This IRS scandal is going from irrelevant to enraging. What bugs me most is that everyone is running around acting like it is a proven fact that some terrible thing was done. We’ve been through this time and time again. Even thus far in this scandal, the more information that comes out, the more benign it all appears. The IRS targeted conservative 501(c)(4) groups because the vast majority of the applications were coming from conservative groups. Politically incorrect? Absolutely. Wrong? Sure. But some kind of attack on conservative America? No way!

Here’s something that hasn’t gotten much coverage: those applications that the IRS preferentially targeted conservative groups for were voluntary. The groups didn’t have to get approval; they could have just filed their taxes as 501(c)(4) groups and waited to see if the IRS complained. Which would take up to six years. What’s more, I have yet to see any reporting of a conservative group getting denied 501(c)(4) status but there has been reporting of liberal groups being denied. Like I said: the more you know about this scandal the more it seems like a tempest in a teapot.

Now, of course, there is talk of impeachment. Impeachment! Based upon what? As far as I can tell the reason is that the conservatives don’t like Obama and they think the proper thing to do when you don’t like a president is to impeach him. There is a very real sense in the Republican Party that if you can’t have things the way you want them, you are justified in destroying the system. As I’ve noted time and again, American conservatism is no longer a traditional political movement and the Republicans have become a revolutionary party.

In an article yesterday at the National Review we got the take on all this from one of the “reasonable” Republicans, Portman to Obama: Come Clean. In it, Rob “my son’s gay so now I support gay rights” Portman magnanimously said that talk of impeachment is “premature.” This is because there has been no direct connection between Obama and any of these scandals. It hasn’t even been clear that any of these scandals would be an impeachable offense. That’s even true of the Associated Press scandal. (That’s what’s so terrible about that case.) Of course, Portman hasn’t thought it through that much. In fact, he seems to assume that the administration was directing these low-level employees in the IRS. But if the administration were even talking to the IRS, that would be an impeachable offense. Portman doesn’t seem clear on that.

But there was one thing that Portman said that really floored me. “The American people have been betrayed in fundamental ways by the most powerful agency in government.” That’s a conservative all over. The IRS is the most powerful agency in government. It isn’t the Pentagon—you know, the people with all the guns. It isn’t the Department of Energy with all those nukes. No, it is the IRS. Because again, in Republican World, whatever it is that you don’t like is the most powerful and most pernicious.

Recall back in 2008 that the CIA prepared a secret report (subsequently leaked to WikiLeaks) that presciently noted that the election of Barack Obama would be the most effective way to stem the tide of antiwar sentiment in western Europe, because it would put a pleasant, happy, progressive face on those wars and thus convert large numbers of Obama supporters from war opponents into war supporters. That, of course, is exactly what happened: not just in the realm of militarism but civil liberties and a whole variety of other issues. That has had the effect of transforming what were, just a few years ago, symbols of highly contentious right-wing radicalism into harmonious bipartisan consensus. That the most vocal defenders of this unprecedented government acquisition of journalists’ phone records comes from government-loyal progressives—reciting the standard slogans of National Security and Keeping Us Safe and The Terrorists—is a potent symbol indeed of this transformation.

—Glenn Greenwald
The major Sea Change in Media Discussions of Obama and Civil Liberties

In the past, I’ve been really disappointed with President Obama. But now I’m really angry. He forced the resignation of acting IRS chief Steven T. Miller. This wasn’t done because Miller is culpable. Sure, you will hear that he testified before Congress that the organization wasn’t targeting groups based upon their political leanings. But that was because while he was heading the IRS they weren’t targeting groups based upon their political leanings. There was no credible reason to force his resignation.

So why did Obama do it? Because he’s a coward. Because he doesn’t stand for anything. Because he can’t take even a day of political heat. Just like with Shirley Sherrod, this administration doesn’t care what the facts are. They can’t wait until the facts are know. They need a scapegoat and they find one.

And what exactly does Obama get from all this? Does he really think that tomorrow all the papers will be hailing him for his leadership? Mark my words: tomorrow, there will be a lot of coverage of the fact that Miller was not the head of the IRS at any time during which this scandal was going on. And people (Including the conservatives who Obama wants to appease!) will call his actions into doubt. I know people will be writing much what I’m writing, “Rather than deal with the problem, Obama just looked around for a convenient scapegoat and fired him!”

Of course, most of the conservative world will just claim it was a political decision that is meaningless. And I hate to admit it, but they will be right. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the controversy and Obama is only doing it to quiet his critics. And guess what? It won’t work. And on the one scandal that really matters—the Associated Press phone surveillance—Obama is standing firm. According to him, what he did was right and proper because it dumps all over the United States Constitution. And Obama ought to know it, because he used to teach constitutional law. Of course, that was in his younger days when he believed in something other than accumulating power.

Shame on you, Mr. President!

Afterword

Mitch McConnell said, “More than two years after the problem began, and a year after the IRS told us there was no problem, the president is beginning to take action. If the president is as concerned about this issue as he claims, he’ll work openly and transparently with Congress to get to the bottom of the scandal—no stonewalling, no half-answers, no withholding of witnesses.” John Boehner said, “The IRS admitted to targeting conservatives. My question isn’t about who is going to resign. My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?”

And that’s within an hour of the president’s announcement.

Pathetic.

Revolutionary proto-Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi was baptized in 1567. Why does that matter? If you’ve ever listened to Renaissance music, you probably didn’t like it very much. And no, the music you heard at the Renaissance Faire was almost certainly not Renaissance music. That music is highly modal; it doesn’t have the sense of chord progressions. To me, it sounds almost random, like it doesn’t know where it’s going. It is nice enough but not the kind of thing that holds your attention.

Monteverdi’s most famous piece is the two plus hour long opera L’Orfeo. It isn’t exactly Le Nozze di Figaro, Ossia la Folle Giornata, but it is really good. You can find a few complete performances of it online, but you really owe it to yourself to at least listen to this short excerpt from the beginning. It is worth it, plus it is a chance to hear a kind of music one rarely hears but that is also really good. (A lot of pretentious people listen to Gregorian chants, but it is really only interesting to specialists.) I think after listening to this, a lot of people will want to hear the whole thing:

Romantic modernist painter Viktor Vasnetsov was born on this day in 1848. American actor Joseph Cotten was born in 1905. English actor James Mason was born in 1909. And the great neo-Keynesian economist Paul Samuelson was born in 1915.

The great English playwright Peter Shaffer is 87 today. Painter Jasper Johns is 83. Two 60s icons Wavy Gravy and Ralph Steadman are 77. Madeleine Albright is 76. The evil Roger Ailes is 73. And musician Brian Eno is 65, so we won’t be hearing anything about him in the future.

The day, however, belongs to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz writer, L. Frank Baum who was born in 1856. He wrote a total of 14 Oz books. They are a lot of fun. Of course, in the books, Oz is a real place. I rather like the movie, but the whole “it was only a dream” bit kind of bugs me. In the eighth book, The Emerald City of Oz, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry fall on hard times and Dorothy arranges for them to retire there. Kind of subversive, when you think about it. Of course, people of that time were used to terrible recessions. That’s one of the things that bugs me about the gold standard libertarians who think all would be well if the government just went away. Well, we tried that. And do you know what? Aunt Em and Uncle Henry had to move to Oz where they had a better social safety net.

Happy birthday L. Frank Baum!

I’m not much into science fiction except in as much as it is about the nature of consciousness or is just well written. It is rarely either. I am more or less a Star Trek fan, but that has nothing to do with science fiction. Just because a melodrama is placed in space doesn’t make it science fiction. At its best, Star Trek is fun.

One of my favorite bits comes from Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home. The crew has gone back in time to get a whale to stop some space craft from destroying the earth because the extinct whale is not answering its call. Silly, but that’s not what I love. In present day earth Scotty and Bones go in search of a tank for the whale. Scotty offers this guy the secret to transparent aluminum (if memory servers me) in exchange for building the tank. Bones protests, “Won’t that change history?” To which Scotty replies, “How do we know he’s not the guy who invented it?” It could plausibly be the guy so therefore it is the guy. Of course time travel narratives are always silly. There are lots of other problems with the movie. But it doesn’t matter. The point is to have a fun time with a bunch of actors, their silly accents, and pointy ears.

And then it all went wrong. Gene Roddenberry decided to “fix” the series and created Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is the most tiresome series ever created. It makes me long for the days of My Mother the Car.[1] What made Star Trek work was that the characters didn’t get along. Spock and Bones actively hated each other. In The Next Generation we got a crew of people so well adjusted that I always believed there was a dungeon on the Enterprise where they all tortured sex slaves. If that wasn’t bad enough, the plots were ridiculous contrivances where everything worked out perfectly. Gone were the days of “City on the Edge of Forever” where Joan Collins has to die or “A Piece of the Action” where Kirk leaves a crime syndicate in charge of a planet. No more! The only thing that wasn’t just perfect was Denise Crosby dying in the second season because even she couldn’t take the series anymore.

After that came Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Luckily for it, Roddenberry was long dead and could not “fix” the series. It had conflict and generally worked well enough. It took by far the stupidest species ever created, the Ferengi, and created a reasonable character of Quark. And it had the Irish guy from The Commitments and about half of every other film to come out Ireland in the last three decades. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t particularly care.

That marked the end of my Star Trek days. I did manage to see the first “new cast” Star Trek film. It shocked me that people thought it was so good. To me, they took the silly concept and kooky characters and made them stale. Then they put them in a typical Hollywood action film that was overlong and under-fun.

The reason this all comes to mind is that earlier today, Matt Yglesias posted, The Greatest Star Trek Movies, Series, Episodes, Villains, and Crew Members. And when he listed the movies from best to worst, I totally agreed with him on the first two: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Now, he may not know it, but the reason these films are at the top of the list is that they were directed and co-written by Nicholas Meyer. And Nicholas Meyer is no Star Trek fan. But he’s a good storyteller and that’s all that matters in the end.

The rest of Yglesias’ list is hit and miss: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (agreed; also co-written by Meyer); Star Trek VIII: First Contact (horrible, stupid movie); Star Trek (as I said, not very good, but probably the right position); Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (lots of fun; good: “Klingon bastard! You killed my son!”; bad: Merritt Butrick); Star Trek: Generations (pretty bad, but I like seeing Kirk ride a horse); Star Trek: Nemesis (never saw it); Star Trek: The Motion Picture (greatly underrated film); Star Trek: Insurrection (never saw it); Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (just wait). It is so easy to put down The Final Frontier. It is a mess. Shatner is at least 50 pounds over weight. And Nichelle Nichols is close. But in its complete failure, it’s an amazing thing to behold. The production designer introduced our first ever glimpse of an Enterprise toilet! Spock has a crazy half-brother who is a hell of a lot more fun than Spock. And he’s searching for God! Plus, would Kirk, Spock, and Bones really vacation together? It doesn’t get any sillier than The Final Frontier and it is definitely better than any The Next Generation episode or movie (that I’ve seen).

Next Yglesias gets to the series from best to worst: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, The Original Series, and Enterprise. Oh my! I haven’t seen even a clip of Voyager and Enterprise. I’ve been told that Voyager is rather good. It probably isn’t. Whatever. But I think that Yglesias puts The Next Generation on top because we all love most the Star Trek of our childhood. And that takes us to an important point. Star Trek is silly and even stupid. But we naturally look back on the shows of our youth in a nostalgic fog. Sure, I can justify why the original series was the best, but the fact is that I remember being four years old watching the Metrons force Kirk to battle the lizard man. And yes, I’m sure from Matt Yglesias’ perspective it’s just stupid. But to me, it’s charming.

Afterword

Yglesias’ top two characters are Spock and Data. What is this guy? A twelve year old?

[1] I don’t think that My Mother the Car is as bad as people say. I was just making a point.

I have long complained about what feels like the constant drum beat for more technology workers via the H1-B visa system. The idea is that high tech companies just can’t find American workers with the skills they require. But the truth is, if high tech companies really were desperate for workers, they would pay them more. That’s how markets work. If all programmers were paid minimum wage, companies would find it very hard to hire them. That’s why programmers are paid more than minimum wage. And now, if high tech companies really can’t find enough programmers (for example), they could pay more—maybe steal a little talent away from the finance industry.

Of course, the issue is that these companies want more highly skilled workers, but they don’t want to pay them the going rate. So they go crying to the government to mess with the free market and allow them to get workers for less than the market rate. I’ve never heard a politician push back on this, “If you can’t grow your company by paying the market rate, then your company is not efficient enough to grow!” Instead, we see them all wringing their hands as though job number one is to see that companies are profitable rather than that workers have jobs. It is inexcusable.

Well, not all companies think that the government should take care of their profit margins. Bloomberg Businessweek reported last week on Netflix’s unusual approach to hiring:

So let me get this straight: Netflix pays more than the market rate to get better engineers? How can that be? Did their managers take economics in college or something? My understanding is that business majors were required to eschew all economics. That’s why American business developed in the way it has. This Netflix idea could potentially revolutionize American business. But I wouldn’t count on it.

Some might counter that this is all fine for Netflix, but not all companies can pay more than the going rate. All Netflix is doing is pulling employees away from other high tech companies. This is true, but it isn’t the whole story. By paying high tech workers better, more people will enter the field. Also: more people will study engineering and science in school if they know they can make a lot of money. So by paying more, Netflix helps themselves relative to other high tech companies, but they also help all high tech companies by raising the average salary.

I’m not saying that more immigration is a bad thing. Far from it! I think immigration is a great thing. But the reasons for more immigration is not that big corporations can get employees for less than the going rate. This is basic economics folks. But our political leaders don’t want to understand it because big business pretends it doesn’t know how to get more highly skilled workers.

H/T: Dean Baker

This is the most unimportant graph of the day:

It comes from the Congressional Budget Office, but I got the graph from Paul Krugman. What it shows is that we have stabilized our debt. This should make all deficit scolds very happy.

Ha ha ha! What a kidder I am! It won’t matter in the least. You see, all the talk of debt by these people is nothing more than a pretense for cutting spending on the poor.

For the umpteenth time: Mitt Romney stated out by cutting marginal income tax rates. Simpson-Bowles started out by cutting marginal income tax rates. The House started out by cutting marginal income tax rates. Imagine if the Progressive Caucus’ budget started by doubling the support level of Social Security? No one would take it seriously. But somehow, when conservatives start their budget cutting by giving huge amounts of cash to the rich, the Very Serious People think they are being very serious indeed.

The truth of the matter is that this graph from the CBO probably makes the future debt look worse than it should. The CBO is usually conservative in their estimates. If we got some actual economic growth (unlikely as long as Republicans control the House), we might see that number come way down. It will be even bigger if medical cost inflation continues to go down. And note: we have already accomplished what Paul Ryan claimed his newest budget would do in 10 years: balanced the budget.[1]

But none of this matters. The deficit scolds will continue to talk about our “out of control” spending and “unsustainable” budget. The Republicans will continue to complain that Obama is turning us into a combination of Greece and the Soviet Union. Because all the deficit hysteria was never about the budget; it was about an ideological commitment to destroy the social safety net. Until the CBO comes out with a report that shows we aren’t helping the poor at all and the rich are not being taxed a penny, the debt outrage will continue.

[1] This is not quite true. When the Republicans look at the budget, they do it as though they had never heard of macroeconomics. The reasonable definition of a balanced budget is to have the deficit not add to the debt as a percent of GDP (or even better, potential GDP). Ryan’s budget supposedly balances in absolute terms. Even the most conservative economists think that’s crazy.

You can tell if a dog has been castrated, because it has no testicles. You can’t tell this with humans because they wear pants. So I’m just guessing, but I think Harry Reid has been castrated. It may just have been done for the public good. The last thing we need are a whole lot more unwanted Harry Reids roaming the streets of Washington. Of course, I’m guessing that Reid was castrated based upon how he’s dealt with the filibuster problem in the Senate and how it shows that he has no balls.

Last night, The Hill published yet another one of those “if the Republicans don’t cut it out, the Democrats are gonna do something” article, Senate Democrats: Nuclear Option for Filibuster Is Back on the Table. It reported that now organized labor is upset about the situation, especially as it applies to the National Labor Relations Board and Thomas Perez’s nomination as Secretary of Labor. I’m glad to hear that labor is pushing the Democrats, but if recent history is any guide, the Democrats will just ignore them.

The good guys in the Senate are, as usual, making sense. Bernie Sanders seems very angry and would like to see something done. And of course one of Harry Reid’s two young, fine senators, Jeff Merkley is none too happy. But the article would have us believe that Harry Reid too is mad. But the article only went as far as to say he was “seriously mulling another attempt at filibuster reform.” Well! He’s “seriously” thinking about an “attempt” at, what? Another pathetic filibuster reform idea that won’t solve the problem? Another limit on how long the minority can delay a vote before they filibuster it? And how long is Reid going to mull it over? Until 2016 when he retires?

The frustrating thing about all of this is that I don’t go a week without reading an article about how the Democrats are really unhappy about how the Republicans are abusing the filibuster. If I were a Republican, I wouldn’t give it another thought. And the sad thing is that I don’t think Harry Reid and company put out these signals for the Republicans. I think they are put out for people like me who are beyond angry at the Democrats’ inability to do anything about this.

Of course, such articles are never complete without a quote from Mitch McConnell, and this one was no different. The Minority Leader said, “We are fundamentally turning the Senate into the House. The minority’s out of business.” To which I say: who cares? Of course Mitch McConnell will complain about reducing minority rights in the Senate; he’s in the minority! But I guarantee you this: the moment he is in the majority, he will change his tune. And that is now and always will be the main issue. The Republicans have destroyed the filibuster system. And their response to that once it is used against them will be to abolish it. As it is, they almost did so in 2005 when the Democrats were actually filibustering less than the Republicans had in the previous years and half as much as the Republicans have been since.

I am fully prepared to forgive Harry Reid everything if the article is correct and he does something substantial in July. But there are two core problems. First: he probably won’t do squat. Second, if he does do something, it will be pathetically minor. It may even turn out to be another handshake agreement with Mitch McConnell. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, shame on me…

Afterword

The title of this article is in reference to The Life of Brian. “Big Nose” is “Harry Reid”:

I read two excellent articles on The Onion today. One shocked me and the awed me. Hence the title.

The first was Adidas Unveils New Running Shoe For Fleeing From Mass Shootings. It is a pretty standard Onion story. At least, it is until the last sentence:

Wow. All I could think was that The Onion really is America’s Finest News Source. With that one sentence, they put America’s gun problem into perspective. Of course, I would note that 5 years of age is probably a little old.

The second story is from last month and it has me in awe of The Onion writers. It is perhaps the best social satire since A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. (I love 18th century titles!) The Onion reported, Romney Drops By To See How Down-And-Out Family He Met On Campaign Trail Doing. That’s a pretty good title, but the article itself is pitch perfect. You should go over and read the whole thing, but here’s an abridged version:

Not to make too big a deal about it, but this highlights how we all play a role in these ridiculous social rituals. All the people who met with Romney and Obama know that it isn’t real. The candidate pretends that he cares and the people pretend that they believe him. But what if Romney really did care about these people? It would be a full time job. And that’s why people like him only pretend to care: to get a powerful job like the President of the United States. Otherwise, fuck the people.

Afterword

Romney giving the family $100 for dinner would be like me giving them less than a penny. (I calculated it!)

Photorealist Robert Bechtle is 81 today. Bass player and lead singer of Cream Jack Bruce is 70. Ridiculously overrated director George Lucas is 69. Another blockbuster director, Robert Zemeckis is 62. Pain in the ass and narcissistic Talking Heads front man, David Byrne is 61. Actor Tim Roth is 52. Cate Blanchett is 44. Director Sofia Coppola is 42. And evil businessman Mark Zuckerberg is 29.

The day belongs to the great painter Thomas Gainsborough was born on this day in 1727. Most people know him from The Blue Boy, which captivated me when I was a kid. There is something especially compelling about how he painted faces. Interestingly, he much preferred to paint landscapes. I don’t find them as compelling, even if they are very important.

Happy birthday Thomas Gainsborough!