Obama on Jon Stewart: The President Spews "Progressive" Anti-Semitism

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How familiar are you with "Doublespeak"?

Appearing on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" on Tuesday, President Obama publicly spewed anti-Semitism, albeit using "progressive" code words, while seeking to drum up support for his nuclear deal with Iran. Obama declared (my emphasis in red):

"I guarantee you, if people feel strongly about making sure that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon, without us going to war, and that is expressed to Congress, then people will believe in that. And the same is true on every single issue. If people are engaged, eventually the political system responds. Despite the money, despite the lobbyists, it still responds."

The "money"? Jewish money, of course. The lobbyists? AIPAC, of course.

A minute earlier, Obama also stated (my emphasis in red):

"This is an example of where we have a huge issue of war and peace. Either we stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon through diplomacy, or potentially we have a military option. You’ve got a bunch of talking heads and pundits, and folks who are not going to be making sacrifices, if in fact you end up in a conflict, who are reprising some of the same positions that we saw during the Iraq war, not asking tough questions. And if they are not hearing from citizens, then we end up making bad choices."

"Folks who are not going to be making sacrifices"? The Jews, of course. Obama would have us know that Jews don't serve in the military, but instead only seek to buy Congress with their money.

Disgusting.

David Brooks, "The Nature of Poverty": Actually, Jon Stewart Lied

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Nature of Poverty," David Brooks writes about the rioting in Baltimore:

"Lately it seems as though every few months there’s another urban riot and the nation turns its attention to urban poverty. And in the midst of every storm, there are people crying out that we should finally get serious about this issue. This time it was Jon Stewart who spoke for many when he said: 'And you just wonder sometimes if we’re spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, like, we can’t build a little taste down Baltimore way. Like is that what’s really going on?'

The audience applauded loudly, and it’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not really relevant."

Indeed, it was a "nice," crowd-pleasing sentiment on Stewart's part, but it was also a lie. As reported by Glenn Kessler in a Washington Post "Fact Checker" column entitled "Nope, Jon Stewart, $1 trillion wasn’t spent on Afghanistan schools at the expense of Baltimore.":

"Since 2002, Congress has appropriated $104 billion for Afghanistan relief and reconstruction, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). A lot of this funding went to bolstering the Afghan military and security forces and fostering better governance.

But Stewart specifically mentioned schools. The numbers are even smaller in that instance. Using USAID’s ForeignAssistance.gov Web site, one can drill down to individual programs in Afghanistan year after year. For basic education in Afghanistan, the number is about $100 million annually. Adding higher education boosts the spending about $30 million a year. For instance, in 2012 and 2013, the total spent on education in Afghanistan was $128.6 million and $115.1 million, respectively.

Now let’s compare that to the federal spending for the city of Baltimore. According to city budget documents, the federal contribution to Baltimore schools was $184.8 million in 2012 and $169.3 million in 2013. (Most of the more than $1.2 billion budget comes from state and county funding sources.)

The contrast was even greater in 2011: $95 million for Afghanistan schools and $265 million for Baltimore schools. That’s because the 2009 stimulus bill bolstered funding for schools for several years.

. . . .

In fact, in a direct comparison of federal spending on Baltimore schools and spending on Afghanistan education, Baltimore easily comes out on top. So, even with allowances for comic effect, Stewart earns Four Pinocchios."

But back now to Brooks, who concludes his op-ed by observing:

"Jane Jacobs once wrote that a healthy neighborhood is like a ballet, a series of intricate interactions in which people are regulating each other and encouraging certain behaviors.

. . . .

Yes, jobs are necessary, but if you live in a neighborhood . . . where half the high school students don’t bother to show up for school on a given day, then the problems go deeper.

The world is waiting for a thinker who can describe poverty through the lens of social psychology. Until the invisible bonds of relationships are repaired, life for too many will be nasty, brutish, solitary and short."

Or stated otherwise, it's not all about money. Rather, it involves the disintegration of social fabric.

A pity that President Obama, who never misses the opportunity to lose himself on the links, can't drive the 55 minutes from the White House to Baltimore to observe for himself the violence and destruction. Effect "change" involving America's inner cities? Now here's an opportunity to truly build a "legacy," but instead, the president is preoccupied with reaching a bogus nuclear agreement with Supreme Leader Khamenei, which will free up $50 billion for Iranian sponsored terror.

Thomas Friedman, "What’s Their Plan?": Three Things You Should Never Do in Life

Always ready with advice for the foolish and unwary, would-be Middle East expert Thomas Friedman begins his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "What’s Their Plan?," subtitled "Obama’s Strategy for Fighting ISIS Isn’t All About Us," by declaring:

"THERE are three things in life that you should never do ambivalently: get married, buy a house or go to war. Alas, we’re about to do No. 3. Should we?"

Go to war? Hold your horses, Tom! Didn't Secretary of State John Kerry just tell us that the US will be engaging in "a counterterrorism operation of a significant order," but not a war? Meanwhile, Kerry is attempting to stitch together a coalition of ambivalent and deceitful allies to fight the ISIS monster that even has Jon Stewart in . . . stitches.

Friedman's risible conclusion:

"ISIS loses if our moderate Arab-Muslim partners can unite and make this a civil war within Islam — a civil war in which America is the air force for the Sunnis and Shiites of decency versus those of barbarism."

Excuse me, Tom, maybe you would care to point me in the direction of some of those "moderate Arab-Muslim partners," which are not hanging homosexuals, facilitating "honor killings" of women, cutting off women's clitorises, murdering Christians and other minorities, sentencing to death those who abandon Islam, amputating the hands of alleged thieves, and executing persons accused of witchcraft.

"Sunnis and Shiites of decency versus those of barbarism"? Good luck in your search for them, Tom.

Maureen Dowd, "A Wit for All Seasons": Welcome to a World of Superficiality in Which Jesters Are Kings

Stephen Colbert has been tapped by CBS to replace David Letterman as host of the "Late Show," and his selection appears acceptable to both right and left. In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "America’s heartland has nothing to fear from Stephen Colbert" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-americas-heartland-shouldnt-fear-stephen-colbert/2014/04/11/1f70ab98-c1ad-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html), Kathleen Parker writes of her appearance on "The Colbert Report":

"To put it plainly, the fellow who will be sitting in the 'Late Show' chair is nothing like the character on the 'Repor(t),' which is both a delightful and grievous prospect. Many will mourn the exit of Comedy Central’s Colbert, but millions more will celebrate his new role. Having met the real-life Colbert, the lad who grew up in Charleston, S.C., I’m confident viewers will find him every bit the Everyman as was all-time favorite Johnny Carson.

The one time I appeared on 'The Colbert Report,' Colbert met me in the green room beforehand and, speaking as the polite Southerner he is, said, 'Now, I’m going to be in character onstage, so don’t let me put words in your mouth.' You can’t say I wasn’t warned."

Parker's conclusion:

"The notion that a fake persona’s comedy routine is a threat to the American heartland bears a striking resemblance to the sort of literal-mindedness that leads to inquisitions and the Taliban. If you can’t take a joke, you could always change the channel. But you’ll miss all the fun."

Meanwhile, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "A Wit for All Seasons" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/opinion/sunday/a-wit-for-all-seasons.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Maureen Dowd also describes her appearance on "The Colbert Report":

"I DON’T remember much about being on Stephen Colbert’s show.

It all passed in a blur of fear.

I remember him coming into the makeup room to remind me that he was going to be in character as a jerk.

I remember that he held up my book about gender and asked if it was 'soft-core porn.'

I remember he asked me if I wanted to hold his Peabody and I told him I did, so he jumped up to grab the TV award from the mantel."

Dowd goes on to say:

"Carson was the Walter Lippmann of comedy, wielding enormous influence over the reputations of politicians he mocked. Stewart and Colbert took it a step further. They became Murrow and Cronkite for a generation of young viewers."

Stewart and Colbert have become today's Murrow and Cronkite? Perhaps Dowd is correct. Today, public opinion and politics are being shaped by one-liners instead of serious analysis.

But why should we be surprised? Could it be that the brains of many youngsters are not accessible to anything beyond superficial comedy routines?

In a Washington Post article entitled "Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/serious-reading-takes-a-hit-from-online-scanning-and-skimming-researchers-say/2014/04/06/088028d2-b5d2-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html?hpid=z4), Michael S. Rosenwald writes:

"Humans, [cognitive neuroscientists] warn, seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits for skimming through the torrent of information online. This alternative way of reading is competing with traditional deep reading circuitry developed over several millennia.

'I worry that the superficial way we read during the day is affecting us when we have to read with more in-depth processing,' said Maryanne Wolf, a Tufts University cognitive neuroscientist and the author of 'Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.'

If the rise of nonstop cable TV news gave the world a culture of sound bites, the Internet, Wolf said, is bringing about an eye byte culture. Time spent online — on desktop and mobile devices — was expected to top five hours per day in 2013 for U.S. adults, according to eMarketer, which tracks digital behavior. That’s up from three hours in 2010."

Books? Analysis demanding prolonged thought? All a thing of the past.

Welcome to a world of superficiality in which jesters are kings.

Shocking Revelations About Jon Stewart on Egyptian Television!

So you thought you knew everything there was to know about Jon Stewart's political leanings? Well, it turns out that there are those in Egypt who know more about Jon's subversive Middle East agenda than Jon himself. MEMRI kindly brings to us a translation of an Al-Tahrir TV talk show episode, in which a guest explains:

• Jon Stewart is a Jewish-American author, journalist, producer and media personality.
• Jon Stewart's ideology is based on Brzezinski's ideas.
• He is implementing Brzezinski's theory on the American people and media.
• Egypt belongs to them, that it is his homeland.

Of course we all know who "them" is.

Paul Krugman, "Republicans Against Reality": Krugman's Healthy Imagination

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

- Paul Krugman, "Confronting the Malefactors" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html), October 2011

Do you remember "Occupy Wall Street"? Do you remember how Krugman suggested that OWS would prove a "turning point" in a populist war against American financial institutions? Is there anyone more delusional than this Nobelist?

In a July New York Times op-ed entitled "Delusions of Populism" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/opinion/krugman-delusions-of-populism.html?_r=0), Paul Krugman raged against Republican delusional thinking. Today, in a Times op-ed entitled "Republicans Against Reality" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/opinion/krugman-republicans-against-reality.html?_r=0), Krugman again claims that Republicans are deprived of reason. Krugman writes:

"The sad truth is that the modern G.O.P. is lost in fantasy, unable to participate in actual governing.

. . . .

Then House leaders announced plans to hold a vote cutting spending on food stamps in half — a demand that is likely to sink the already struggling effort to agree with the Senate on a farm bill.

Then they held the pointless vote on Obamacare, apparently just to make themselves feel better. (It’s curious how comforting they find the idea of denying health care to millions of Americans.) And then they went home for recess, even though the end of the fiscal year is looming and hardly any of the legislation needed to run the federal government has passed."

Food stamps? Maybe spending on food stamps cannot be cut, but there can be no "rational" discussion of the matter without first noting where America stands vis-a-vis this program. As observed in a Yahoo! Finance blog post entitled "Food Stamp Issue Derails Farm Bill as Recipients at Record High" (http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/author/siemond-chan/) by Siemond Chan:

"What will happen next with the farm bill, which has been operating under rolling extensions since the the old bill's 2008 expiration, remains to be seen. But its failure to thrive in the face of the food-stamp fight comes as the number of U.S. citizens receiving this benefit, at 47.7 million as of March of this year, exceeds the entire population of Spain, the sixth-most-populous country in the European Union.

Enrollment in SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] has soared by 70% in the past five years; the U.S. shelled out a record $74.6 billion on the program in 2012, more than double what was spent in 2008, when the financial crisis hit in full force toward the end of the year. The U.S. officially exited the Great Recession, which began in 2007, in June of 2009. Since then, the economy has experienced a slowly churning recovery — with plenty of hiccups — marked by an increase in payroll levels, a slow-and-steady housing comeback and a massive pop in equities that's been at least partially fueled by unprecedented monetary stimulus.

But amid the recovery, the U.S. has also seen an increase in poverty levels, which the Census Bureau puts at 15.9% of the total population, or close to 50 million citizens. The Census Bureau puts close to 50 million Americans, or 15.9% of the total population, at or below the poverty level. In 2008, that figure was 13.2% of the population. And, while the unemployment rate has fallen from 10% at its Great Recession peak in 2009 to 7.6% in May, 11.8 million Americans still remain without work; 4.4 million comprise the long-term unemployed."

Yes, the "reality" is that President Obama is presiding over an economic disaster.

Obamacare? As reported by the Voice of America (http://www.voanews.com/content/obamacare-mandate-delay-will-cost-bln-affect-1-million-workers/1713777.html):

"President Barack Obama's decision to delay implementation of part of his health care reform law will cost $12 billion and leave a million fewer Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance in 2014, congressional researchers said Tuesday.

The report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is the first authoritative estimate of the human and fiscal cost from the administration's unexpected one-year delay announced July 2 of the employer mandate - a requirement for larger businesses to provide health coverage for their workers or pay a penalty."

Or in other words, it's not just the Republicans who are interested in delaying implementation of what Democratic Senator Max Baucus said is heading for a "huge train wreck" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/max-baucus-obamacare_n_3101801.html).

Reality? As John Lennon once stated:

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

As evidenced by Krugman's declarations concerning OWS, this Nobelist has a healthy imagination.

And we haven't even touched upon Krugman's trillion dollar coin proposal, which even Jon Stewart labeled a "stupid f#%*ing idea" (see: http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/jon_stewart_responds_to_krugman_platinum_coin_is_still_a_stupid_fcking_idea/).

But never mind, Paul. Just keep those creative juices flowing!

Frank Bruni, "America the Clueless": Not As Clueless As Obama Thinks

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "America the Clueless" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/bruni-america-the-clueless.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0), Frank Bruni bewails the desipience of Americans. Bruni concludes:

"Into the vacuum of substantive knowledge rush the unprincipled advertisements, the unctuous hucksters, the “super PACs,” the Swift boating, the Sunday-morning-talk-show spin. A clueless electorate is a corruptible one, and one that seems ill poised to make the smartest, best call about something as sweeping as Obamacare and how it gets tweaked or not down the line. Maybe we’ll blink our way to the right decisions. Or maybe we’ll just stumble around with our eyes closed."

Sunday-morning-talk-show-spin? Hmm. I suppose that's why Susan Rice appeared on a series of Sunday morning talk shows following the Benghazi assault and let it be known that the attack was the result of a "demonstration" provoked by a crude Internet video.

But why just blame poor Susan?

Hillary stated one day after the assault, "we are working to determine the precise motivations and methods of those who carried out this assault" and linked the attack to "inflammatory material posted on the Internet." At the time, Hillary knew that Ansar al Sharia, which is linked to al-Qaeda, was intimately involved in the attack on the Benghazi consulate and that the attack was unrelated to the Internet video. This baloney, of course, was followed four months later by her infamous January 23 tirade:

"With all due respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans. Whether it was because of a protest or because guys outside for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans. What difference at this point does it make?"

But why just blame poor Hillary?

In an appearance on the "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart on October 18, 2012, Obama declared:

"When a tragic event like this happens on the other side of the world, immediately a whole bunch of intelligence starts coming in and people try to piece together exactly what happened. And what I have always tried to do is to make sure we just get all the facts, figure out what went wrong, and make sure it doesn’t happen again. And we’re still in that process now. But everything we get, every piece of information we get — as we got it — we laid it out for the American people."

Needless to say, "every piece of information" was not laid out for the American people. Quite the contrary.

But why just blame poor Obama?

Frank Bruni and his fellow New York Times columnists have yet to comment upon this past week's Benghazi hearing or the Obama administration's frighteningly redacted and distorted talking points concerning the assault (http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Benghazi%20Talking%20Points%20Timeline.pdf). Let's pretend none of it happened, right?

Sorry, Frank, but Americans are not as dumb as the Obama administration thinks, and ultimately they will "get it."

Bill Keller, "Syria Is Not Iraq": American Foreign Policy Credibility Hits a New Nadir

American foreign policy credibility has never been so low, and this is not being trumpeted by the neo-con right, but rather by the progressive left.

In a recent Washington Post opinion piece entitled "When governing is seen as a game, we all lose" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-governing-is-no-game/2013/05/03/09eff90a-b406-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html), Dana Milbank wrote:

"Obama and others in his administration have used the term in reference to food marketing standards (“truly a game-changer,” said the first lady), the JOBS Act (“a potential game-changer,” said the president), AmeriCorps, childhood-obesity prevention, Title IX, digital tutors, natural gas from shale, the Internet, the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, conversations about immigration, rail improvements, cyberspace research and foreign-aid standards.

So, when the president warns Syria that chemical weapons are a game-changer, is Assad to assume that he is using the term in the childhood-obesity sense or the Medicare sense?"

A few days ago, Jon Stewart (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-30-2013/whose-line-is-it-anyway-) also poked fun at Obama's August 20, 2012 warning to Syria's Bashar al-Assad that the mere "moving around" of chemical weapons would be a "red line for us" and "that there would be enormous consequences."

As acknowledged on Saturday even by The New York Times in a lead story entitled "Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Put U.S. in Bind on Syria" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/world/middleeast/obamas-vow-on-chemical-weapons-puts-him-in-tough-spot.html?hp&_r=0):

"Confronted with evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, President Obama now finds himself in a geopolitical box, his credibility at stake with frustratingly few good options."

Oh, my goodness! Without a teleprompter, Obama didn't mean what he said? What is the poor president to do?

Meanwhile, Israel can't wait for Obama to decide, and yesterday destroyed an arsenal of advanced Fateh-110 missiles that were making their way from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, via Damascus, and a chemical weapons research facility.

Today, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Syria Is Not Iraq" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/opinion/keller-syria-is-not-iraq.html?pagewanted=all), Bill Keller seems to support the following line of action by the US:

"For starters, President Obama articulates — as he has not done — how the disintegration of Syria represents a serious danger to America’s interests and ideals. The United States moves to assert control of the arming and training of rebels — funneling weapons through the rebel Supreme Military Council, cultivating insurgents who commit to negotiating an orderly transition to a nonsectarian Syria. We make clear to President Assad that if he does not cease his campaign of terror and enter negotiations on a new order, he will pay a heavy price. When he refuses, we send missiles against his military installations until he, or more likely those around him, calculate that they should sue for peace.

All of this must be carefully choreographed and accompanied by a symphony of diplomacy to keep our allies with us and our adversaries at bay. The aim would be to eventually have a transition government, stabilized for a while by an international peacekeeping force drawn mostly from neighboring states like Turkey.

I don’t mean to make this sound easy. It might well be that the internal grievances are too deep and bitter to forestall a bloody period of reprisals. But that outcome is virtually inevitable if we stay out.

The administration is now preparing contingency plans along those lines in the event that Assad’s use of chemical weapons forces our hand. Why wait for the next atrocity?"

Surprise, surprise. Keller makes sense.

Oh, I almost forgot: Will Assad retaliate against Israel? As reported by The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Syria-will-strike-Israel-if-attacked-again-312193):

"Any further Israeli aggressions on Syrian territory would issue a "declaration of war", Syrian President Bashar Assad said, a source was reported as saying Monday in the Kuwait daily Alrai.

According to the report, Assad notified Washington via Moscow that orders had been given to allow deployed ground-to-ground and ground-to-air missile batteries to be used against Israel without advance notice in the event of another attack."

Or in other words, as you might well remember from kindergarten, "I dare you to do that one more time . . ."

Paul Krugman, "Lust for Gold": What Happened to Krugman's Magical Platinum Coin?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Lust for Gold" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/opinion/krugman-lust-for-gold.html), Paul Krugman concludes:

"But the runaway inflation that was supposed to follow reckless money-printing — inflation that the usual suspects have been declaring imminent for four years and more — keeps not happening. For a while, rising gold prices helped create some credibility for the goldbugs even as their predictions about everything else proved wrong, but now gold as an investment has turned sour, too. So will we be seeing prominent goldbugs change their views, or at least lose a lot of their followers?

I wouldn’t bet on it. In modern America, as I suggested at the beginning, everything is political; and goldbuggism, which fits so perfectly with common political prejudices, will probably continue to flourish no matter how wrong it proves."

I'm no goldbug. (You know where my money is invested.) But peculiar how Krugman has already forgotten his magical platinum coin.

In a January New York Times op-ed entitled "Coins Against Crazies" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/opinion/krugman-coins-against-crazies.html), Krugman proposed that the federal government should mint a platinum coin to eliminate Republican meddling with Obama's spending spree:

"Here’s how it would work: The Treasury would mint a platinum coin with a face value of $1 trillion (or many coins with smaller values; it doesn’t really matter). This coin would immediately be deposited at the Federal Reserve, which would credit the sum to the government’s account. And the government could then write checks against that account, continuing normal operations without issuing new debt.

. . . .

[I]t’s the president’s duty to do whatever it takes, no matter how offbeat or silly it may sound, to defuse this hostage situation. Mint that coin!"

As best explained by Jon Stewart (see: http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/jon_stewart_responds_to_krugman_platinum_coin_is_still_a_stupid_fcking_idea/), the idea of minting a trillion dollar platinum coin was a "stupid f#%*ing idea."

Gold bad, platinum good?

Four legs bad, two legs good?

Thanks once again, Paul, for the light entertainment. Now back to digging holes in my garden.

Paul Krugman, "The Dwindling Deficit": A Unicorn Felching a Centaur

Perhaps you recall my blog entry earlier this month (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/01/paul-krugman-coins-against-crazies-just.html) concerning Paul Krugman's advocacy on behalf of the US minting a trillion dollar coin. I wrote:

"Mint the coin? I'm certain world financial markets would highly appreciate this stunt, which could cause instant collapse of the American economy.

But heck, why go to the trouble of minting a platinum coin when an autographed picture of Obama, inscribed with the amount of $10 trillion, should do the trick?

Thanks, Paul. Keep those lucid ideas coming!"

Well, Jon Stewart apparently agrees with me. Instead of a one trillion coin, Stewart suggested that the US issue a 20 trillion dollar coin, or better still, a one hundred quillion dollar bill with a picture of a unicorn felching a centaur. Wounded by Stewart's taunt, Krugman accused Stewart of being "lazy," whereupon Stewart doubled down in a moment of comedic history, "It's a stupid f***ing idea" (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-14-2013/paul-krugman---the-trillion-dollar-coin).

Support for Occupy Wall Street (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html)? Trillion dollar coins? Apparently it's the stuff that makes for Nobel laureates. And not to worry: Krugman's creative juices continue to flow. In a New York Times op-ed entitled "The Dwindling Deficit" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/opinion/krugman-the-dwindling-deficit.html?_r=0), Paul tells us that we need not occupy ourselves with concern for America's long-term deficit prospects:

"Recently the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities took Congressional Budget Office projections for the next decade and updated them to take account of two major deficit-reduction actions: the spending cuts agreed to in 2011, amounting to almost $1.5 trillion over the next decade; and the roughly $600 billion in tax increases on the affluent agreed to at the beginning of this year. What the center finds is a budget outlook that, as I said, isn’t great but isn’t terrible: It projects that the ratio of debt to G.D.P., the standard measure of America’s debt position, will be only modestly higher in 2022 than it is now.

. . . .

Now, projections that run further into the future do suggest trouble, as an aging population and rising health care costs continue to push federal spending higher. But here’s a question you almost never see seriously addressed: Why, exactly, should we believe that it’s necessary, or even possible, to decide right now how we will eventually address the budget issues of the 2030s?"

Yup, why should we care that by 2037 US debt will be double GDP (see: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/230901-cbo-warns-of-grim-long-term-debt-outlook)? That's our children's problem, and there's no need now to "address the budget issues of the 2030s." Heck, you might as well cash in your retirement plans now and spend it all on new Bentleys, given that it's all so far away.

Bottom line: Come the 2030s, the US could well need to issue that one hundred quillion dollar bill with a picture of a unicorn felching a centaur.

Gail Collins, "Housebound for the Holidays": What Gail Isn't Telling You

In her Thursday New York Times op-ed, "Housebound for the Holidays" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/opinion/collins-housebound-for-the-holidays.html?_r=1&hp), Collins trots our more tripe regarding recent Republican braggadocio in the House and Senate. No mention of Romney's dog, which she will so cleverly inject into her Saturday column.

But what is missing from Collins's column? You want empty braggadocio? What about Obama's recent claim regarding his White House achievements, which was "conveniently" edited out of “60 Minutes” (see: http://ology.com/politics/ego-watch-cbs-refuses-air-obamas-claim-be-fourth-best-president-history/12202011):

“As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history."

Apparently, Obama, surrounded by flunkeys, has grown delusional. This is beyond a narcissistic personality disorder. Where is Jon Stewart when we need him?

Joe Nocera, "The Tea Party, Take Two": "Nothing Like a Good Financial Crisis to Turn You Into a Liberal"

In his latest New York Times op-ed, "The Tea Party, Take Two" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/opinion/the-tea-party-take-two.html?hp), Joe Nocera describes his liberal upbringing and apologizes for accusing Tea Party Republicans of waging "jihad on the American people" in a prior column (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/opinion/the-tea-partys-war-on-america.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss). Nocera, chagrined by this earlier apoplectic attack, explains his rant:

"Then came the financial crisis. I like to joke that there’s nothing like a good financial crisis to turn you into a liberal. But it’s not really a joke. The more I learned the back story that led to the crisis, the more horrified I became. The lack of regulation and oversight of Wall Street and the big subprime companies like Countrywide, driven by the ideology of deregulation, was thoughtless and irresponsible. The refusal of bank regulators to stop subprime abuses bordered on the criminally negligent. The unwillingness of the Obama Justice Department, even now, to hold anyone to account for their role in the crisis has been disheartening."

Unlike Nocera, appellations of liberal and conservative and attributions of good and evil do not interest me, notwithstanding my liberal upbringing. More important is a path out of the abyss.

I would also observe that absent from Nocera's laundry list of factors contributing to the crisis is the decline of antitrust regulation over the course of past decades, which, under the auspices of both liberal and conservative administrations, has also wrecked havoc upon competition and the job market (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/search/label/antitrust).

Nocera gently scolds Obama for the financial crisis:

"I still think it was terribly wrong for the Republicans to use the threat of default to insist on massive spending cuts, though President Obama also deserves blame for playing his hand so poorly. Putting on my pragmatist hat again, I also think Congress could not have chosen a worse time to rein in spending. Yes, the country’s enormous debt — and the entitlement programs that are driving the federal deficit — needs to be brought under control."

Obama could have played his hand better? Oh really? When was there ever a written budget plan from the president?

"Congress could not have chosen a worse time to rein in spending"? The real question is why didn't Obama deal with the debt ceiling months earlier. Nobody has illustrated this point better, albeit humorously, than Jon Stewart (see: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-1-2011/dealageddon----a-compromise-without-revenues).

I went to sleep last night feeling ill from the week's events - the slaughter of civilians in Syria, the downing of a helicopter in Afghanistan, the tumultuous debt ceiling debate, world economic rot - not knowing of the downgrade by Standard and Poor's of US debt, which will only add to the chaos on world markets on Monday. Will Obama, now purportedly focusing his attention on jobs, be able to turn the American economy away from the shoals? Why do I lack confidence in the Procrastinator in Chief?

But perhaps we should at least be grateful that Nocera apologized for his uncivil outburst. No such remorse has been expressed by Nicholas Kristof, who recently lumped Republicans together with al-Qaeda (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/07/nicholas-kristofs-republicans-zealots.html). Kristof's incendiary language, protected by the First Amendment but conducive of violence, doesn't belong on the op-ed page of The New York Times.