pesky regulations. more »

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