Sullivan asks: Why Don’t We Resent Steve Jobs’ Wealth? It’s not the wealth, people resent. It’s that wealth, not virtue is the pass/fail deciding factor in life or death situations. Like say, gaming the liver transplant waiting list:

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, 15,771 people are currently waiting for a liver in the United States. Last year, 1,481 people died waiting for a donor liver, almost all of which come from the recently deceased. The national average waiting time for a transplant is about a year, but it can average as little as a few months at some centers, organ experts said.

Paschke said UNOS requires transplant centers to encourage patients to do “multiple listings” at transplant centers in multiple geographic areas to increase the odds of being matched to a liver. The only catch, Paschke said, is that health insurance policies often cover only one medical evaluation to get on one transplant center list. Most people simply don’t have the money to pay for multiple extensive evaluations at far-flung locations.

In Arizona, it seems you just don’t even get a chance to get a new liver without 200K in cold hard cash on hand. So yea, I resent the fact that you can work hard all your life, do the right things, be a generally good person and die not because a treatment wasn’t available or experimental and unproven, but because the treatment was way too expensive.

Jared Bernstein runs downs Facts and Fixes about the New Deal program that allows many Americans to retire with some diginity

Facts:

Average benefits are […] around $1.2K/month or $14K/yr.

[…]

For more than half (55 percent) of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security provides the majority of their cash income. For one-quarter (26 percent), it provides nearly all (more than 90 percent) of their income.

Dependence on Social Security increases with age…among those aged 80 or older, Social Security provides the majority of family income for 64 percent of beneficiaries and nearly all of the income for 33 percent of beneficiaries.

Absent their Soc Sec income, the poverty rate among elderly would be 45%–including Soc Sec benefits, it’s 10%.[…]

When you hear folks talking about how entitlement spending is unsustainable, make sure they’re not including Soc Sec.[…]

Can’t afford it?? Long term shortfall—75 years—amounts to 0.8% of GDP—that’s the revenue from the expiration of the highend Bush tax cuts! […] […]

But isn’t…Soc Sec going broke? Terrible misinformation campaign. Full benefits can be paid through 2036, at which point trust fund is exhausted…but of course, payments still coming into system…at that point, Soc Sec can pay 75% of scheduled benefits. Most people think that number is zero!!

Go Read the rest.

Just a quick reminder (courtesy Calculated Risk).

Rick Perry just said “the quake was the lord sayin’ we gotta shake things up in Washington”. Michelle Bachmann said it was Khaddaffi diggin’ a hole to Washington because Obama hadn’t done enough to end his regime and let him slip through the Rebel/NATO forces clutches. Kidding, until they really say it.

Harold Ford said a thing that was mostly correct on Morning Joe today: Democrats get hammered every summer.

We liberals are just going to have cold summers. The Luntz talking point parade starts every spring and rolls into August. By the time football pre-season is here, Dems feel like the sky is falling. Obama is a celebrity. Health Care is death panels and government takeover. We don’t need revenues.

We (professional left, rank and file Democrats and MSNBC watchers) just have to get used to it and make spring to summer local politics/liberal activist season. Every year. Do summer like Wisconsin.

With that, I think everyone who has been complaining all week may want to check his speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan today. He’s back on it.

Pundits: “He should call Congress back to Washington”

Two term Governor John Corzine and Senator Harold Ford wanted Obama to call congress back in session. As if he would look strong if he said “get back here” and then Boehner and McConnell just ignore him.

Obama is past that. As he crosses the nation, bet you he will be focusing on jobs. Jobs. jobs.

“You voted for a divided government, not a do nothing government”

In his speech he said elected officials need to get out of Washington and go listen to voters and come back and get ready to pass some jobs bills. Obama is using the people as the lever against the GOP: look petty or come to Washington and get things done..

“These are things I already proposed”

Obama is about to go on a jobs bus tour and tout his jobs initiative while the GOP is weak in the polls after the debt deal nonsense. The fall is coming.

Even without taking the state Senate, Wisconsin was huge. If all Democrats hold against recall, that means the GOP has lost ground in two deep red districts and gained nothing from chopping out bargaining rights against public union members. The districts the 2 Dems won were long time GOP strongholds and not representative of WI at large. Those people who say this bodes poorly for Dems are wrong. These Dems won districts in this labor driven recall 2011 that they lost in 2008. Think I’m wrong? Look how Scott Walker who was my way or the high way prior to the recall is now trying to “reach out” to Dems and using conciliatory language. Walker knows a few things:

• WI labor is organized and bolstered by people who will never vote for him again
• Republicans lost ground in two red districts
• Labor will try recall to recall him in 2012 and he loses without those districts he won in 2010

Riots are senseless, explosions of violent anger around some grievance (however frivolous or vital) that topple communities into destructive chaos. Regardless, people in the media and government quite often miss the point.

My people did it without mob violence

Not always. Andrew Sullivan links to Sarah Carr, an Egyptian/British blogger who does not understand why “protestors” would riot to protest an unlawful murder. Also, Sully links to a tweet by Egyptian Mosaa Berizing:

Egyptians and Tunisians took revenge for Khaled Said and Bouazizi by peacefully toppling their murdering regimes, not stealing DVD players.

Twitter / @mosaaberizing: Egyptians and Tunisians to …

Egyptians rioted for the purpose of being anti-Algerian Football during the 2009 FIFA World Cup. Egyptians rioted in 2008 Bread Riots due to grain shortages. And they rioted to protest congestion in the traffic riots in 2000 protesting deaths of drivers and riders due dangerous road conditions for the poor. And even a riot when police accidentally killed a man in 2008. Not as widespread, but violent and senseless nonetheless.

So to be sure, Egyptians (like all people) have very well demonstrated the capacity to “take revenge” in the best and worst ways.

Rioters make your people look bad

Groups of black teens (from as young as age 11 to early 20s) have violently attacked pedestrians in flash mobs in Philly this summer (video of one of the awful attacks here). The Mayor, DA and Police Chief are coordinating a large response including curfews for kids, added patrols and a DA focus on this type of violence. Mayor Nutter was livid, during a speech and some other pressers, among some policy suggestions and righteous disappointment, he sprinkled in some unfortunate quack sociology. Annette John-Hall dissects the mayors rhetoric:

And the mayor wasn’t finished. At a City Hall news conference Monday, he told a small group of reporters, “I don’t care what your economic status is in life, you do not have a right to beat someone’s ass on the street.”

We can deal with the public tongue-lashing, even if his intended targets were nowhere to be found among the law-abiding churchgoers in their Sunday best. But what really bothered me was when Nutter fired the age-old salvo that has historically evoked head-hanging shame among black folks:

“You’ve damaged yourself,” the mayor accused. “You’ve damaged your peers, and, quite honestly, you’ve damaged your own race.”

There, he said it.

In a way that his white constituents would hear him loud and clear. At that point, he wasn’t talking to black people anymore.

[…]

Nutter expressed in no uncertain terms the sentiment that so often shackles black people – that the unlawful actions of a few smear everyone else.

via Annette John-Hall: In admonishing teen mobs, Nutter pulls out shame-game shackle | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/09/2011

These thugs discredited themselves. That’s it. It’s why they will be charged for the crimes when they are caught. What Nutter is signifying is some responsibility among all black people for the actions of these few. Just like if these kids were straight A students, it wouldn’t have anything

The Mob is the story

Darcus Howe, is a writer and broadcaster who is a 68 year old emigrant from Trinidad & Tobago who has been in London for over 50 years talks about why the shooting of the young man was a flash point that sparked the riots. At no point does he condone them. But he does explain the initial source of anger. He’s kind of the perfect subject to interview because he is a journalist, and he talks about issues in his community from his earlier years to today. Unfortunately, he is basically talking to a news anchor that fails to report news and instead is looking to justify an opinion. The common pathology in these communities that have carried this violence throughout the country.

Whenever there is a setback to a Democratic Administration, there is a tendency to unfavorably contrast Obama to caricatures of FDR. Or LBJ. Or JFK. Or Bill Clinton. Each and every pundit starts their Democratic Presidents Fantasy League (DPFL) emerges where past presidents and then Democratic parties of their time are no longer empirically judged and never lose points for betraying the liberals of their time. On top of that, they receive bonus points for wielding the power of mythical Excalibur of US Presidential politics: the “bully pulpit”. Drew Westen started the NYT DPFL using a Bedtime Stories Told Scoring System which ignores the role race plays in the Obama presidency and gives big points for stories a president tells. The harsh reality is storytelling doesn’t really convince the public you’re right and only certain parts of the Democratic party are really hearing your stories from a liberal point of view:

“Back in 1984, just 26 percent of the people voting Democratic for Congress said they were liberals. . .that fraction has now risen to 41 percent.”

These numbers explain a lot. John Boehner governs like a guy who speaks for Republican voters who are 67 percent conservative. Obama governs like a guy who speaks for voters who are just 41 percent liberal.

So Westen’s scoring is skewed. Why? The ideological makeup of the Democratic party is (and has been) mostly moderates, a lot of liberals, and a solid minority of conservatives. The moderates and conservatives who are Democrats may not respond to the liberal narrative Westen feels we Democrats (who he equates with liberals) need to hear.

Cornel West, has started a DPFL using the FDR Scoring System:

It was a chat that found West imparting wisdom about the critical importance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) Works Projects Administration (WPA) as an example from which America could be learning. He also provided some illumination as to why Obama has not chosen the course of reigniting FDR’s grand civic plan in a way that is appropriately nuanced for today.

Well, it seems FDR wasn’t the liberal invincible bully pulpit angel everyone makes him out to be. In 1938, some of his New Deal passed between 1933 and 1936, was repealed or weakened by a wave of Republicans and Conservative Democrats who (surprise) voted together to repeal or strike down some of his liberal policies in coming years.

In the hard-fought 1938 congressional elections, the Republicans scored major gains in both houses, picking up six Senate seats and 80 House seats. Thereafter the conservative Democrats and Republicans in both Houses of Congress would often vote together on major economic issues, thus defeating many proposals by liberal Democrats.^[2] A handful of liberal measures, notably the minimum wage laws, did pass when the Conservative Coalition split.

Liberals should remember, the Democratic Party and FDR were very much leaders of their time, not ours. US Olympic Legend, Jesse Owens, harbored no love for FDR or Truman. And FDR and Truman’s snub of Owens seems a bit more substantial than Obama’s imagined snub of West.

[Jesse] Owens said, “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”^[13] On the other hand, Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself.^[14] Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor were honors bestowed upon him by president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or his successor Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower honored Owens by naming him an “Ambassador of Sports.”

And there’s more:

Although northern white liberals were theoretically sympathetic to the plight of African Americans, Poole says, their primary aim was to save the American economy by salvaging the pride of America’s “essential” white male industrial workers. The liberal framers of the Social Security Act elevated the status of Unemployment Insurance and Social Security–and the white workers they were designed to serve–by differentiating them from welfare programs, which served black workers.

Not only FDR, but liberals were not liberal for enough to Jesse Owens or black workers of FDR’s time. And in fact members of the left in FDR’s time weren’t too hype on the New Deal, contrary to Westen’s assertions. The country’s government can work better, the administration can work better, but while comparing Obama to previous Democratic POTUS’s we should be careful not to re-invent predecessors or imagine a US government that never existed.

They all had their warts, and no Democratic President was or will be at the very left of their governing coalitions and significant valuable progress was still made by each, including Presidents FDR and Obama. But they are both Democrats.

For being President during the worst economy since the depression, he’s holding strong with liberal support. The public favors Obama after the debt ceiling debate.

The sky is dark, but it’s not falling.

Good.

Tottenham and Brixton Riots are ragin

• 27 people have been charged so far. Of those:
• 17 charged with burglary (non-dwelling)
• 5 charged with violent disorder
• 3 charged with theft
• 1 for going equipped
• 1 for proceeds of crime act offences
• 2 cautioned
• 23 bailed
• 136 people are still in custody at this time

via Metropolitan Police arrests for the London riots, the key data | News | guardian.co.uk.

There is a special tragic awfulness to riots that erupt from people consumed with anger for injustices unacknowledged and grievances unheard. Such violent outbreaks are almost always met with a blunted, heavy handed justice that far outlasts the riot and quite often births more injustice.

For now, FAA employees will go back to work Monday

This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain.
via Over (For Now) | Talking Points Memo.

13 rural airports will lose funding.

In the middle of vacation season, the GOP insists on not fully funding the FAA which licenses pilots, controls air traffic and inspects the fitness of passenger aircraft. 20 times the FAA has gotten short term extensions.

While the scale of disruption from an FAA shutdown paled in comparison to the global repercussions of a potential U.S. debt default, the aviation fallout was not trivial and may carry political consequences if not resolved soon.

The FAA has issued stop work orders for 241 airport construction projects worth nearly $11 billion, officials said.

“We have the best aviation system in the world,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a conference call with reporters. “This is no way to run it.”

LaHood said FAA air traffic operations were not affected and aircraft safety programs remain in place.

The Obama administration estimates the shutdown has thrown more than 70,000 people out of work since July 22 when the FAA’s latest temporary funding authorization expired.

Many are in construction-related jobs, a sector where unemployment tops 15 percent. Starting on Thursday, those workers may begin showing up in a federal report of people claiming unemployment benefits.

WINDFALL FOR AIRLINES

Nearly 4,000 FAA employees have been furloughed and dozens of inspectors who oversee airport safety standards are working without pay, agency officials said.

Some airports are turning to letters of credit, reserves and commercial paper to keep projects going. Smaller airports may have credit problems and less financial flexibility, given their heavy dependence on federal funds, Fitch Ratings said.

Adding to the discontent from the administration and other quarters, airlines have profited handsomely from the shutdown. Political inaction on the temporary spending measure allowed them to drop certain ticket taxes 11 days ago.

Carriers including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines and US Airways raised fares to match the amount of money passengers no longer had to pay in taxes, bringing in a $250 million windfall.

via Senate Fails To End Partial FAA Shutdown | TPM News Pages.

We are supposed to support tax breaks for Delta, United, American and US Airways so they can create more jobs, yet they actively lobby for less job security for FAA workers and all the airport improvement funded by the FAA. great.

Remember House Blue Dog Caucus Whip Heath Shuler challenged Pelosi’s run for House Minority Leader because she wasn’t in tune with Tea Baggers like he was or conservative enough for him or something:

SEABROOK: Well, Heath Shuler has announced that he will, in fact, run against her if no one else does, and he’s one of those conservative Democrat blue dogs. But remember, their numbers have been decimated, and the numbers just don’t add up to someone like Heath Shuler winning over Nancy Pelosi. It’s more or less a protest run.

And, you know, I mean, there are a lot of people in that vein who think, well, if she just lost, if we just lost our majority under her leadership, why should she still be the leader? And, again, she has been vilified by moderates. She has been run against in a lot of districts across the country, but not the places where there’s still Democrats in the seats.

via Pelosi Brushes Aside Democrat Calls To Step Down : NPR.

Turns out Minority Leader Pelosi was key to the debt deal passing the house. Even with a deal in the bag to keep the US from default, Boehner, Cantor and friends hadn’t whipped any votes and were about to let the US default anyway…

The speaker, as it turned out, did not have enough Republican votes to pass the bill—only 174—and he had made no arrangement to guarantee its success. When there were minutes left for the vote, and it became apparent that Boehner would fall far short of the 216 votes necessary for passage, Pelosi’s Democrats began voting in favor of the measure. “We were not going to let it go down,” she told a small group of journalists on Wednesday morning.

[…]

Yet when the final dramatic vote arrived, Pelosi was surprised that Boehner was so short of the magic 216. “When they didn’t come to us for votes,” Pelosi recalls, “we thought they had the votes on their own.”

But Boehner didn’t. So the Democrats, having waited to see how many Republicans would back the measure, started filling in the gap. Pelosi didn’t have to send any signal. Her Democrats, she says, are a “sophisticated” group, and they could see that without Democratic support the bill would fail.

via How Pelosi Saved Boehner’s You-Know-What | Mother Jones.

Pelosi is really working with the unbelievably inept.