Dakota Today

** Running Scared (and voting scared) will be economically disastrous

Too many people in South Dakota and the US are drinking in the TEA PARTY poisonous brew of economic and political nonsense and candidates are exploiting that nonsense and the naive TEA partiers.  These angry ignorants may want to save America, but are generating the kind of nonsense that can lead to further social and economic disaster if they (and we) follow the plutocrat grifters who fund renewal of "Zombie Economics". Below is a review of a recent book with that title and also a summary of a column by "The Curious Capitalist" in TIME magazine.

"In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land.

The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many--members of the public, commentators, politicians, economists, and even those charged with cleaning up the mess. In Zombie Economics, John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us--and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future.

Zombie Economics takes the reader through the origins, consequences, and implosion of a system of ideas whose time has come and gone. These beliefs--that deregulation had conquered the financial cycle, that markets were always the best judge of value, that policies designed to benefit the rich made everyone better off--brought us to the brink of disaster once before, and their persistent hold on many threatens to do so again. Because these ideas will never die unless there is an alternative, Zombie Economics also looks ahead at what could replace market liberalism, arguing that a simple return to traditional Keynesian economics and the politics of the welfare state will not be enough--either to kill dead ideas, or prevent future crises.
(John Quiggin is professor of economics at the University of Queensland in Australia.)
Link to above at Princeton Press

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9270.html


The Curious Capitalist: Debt Doesn't Matter
Zachary Karabell Time Magazine November 8, 2010  page 34

Whatever the TEA Party says, we haven't mortgaged our future, We've endangered our present.

A too brief summary of a full page: Tea party candidates are screaming from the rooftops and political podiums that federal debt and spending must be drastically reduced.  Debt can be foolish and dangerous, but it can also be a powerful tool for nations when properly used.  Government by itself is not the total answer, sparkplug spending must be coupled with wised fiscal policy focused on investment.  We will not cut and slash our way to renewed prosperity.

Karbell concludes with, "If the philosophy of auterity dictates policy from now on, our children and grandchildren will not praise us for the reduced deficits we leave them; they will reproach us for refusing to mobilize our vast resources to reinvent ourselves.  But we were being  prudent, we will say. No they will reply, you were being cheap.  You were running scared.

The Tea partiers are pushing a kind of crystal math scary fear rhetoric. Don't fall for this humbug.  Don't vote for candidates like Kristi Noem.

*** Stay tuned even if Zombie Economics is not your idea of Halloween fare---- Doug Wiken

**Vote Yes on the Smoking ban..Clean up the air

On Thursday 0ct28, 2010, the ARGUS LEADER carried as its MY VOICE column a commentary on the death of his smoking friends by Bruce Hagen, a Sioux Falls chiropractor.  He concludes with support  for the smoking ban on the ballot this Tuesday which bans smoking in bars, etc.

I'm not really sure if all his statistics are absolutely correct, but suspect most are certainly in the neighborhood.  I scanned the column.  It is worth reading.  It should print out well in portrait mode on 81/2 x 11 paper.

Click on image for a larger view which should print OK.

And, recent research suggests it is not just the smoke immediately in the air that is dangerous. The smoke doesn't just disappear magically, but particles settle on surfaces and are picked up as "thirdhand" smoke.  Clothes, papers, foods, all can be contaminated and this is especially worrying as it apples to children, but also may be more serious than previously realized for adults.  See TIME November8, 2010 page 66 "New Smoke Alarm. The residue cigarette smoke leaves behind may be just as unhealthy as secondhand smoke."

Another reason to vote YES on 12 no matter what your local liquor establishments allege.

*Stay tuned, breath easy and support the smoking ban ---Doug Wiken

**What GOP Mitch O'Connell thinks is really important

US Senator Mitch McConnell, GOP leader, sounds like an old Soviet Prime Minister speaking in a secret Kremlin hideaway.

"The other day, Mitch McConnell rather candidly acknowledged that his single most important goal is to guarantee a one-term Obama presidency, and Dems will continue to pound McConnell with this interesting new Web ad set for release today:"  Washington Post Plum Line

  If you need any more evidence of the worthlessness of the Washington DC GOP leadership and ilk, you have it with Mitch McConnell.  In one sentence he has indicated he cares less for the interests of the United States and everyday working Americans than would a Kremlin spy.  The Democratic ad says it in a less inflamatory way.

Send Kristi Noem to Congress and you will be aiding and abetting the likes of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner who have done nothing beyond block and obstruct for the last two years.  These men do not deserve to drive a car on a federally-funded highway let alone pretend to run one of the three branches of the US Government if they think their most important job is to make sure Obama does not get a second term in total disregard of their constitutional duties and with flagrant disregard for the citizens of the US and the USA itself.

For Republican Senators and Congressmen to elevate the narrowest of narrow partisanship to this flagrant level is despicable.

*** Stay tuned even if I am in favor of the best interests of the USA instead of the GOP-- Doug Wiken.

 

** Wingnut right blather is like an illegal drug

Ted Nugent and Glen Beck have been out in the Rapid City area at the behest of a couple factions in the socalled TEA PARTY there.   I have read most of what got into the RC Journal story and it seems that these characters and the TEA Party are like an illegal drug.

The Beck, Nugent, TEA Party blather is crystal meth rhetoric.  It is cheap and apparently generates a druggy kind of rabid enthusiasm and makes their brains fall out. (Note, if you want to see the real dangers of actual crystal meth )

A cartoon that sort of sums up the incredible inconsistencies and irrelevancy of these wingnut loons was in the ARGUS a day or two ago.

It can be found at  Matt Davies  "Oh Chute"

I really don't know if these loons understand how their propaganda rings so hollowly or irrelevantly or they just don't care since the perceive it as attacking  Obama, Pelosi, and Democrats and that means irrelevancy, lack of logic, ignorance of reality, history, and facts are not seen as problems.

)))) Stay tuned (but not tuned up) --- Doug Wiken

*** Wind and chill factor

The wind blowing right now here in Winner, SD is dreadful or on the edge of it.  Temp is indicated to be around 50 but with 45 mph wind, the ends up with a "feels like" temperature of around 34 F degrees.  Apparently this kind of wind is supposed to continue until around 7AM tommorrow.

Obviously, this wind is not generated by all the political hot air emanating from the mostly non-informative, nearly fact free TV ads that bring a flood of sewage to TV in South Dakota.

Both Kristi Noem's and Stephanie Herselth's ads are mostly aimed only at fluffy attitudes.  The most peculiarly obnoxious irrelevant ad however comes from GOP candidate Jason Gant candidate for SD State Treasurer.  Gant's fear campaign focuses on preventing the federal takeover of SD Voter lists.  I am just so glad we can now fear another evil federal takeover of records that have already been sold to candidates, political parties, nd probably businesses for all I know.

One of my neighbors suggested that this is just another fat GOP guy looking for a job he can convert into a soft easy chair position. 

Gant is just one more indicator of the vast emptiness of the not-so modern GOP.

*** Stay tuned for better weather and in about a week, a whole lot less hot air--- Doug Wiken

*** There is no D.C. GOP "Mainstream"

Now that some state Republican Parties are saddled with extremist frenetic fringe candidates like Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angle, Kristi Noem, et al., we are hearing political commentators explaining that these extreme candidates are not in the GOP "Mainstream".

Well, for the past few years there has been no GOP "Mainstream" in Washington.  Instead, the DC GOP is a shallow, stagnant, backwater pool of unworkable failed ideological mythology.  Bush/Boehner/McConnell and their to- hell- with-America narrow partisan nihalistic gridlock obstructionism presented in the name of GOP mythology but actually in the very narrow partisan interest of re-election has not worked, did not work, and will not work to get workers and jobs on track again.

We are also hearing the tired old mythology of local control as a solution for huge national problems.  The Bush/Boehner economic, financial, housing, and jobs crash had a national source and is thus  a national problem and requires a national solution with government large enough and powerful enough to counter-act narrow special interests intent only on short-term gains.

The NO, NO block voting by the Republicans in Congress demonstrates a total lack of concern for the future of the USA.  It demonstrates only a desire to get partisan control by making it appear as if Obama, Pelosi, et al have somehow failed.   Too many Americans seem oblivious to the destructive nature of the GOP fallacious stagnation mythology and how that obstinate obstructionism has delayed recovery..

Republicans prior to Watergate and Richard (I am not a crook) Nixon campaigned on their virtue, morality and good government mythology rather than on any kind of programmatic and pragmatic sensible working government.   Nixon's excesses made even that bit of GOP mythology a steaming pile of hypocrisy.   Not only has it become a stagnant pool of mythology, but it is also a huge empty bag.   Despite a huge flood of right-wing propaganda, the GOP stands for nothing rational  or useful except re-elect us.

The USA may be rich and powerful, but we cannot afford to again  turn control over to the hypocritical tools of stagnation and gridlock obstructionism in know-nothing blind anger against imagined big government, totalitarianism, and some blind acceptance of all the other humbug spewed by the rich right-wing mythology mills.

** Stay tuned for even better aliteration than "shallow, stagnant" --- Doug Wiken

**More on Noem's $Gnomes and boilerplate GOP mythology TV Ads

When political parties have truly mediocre candidates, they hope to overwhelm competence and good records with a flood of TV commercials.  The GOP has Kristi Noem. 

Noem seems unable to put a hundred words together without gross inconsistencies.  As the Herseth-Sandlin TV ad indicates, you cannot logically be solidly in favor of balanced budges and then oppose taxes on the very, very richest who benefit the most from lax regulations and often outright government assistance .  Nor can you logically rail against the federal stimulus and also vote for using those same stimulus funds to keep SD State government afloat. with bailout money.

Now, we hear that Bob Perry, who bankrolled the smears and lies of 2004, wrote a check for seven million bucks (yes $7,000,000) to Karl Rove's shadowy American Crossroads, the guys who are pouring tens of millions of dollars into ads to destroy Democrats across the country with  lies and irrelevancy.   Almost all this nearly anonymous invisible money is not intent on buying good government, they are interested in using Rove's fear and smear attacks and tactics to maintainin  grid lock, obstruction, and partisan nihalism by the Washington GOP establishment of John Boehner..

So, we get TV ads from Kristi Noem and her Noem Gnome supporters that contain nothing of substance ot truth and are all fact-free attacks on Herseth-Sandlin, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama.  These ads claim that the stimulus saved no jobs or created no jobs.  Even Republican economists have stated that another 8,000,000 or more jobs would have been lost without the stimulus funds and the TARP funds (most of which have now already been repaid or collateralized).

Last night (October 20, 2010) on the Charlie Rose show, Nancy Pelosi again demonstrated that she is neither a fool nor devil nor  monster, nor ogre, nor shrew.  One of the facts she presented is that more jobs have opened up in the last few months than in all the eight years of the Bush Administration.  Rose wondered why this information wasn't known by many voters.  Pelosi was too polite.  She agreed that coupled with the 9% unemployment they inherited and with relatively poor presentation of their points, a lot of people just have fear and bad information.   Pelosi might have mentined that our large corporate media outlets continue to spew the idea that Obama has failed, Pelosi has failed, etc. and give coverage to wingnut loons out of touch with the real world in a nightmare world of GOP mythology.

We also have members of the press unwilling to mention the contribution of the pernicious Bush administration to the current mess.  This failure makes the wingnut right blather seem almost relevant.  Couple that with outright lies and gross distortion and even mediocre candidates like Kristi Noem seem like plausible candidates to some. The US must never again have a government run by a President like George Bush who with Cheney ran a government of secrecy, moral and ethical corruption, and incredible waste all under cover of secrecy and the idea of an imperial unitary presidency immune from legislative or judicial control.

Much as Herseth-Sandlin's pandering to the right irritates me, her election is one of the critical parts necessary to prevent the GOP party of John Behner from blocking progress with a policy of No, No nihalism and destructive obstruction or from returning to the devastating, ruinous borrow and squander policies of the Bush years with bankrupt industry and a dead financial sector.. 

Our country and economy will suffer devastation if the huge banks and brokers too big to fail get free rein from another rotten crop of Republicans wedded to failed mythology.

** Stay tuned for more on the Kristi TV fog and the Noem Gnomes who support her ilk--- Doug Wiken

**Another Krazy Kristi TV ad

The frantic frentic fringes in the TEA "Party" seem unable to put together even a few hundred words full of their irrelevant cant and mythology without having several internal inconsistencies that turn a few irrelevancies that each appear to have some plausible sense into a nonsense stew of contradiction..

Kristi Noem has done it too and finally Herseth-Sandlin has a TV ad pointing out those Noem absurd combinations of incompatible myths and outright lies.

But Kristi Noem's own TV ad leads us in an interesting direction.  It starts off something like "Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin rates Obama a C+ for his performance.  If that rates a C, I'd hate to see an F".  That conclusion seems to make no sense ..or sense only in a juvenile sophomoric irrelevant way.

But, Kristi actually has seen an F performance but the GOP selective amnesia isn't rememberiing the F-rated pernicious presidency of the Texas Twit George Bush, Jr. 

The vicious attacks and demonization, vilification, and denigration of Nancy Pelosi (and Obama) is a lot of assertions with no real facts..just one attack phrase after another.  To make that nonsense even seem to work, we have to forget about the 8 years of the Bush pernicious presidency.

The general press fixation on irrelevancy and nonsensical "balance" leads us to stuff like this from Kevin Woster at Mt. Blogmore tossing rose petals to Barb Lindgren:

Spear:There was plenty of irrational hatred and comments reflecting it directed at George Bush. I killed some of it personally when it was submitted to Blogmore. Some people can’t give up the Bush hatred, even though he has gone off to Texas pretty much to mind his own business. But I don’t recall liberals using the kind of very disturbing and potentially threatening gun-related rhetoric sometimes see and here from some of whom we might call extremist conservatives today. Nugent seems to promote that while Barb Lindberg and others, to their credit, have tried to keep it out of their rallies and rhetoric. K.W.

So,  8 years of  government screwup, deceit, and ass-covering secrecy from the Bush-Cheney imperial "unitary" presidency should be forgotten because he is now in Texas?  Or, should we  forget it because the no-brain no-facts attacks on Obama's "failure" to get the two wars and totally solve the financial and job crash consequent to Bush pernicious policies make no sense without this kind of intentional press and political amnesia?  The Bush apologists have tried to paint every criticism of him as being based on some imagined "liberal hatred". A whole book of Bush apologia has already been published by some conservative hack press. 

Perhaps journalists, columnists, and editors might assume that at least some  liberals too love and respect their country and are critical of nonsense mythology and phony "history" for those reasons rather than some kind of "hatred".  I have no idea if some conservative or columnist has hatred in his or her heart just as they have no idea if a liberal or progressive has hatred in his or her heart.

Anyway, just for the fun of it, here is some information on the Texas Twit, Junior George Bush.  The people of Crawford aren't singing "Hey there Georgie Boy" anymore.

Nice weather in Crawford, Texas

Not that it makes much difference to the much esteemed and beloved (at least in the hallowed halls of the Rapid City Journal) Junior President Bush  who used the ranch there
as pure political theater.
  Political Theater folds up at the Bush "Ranch"

No sense lazing around the boondocks when all your good oil and sports industry friends are in a nicer neighborhood just waiting with bated breath for your book.
The Bush Homeplace in Ritzy Oil, Insurance, Sports and Banking Executive Neighborhood

But, let us forget about Bush for a minute and think about the TEA "Party" similarities to segregationist DixieCrat arguments when they walked out on Hubert Humphrey at the Democratic Convention  saying things like civil rights laws will bring totalitarianism to America.  Guess that was wrong then,  but that sure anticipated the mythology and nonsense of the Tea "Party" partisans and their press apologists practicing or tolerating Karl Rove's fear and smear tactics..

** Stay tuned for more on political theater of the too rich and too famous--- Doug Wiken.

**What happened to those thousands of Dakotaland TeaBaggers?

The Rapid City Journal and Kevin Woster have been giving the Rapid City TEA "party" a lot of favorable coverage as if this radical fringe group is really something significant even though the push behind the whole works appears to have been by money dumped into find-sounding think tanks and pseudo institutions by Koch Industries and other narrow special interests keeping about 50 libertarian political operatives stirring for about 5 years..

Despite all the RC Journal hype, the recent visit to Rapid City by  rabid entertainer and gun nut Ted Nugent drew a huge crowd of ..well, something like 250 people.  Even though a small mall business sale might bring out twice that number, it got a chunk of coverage in the Journal. And as if that weren't enough, a page or two with huge photos on Nugent hunting pheasants near Oral, SD graced the Journal pages .(Just noticed too that the ticket prices for the upcoming TEA PARTY extra special slurry with the fringe on it GLEN BECK are being cut in advance by some fat cat's subsidization donation...Maybe the Ted Nugent tea party size turnout sent a message?)

Recently, a question was raised  during  an SDPB Midday forum why so much TEA Party activism in Rapid City and not in the rest of South Dakota?  One might suggest that if there was any such irrelevant minor fringe political activity elsewhere, it wasn't taken all that seriously by news organizations elsewhere.

And, lest you think the loud small turnout was an anomoly of the moon phases or some such, consider the news from North Dakota.

From "Teabagger Rally A Flop
Written by Chet  Saturday, 16 October 2010
If you're following along, North Dakota Democrats can put together a crowd of 150 to 200 in 48 hours (and the Bismarck Tribune doesn't even send a reporter to the event), and teabaggers spend 4 weeks organizing the "largest teabagger rally in the midwest" and they can't get more than 400 people there?  

Watch the shamelessly right-wing Bismarck Tribune make this lightly-attended teabagger event a front page story on Sunday.  Watch the fact-challenged right-wing blogosphere and their wide-angle lens-shooting, photo-shop expert photographer pump the numbers up, too.  I'm predicting they'll say there were 2,000 people there.  What the hey; maybe 3,000.  

Maybe North Dakota's teabaggers peaked a little too early.

From North Decoder story Teabagger Rally a Flop

Link as text: http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Teabagger-Rally-A-Flop.html

The sky-is-falling nonsense from the TEA Baggers indicating the US has drifted into Tyranny and Socialism or as Ted Nugent apparently said , fell under control of monsters like Obama sucking us into a totalitarian state, etc. etc with even more mythology all has an unfortunate similarity to such exaggeration and fear mongering of the past-- about 62 years ago.

Today, SDPTV on the "World Channel" had a bit of history on Hubert Horatio Humphrey.  In that documentary , his impassioned speech for civil rights to the Democratic Convention which caused the "Dixiecrats" to stomp out but which also received 10 solid minutes of applause  was recounted.

That was followed by video of  one of the Southern segregationists rabble-rousing speech in later campaigns in the South where they were fear mongering with predictions of imminent "totalitarianism" following any civil rights legislation.

Despite those fear mongering speeches, the US survived without falling off some totalitarian precipice.  Similar or near identical fear-mongering language from the TEA party fringers today is just as much nonsense and equally irrelevant.

Why a Democrat like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin appears to pander to these fringes which will never, ever vote for her or any other Democrat remains a mystery to me since such pandering irritates real Democrats who might work for her otherwise.  Why she fails to attack the factless and mindless demonisation of Nancy Pelosi also annoys me and I also suspect many of the women who understand the sexist nature of such attacks.

A political reporter last night on Charlie Rose show suggested that he did not think the Republican Party in DC could continue its NO, NO nihalism and obstructionism if they did get into control...at least for the sake of the USA, he hoped not.

I don't know about that hope either, but let us not give the wild rightwing tiny fringes any hope for the NO,NO Party to get control. Hold our noses and vote for Herseth-Sandlin. Kristi Noem is carrier of the NO, NO nihalism nonsense disease that afflicts GOP leader Boehner.

*** Stay tuned even if the fringe reception is loaded with static --- Doug Wiken

**Handy add on for Mozilla Firefox...Morning Coffee

PC World magazine mentioned an addon for Mozilla Firefox that appears to be handy.  It puts a coffee cup icon on the Firefox toolbar.  When you are viewing a website, you can click on the icon and one option will  be "Add to my Morning Coffee"

Clicking on the Coffee Cup down arrow will allow you to add the current link to Morning Coffee for daily link, once a week, weekends only, etc. 

Click on image for a larger version

Then, after adding links you often check on, you can click on the Morning Coffee icon and an option will be to open links for the day in a toolbar.  The idea is that if you routinely check a number of links regularly, you can have them like the morning paper with your morning cup of coffee.

Download Morning Coffee Or find more info

Now, you can have all those good South Dakota blogs handy once you have them added to your Morning Coffee.

** Stay tuned but you won't find much of the TV ads the $100s of millions of corporate cash have bought for Rabid Dog Republican Candidates--- Doug Wiken