The Daily Parker

Paul Krugman has a more considered view of Rubio's blame-game:

Look, this is one of the most thoroughly researched topics out there, and every piece of the government-did-it thesis has been refuted; see Mike Konczal for a summary. No, the CRA wasn’t responsible for the epidemic of bad lending; no, Fannie and Freddie didn’t cause the housing bubble; no, the “high-risk” loans of the GSEs weren’t remotely as risky as subprime.

This strikes me as a bigger deal than whether Rubio slurped his water; he and his party are now committed to the belief that their pre-crisis doctrine was perfect, that there are no lessons from the worst financial crisis in three generations except that we should have even less regulation. And given another shot at power, they’ll test that thesis by giving the bankers a chance to do it all over again.

For several practical reasons, not least of which that I needed to finish some work I didn't have time to do in Vancouver, I listened to Sen. Marco Rubio's State of the Union response instead of watching it. Missing, I suppose, a good helping of his personal charisma, and going solely on the content of his speech, I have to conclude he and I live in different countries.

Where do I begin?

How about where Senator Rubio began: his first four sentences. I have no objection to "Good evening" or "I'm Marco Rubio" (though I did hear, in my mind's ear, "Polo"). Sentence three: "I'm blessed to represent Florida in the United States Senate." That, to me, is a curious reading of the first and seventeenth amendments. But I'll overlook it for now.

Sentence four: "Let me begin by congratulating President Obama on the start of his second term."

Oh, wait. That sentence is only in the prepared remarks. He didn't actually read it out loud. Why? one wonders.

Look, I'm tired, I woke up today in a foreign country, and I only have one Loonie in my pocket to spend right now against the 277 loonies in Congress. So let me jump ahead to the part of Rubio's speech that made me shout obscenities:

This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies.

Which policies in particular? Two unfunded wars? The dissipation of a $500 billion budget surplus in four years? The draconian immigration laws—which he, as the child of Cubans, never had to experience because of our anti-Castro policies—that have dissuaded millions of able bodies and minds from coming to the U.S.? Or maybe, more pointedly, the small-government fantasies of a senile Federal Reserve chairman who admitted, two years after the disaster he created had put tens of millions of people out of work, had caused the organization he chaired to fail completely to meet its mandate for managing unemployment?

The three most-likely possibilities why Rubio's speech had no connection with reality are these: first, he believes he has to win over the dead-end, right-wing faction of his party (who constitute a compelling majority of it) in order to run for president; second, because he truly believes what he said, which bodes ill for his understanding of the reality-based community most people inhabit; or third, because his time machine malfunctioned, and he read his party's 1976 convention speech by mistake.

"[A] housing crisis created by reckless government policies." I'm agog. I'm out of analogies. What analogy could possibly encompass the chutzpah—mendacity?—of that line? "Mom, I crashed the car, so I blame you for not getting me to school on time." "Doctor, I shot myself in the liver, so I'll blame you if I die."

And that's just one line, near the beginning.

I'm done for the day, though. Tomorrow, after I've slept on it, I'll comment on the best State of the Union address a Republican has given in my lifetime.

Taking a brief rest from my temporary insanity, I read Sullivan:

Someone in the GOP needs to take Bush-Cheney apart, to show how they created the debt crisis we are in, by throwing away a surplus on unaffordable tax cuts, launching two unfunded wars, and one new unfunded entitlement. They need to take on the war crimes that has deeply undermined the soul of the United States. They need to note the catastrophic negligence that gave us the worst national security lapse since Pearl Harbor (9/11) despite being warned explicitly in advance, accept weak and false intelligence to launch a war they were too incompetent to fight or win, sat back as one of the worst hurricanes all but took out a major city, and was so negligent in bank regulation that we ended up with Lehman and all that subsequently took place.

These were not minor errors. They were catastrophic misjudgments which took an era of peace, surplus and prosperity and replaced it with a dystopia of massive debt, a lawless executive branch, two unwinnable wars, and a record of war crimes that had their source in the very Oval Office.

That seems about right to me.

This is alarming:

A new and worrisome benchmark has been reached with the announcement Tuesday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Lakes Michigan and Huron have dipped to new record lows. It’s been a 14 year journey. That’s how long water levels have been below historic averages--the most extended run of below normal water levels in the 95 year record of Great Lakes dating back to 1918.

The numbers are as stunning as they are disturbing with serious implications to shipping interests, all manner of creatures which populate the lakes, plus the millions who enjoy these natural treasures recreationally and depend on them as a source of water.

Water levels have fallen 1.9 m from the record highs established in October 1986 and currently sit at levels 735 mm below the long term average. Lake Michigan's water level is 430 mm lower than a year ago

We're getting more precipitation than we have in a while, but it hasn't been enough to end the drought. And because of dredging near Detroit, the lakes are emptying faster than ever right now.

The UK's Conservative government has passed a marriage equality bill by 400 to 175:

[UK Prime Minister David] Cameron, who described gay marriage as “an important step forward for our country”, smiled broadly as the result was revealed. [Deputy PM] Nick Clegg called the vote “a landmark for equality in Britain”. [Opposition leader] Ed Miliband said it was “a proud day”.

However, the details of the vote quickly showed that Mr Cameron’s decision to push through the legislation has left him in a minority within his own party over the issue.

The result followed a debate in which several gay MPs made impassioned arguments for the change in the law. Mike Freer, the Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green, appealed directly to his party colleagues over the vote, declaring: “I am not asking for special treatment. I am simply asking for equal treatment.”

The United Kingdom has a state church and a right-leaning government. The U.S. has a constitutional prohibition against a state church and has a left-leaning government. Yet the UK passed marriage equality before most legislatures in the U.S.

I remember fondly when the U.S. was a beacon of freedom and tolerance in the world. Maybe it will be again, someday.

I'll be a lot less busy in March, they tell me. Meanwhile, here are some things I want to read:

• The Atlantic Cities blog has an analysis of class in Chicago by census tract.
• Seth Godin doesn't like airports, because they're organizationally horrible. Best bit: "There are plenty of potential bad surprises, but no good ones."
• Liz Keogh advocates Behavior-Driven Development as a new way of looking at Test-Driven Development.

I will get to them...soon...

Ho did the accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen LLP miss that Dixon, Ill., comptroller Rita Crundwell embezzled $53 million?

CliftonLarson in 2005 resigned as auditor for Dixon in order to keep other city assignments such as ledger-keeping after an influx of federal funds required the town to hire an independent auditor.

In its lawsuit, however, Dixon contends that CliftonLarson continued to do the annual audit and get paid for it, while hiring a sole-practitioner CPA from nearby Sterling to sign off on the work, thereby preventing competitors from grabbing the business. CliftonLarson says it prepared only a bare-bones “compilation” of financials after 2005 to aid the new auditor, Samuel Card, 56, who also is a defendant.

In depositions in late 2012, Power Rogers attorney Devon Bruce produced CliftonLarson emails after 2005 that referred to the firm's “audit” of Dixon. Also entered into the record were invoices submitted by Ms. Crundwell supposedly from the Illinois Department of Transportation that lacked an IDOT heading or logo and, in one instance, carried a nonexistent date—Nov. 31, 2004.

“Had a two-minute phone call been made by a Clifton employee to the Illinois Department of Transportation regarding any of these false invoices, Rita Crundwell's theft would have been identified at that time,” the lawsuit argues.

Oops.

With former governor George Ryan's release from prison this morning, Illinois has finally returned to the situation of having fewer former governors in prison than out of it. In an especially nice touch, former governor Jim Thompson is Ryan's attorney.

I guess Dan Walker and Jim Edgar are both still alive, too, so the current count is: 1 incumbent, non-convicted governor; 2 former, non-convicted governors; 2 former, convicted governors; and 1 former governor still in jail. There's a nice symmetry there, yes?

I've come a across a number of stories over the last few days about the Republican Party's efforts to win elections. GOP chair Reince Preibus wonders where they go from here. Legislators in Mississippi apparently don't understand federalism. Republican legislatures gerrymandered every state they controlled in 2011—nothing new there—but now they want to get more Electoral College votes in swing states by going to proportional voting. Virginia's legislature passed a bill that would have thrown 9 of 13 votes to Romney in the last election, even though Obama won the popular vote state-wide, and did it by voting while the senior Democratic representative—a bona fide civil rights hero—was at the Inaguration on Monday. (They followed the vote by recognizing the contributions of Stonewall Jackson to American democracy.) And finally, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sent an email to supporters after the watered-down filibuster agreement passed gloating about beating liberals.

Actually, McConnell's email neatly sums up the broader pattern to all these activities: "You see, they had been pushing a plan to end the filibuster, allowing Harry Reid and the Obama Democrats to pass their agenda with a simple majority. Well, Mitch McConnell stood strong and stopped that scheme dead in its tracks."

Yes. That's right. The Republicans have declared war on majority rule, and for good reason. They're no longer a majority.

All of these events, and the shenanigans before the election in which state GOP leaders openly talked of denying the vote to more-urban, more-Democratic voters, point to a party unable to win on the merits, and determined to hold on to whatever power they can by any means at their disposal. What they don't seem to realize is that these tactics alienate people in the center who might vote Republican if they weren't a bunch of nutters.

Look at the UK's Conservatives: faced with declining votes and a strong government, in opposition they changed their policies to win elections. In just one concrete example, the Tories this week published a bill for full marriage equality, something the Republicans over here could not possibly countenance given their current membership.

I think the GOP will hold on to House in 2014, but lose a Senate seat or two. More states are majority-Democratic than majority-Republican, and the Senate represents the states. Long term, though, I think most Americans have had enough. And every day, the old white men who make up the Republican party become a smaller minority.

They won't go quietly. We can be certain of that.

Earlier I brought up yesterday's (tonight's in the U.S.) elections in Israel, which surprised me because (a) they're not taking the country into a right-wing dystopia and (b) it started to look like Binyamin Netanyahu might lose his job. (b) is important because the farther away Netanyahu gets from the button, the less likely the U.S. will get drawn into an unwinnable war against Iran.

Well, some hours later, the reports from Tel Aviv are encouraging, but not definitive:

Hours after polls closed on Tuesday, and after some 95 percent of the votes were tallied, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed a mandate to third term as premier, but the battle between the country's right- and left-wing blocs remained virtually in a dead heat.

As voting ended Tuesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu party garnered only 31 seats − compared to the 42 the two parties won in the last election in 2009 − prompting him to announce that he was already working toward forming “as broad a government as possible."

The final election results will only be submitted next Wednesday, which places some restraints on President Shimon Peres consulting party leaders about whom he should ask to form the next coalition. However, sources in the President’s Residence say he prefers not to wait that long and is likely to ask Netanyahu to form the next government by the end of this week.

However, Labor Party leader Shelly Yacimovich said she had already initiated contacts aimed at forming a center-left bloc to prevent Netanyahu remaining prime minister.

As much as I hope for Netanyahu's defenestration, he will most likely scrape together the votes to congeal a right-wing government. Even though a centrist coalition would have a nearly-unprecedented mandate, and also get the extremes on both sides to shut the hell up, the individual incentives are just too strong for Likud politicians. And sadly for just about everyone, Netanyahu is actually a true right-winger, believing the only way to deal with Arabs is through arms.

I'm not naive about the sincerity of Arab leaders who give speeches about wiping Israel into the sea. I just don't think they're likely to try. Along the same line, I think Israel's biggest mistake under Netanyahu mirrors the United States' biggest mistake under George Bush fils: fighting fire with napalm.

You can't fight terrorists with armies. Armies turn allies into enemies. Rome never learned that, but given two thousand years of experience, one would hope the United States would—if for no other reason than we study Rome in school. When you turn the forces of the empire on small threats, the threats become real.

We in the U.S. have alternated between showing the world a brilliant example of democracy and kicking the crap out of it. We declared independence with the power of liberal Enlightenment thinking behind us and promptly enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts. We spent 600,000 lives declaring all men free and promptly declared them unequal. We're the laboratory testing reason against unreason. But reason wins most of the time.

So observe Israel: a country born of the worst atrocities ever visited upon humans by other humans, a country of the smartest, best-educated, toughest people ever to constitute a free democracy, electing an open bigot as their head of government. It staggers the mind. But tonight, at least, it appears half of Israelis have rejected him. One can hope that's enough.

Netanyahu is typical of the right, warning how "those people" will destroy everything you believe in (though the specifics never seem to be described). Only, "those people" don't exist. To define "those people" requires a suspension of intellect, a cessation of rational thought. Defining an entire group of people as something less than another group requires a willful ignorance that becomes terrifying when backed by nuclear weapons.

Except, Iran doesn't seem likely to attack Israel. In fact, if "those people" were a unified block, we might expect a different sort of invasion, as one of Israel's neighbors is wracked by a civil war at the moment without a flood of refugees into Israel.

No, really: are a hundred thousand unarmed Syrians about to invade Israel? Even though the Syrian civil war would seem to give a hundred thousand Syrians a good reason to emigrate hastily to Israel, if only not to get killed by their own countrymen. So...where are they?

Netanyahu's other bugaboo is Iran. So let's ask: Is the Iranian government nuts? Yes. Are they an existential threat to Israel? No. They're kind of like al-Queda and the U.S.: crazy, destructive, criminal, worth every legal and moral effort to stop, but not an existential threat unless we make them so.

I've said this before: the right thrives on fear. People vote for right-wing politicians because they're afraid, and right-wing politicians win when fear trumps reason. Keep in mind, the greatest wartime president the U.S. ever had was a progressive Democrat in a wheelchair. A team of enlightenment liberals won our independence from Britain. We ended slavery under the leadership of a scrappy, shrewd liberal Republican.

So after all this: I hope Binyamin Netanyahu gets sacked this week, because I think he's a nearsighted, fear-mongering charlatan, and Israel deserves better. It troubles me that half of Israeli voters support him and his coalition. But as an American, I can't do anything. I just hope he doesn't pull us into another war.