No more certain

The other day I put up a link on my facebook page about the UFO press conference at the National Press Club on Monday. It's only fair to follow up...here are two reports:  CNN, WaPo

I remain strongly skeptical.

"Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says"

Read this:  "Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says"

The last time I quoted Steve Prothero from a Newsweek piece, it was unflattering:

"The hard-core atheist," Prothero writes, "once a stock figure in American life, has gone the way of the freak show."

This time he sounds a little better:

Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University and author of "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't," served as an advisor on the survey. "I think in general the survey confirms what I argued in the book, which is that we know almost nothing about our own religions and even less about the religions of other people," he said.

But Alan Cooperman, of Pew Forum, nails it:

"[Atheists and agnostics] are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."

And that's why we don't buy it anymore.

"Consent of the governed?"

One of the lines in the Republicans' new agenda document that made my eyes roll was when it breathlessly claimed:

In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent.

Now, ignoring for a moment the "War on Arithmetic" that the document engaged in, what exactly do the governed want when it comes to taxes? I mean, Teabagger Party Patriots talk a lot about reducing the deficit and so did this document, which means you have two options: cut spending or increase revenues. It turns out that a majority of Americans want the latter when it comes to taxing the rich. Here are six, count 'em, six, recent national polls:

• A recent CBS poll also found a sizable majority, 56 percent, think the tax cuts for the wealthy should expire.
• A CNN poll in late August found that a majority, 51 percent, favors ending the tax cuts for the rich, and another 18 percent favor ending them all.  It also found that among independents, 44 percent favor ending the tax cuts for the rich, while another 21 percent favor ending them all. Letting the tax cuts for the rich expire has majority support in all regions of the country except the south***.
• A new National Journal poll finds that 56 percent support ending either all the Bush tax cuts or just the ones for the wealthy, while barely more than a third want to keep them all.
• The new Gallup poll shows that 59 percent of Americans -- and a majority of independents -- supports either ending all the Bush tax cuts or just the ones for the wealthy.  Indeed, Gallup finds that Obama's proposal -- ending the tax cuts for the wealthy but not for everyone else -- has the support of 44 percent, more than any other solution.
• DemocracyCorps found that: "Over half – 55 percent – support increasing taxes by letting some or all of the Bush-era tax cuts expire. Specifically, 42 percent say the cuts should remain in place for the middle class, but expire for those making more than $250,000. Just 38 percent say all the tax cuts should remain in place. This is not a purely base issue – by a 17-point margin, independents favor raising taxes on the wealthy."
• National Journal Congressional Connection: "On tax cuts, respondents divided into roughly thirds on whether to extend all the tax cuts, repeal them, or repeal only cuts for the wealthy and extend the rest." (That means about 33% + 33% favor reapealing all or those on the wealthy, which means about 66% of Americans favor repealing at least those on the wealthy.)

So if our elected officials truly represent our interests, we should see Republicans' newfound concerns over the consent of the governed win out here and we should see the Bush tax cuts expire as scheduled. Right? ...

***I find that one of the unintentionally hilarious side item from this poll is that the poorest region in the country with the most problems wants to help millionaires and billionaires the most.

The policies that led to staggering income inequality in America

I've written before about a subject that is fascinating to me -- how the gap between 99-point-something percent of us and the titans of Wall Street and industry grew so wide over the past decades.  Now a new book lays out specific lines of evidence which point to this general conclusion:

"One of the singular victories of the rich has been convincing the rest of us that their disproportionate success has been due to abstract economic forces beyond anyone's control (technology, globalization, etc.), not old-fashioned power politics."

Or deceiving many of us into the myth of "trickle-down", supply-side economics...and keeping us distracted by dog-whistle politics over race and religion in the manner of Frank's "What's the matter with Kansas" lines of argument.

And don't forget that the people in Washington who are supposed to represent "our" interests are still arguing over this bullshit:

The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 raised the after-tax incomes of most Americans by a bit over 1 percent -- but raised the after-tax incomes of millionaires by 4.4 percent.

And the sad thing is that most Americans realize this is bullshit but don't have the influence -- or presence of mind to vote in such a way as to change influence -- to change anything.