Night Light

Cartoon: Mr. Elf and Rudolf Have a National Security Christmas

I made this little cartoon to celebrate the New Digital Holiday Spirit.  In it, Santa's Chief Helper for Intelligence explains to Rudolf why Christmas and civil liberties just don't mix.

 

 

Dictionary, Please: Wall Street's Wallison Doubles Down on Doublespeak

Peter J. Wallison has a bright future... as a surrealist author. He and the other Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission tried to undermine that group's work by attempting to ban phrases like "Wall Street" from its final report. Now he's trying to rebut news reports about their behavior. His response is a brilliant example of what might be called "uninentional literature," a hallucinogenic mashup of Lewis Carroll and George Orwell that belongs on everyone's shelf.

News reports said that Wallison and his fellow Republicans on the Commission also wanted to ban the words "shadow banking," "interconnection," and "deregulation" from a report on the Great Recession and its causes. That's like banning the phrase "plastic surgery" from a story about the Kardashians.

Not true, insists Wallison. "Only in the fever-swamps of the left could anyone believe that," he writes. For example, Wallison says he and his colleagues merely objected to the Commission's use of "Wall Street" as "a general term for the financial system." Wallison says it's unacceptable, politically motivated, and imprecise to use the phrase "Wall Street" as if it referred to the controlling financial interests of the United States.

Wall Street: n. The controlling financial interests of the United States.
- American Heritage Dictionary

What do dictionaries matter when you're rewriting reality? Wallison says he and his fellow Republicans were only willing to use the phrase "Wall Street" to mean "the major commercial and investment banks that were underwriters for the private label securities that the commission majority's report discusses."

That's like defining "Republicans" as "the people who tried to block health care for 9/11 responders." While it's true, it's only one, very narrow aspect of a much larger reality.

Wallison also ridicules the Commission's inclusion of Countrywide as part of "Wall Street" because its main office wasn't physically located on Wall Street. My old employer, AIG, wasn't on Wall Street either. We were a whole block away, on Pine Street. (There was a second building on Wall Street, with a connecting bridge between the two, but the main office address was 70 Pine Street.)

The Goldman Sachs main office is on West Street, so by Wallison's reckoning they're not part of "Wall Street" either. JPMorgan Chase is on Park Avenue. Morgan Stanley's on Broadway. Citigroup's on Greenwich Street. And Bank of America's way down in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Countrywide's headquarters was in California. That's not even in America.)

No wonder Wallison and his fellow Republicans were upset by the term "Wall Street." In their world,Wall Street doesn't even exist! That would explain the outrage. Imagine: The other members of the Commission, debased by political motives and lacking Wallison's mental precision, were actually prepared to use the phrase "Wall Street" as if it meant "the influential financial interests of the U. S. economy!"

Wall Street (noun). The influential financial interests of the U. S. economy.
- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Wallison also objects to the fact that each of the four Republicans (call 'em the Fantastic Four) was to be given "only" nine pages in the final reports - 4,050 words, as he says - for their response. I'll spare you the math: That's 36 pages and over 16,000 words. That should be an especially easy target to reach now that they've trimmed so many words from the English language. (As Robert Borosage points out, none of the "forbidden words" appear in their minority... whatever it is... despite Wallison's statement that they didn't ban them.)

Sadly, Wallison doesn't explain the Fantastic Four's specific objections to the use of the terms "shadow banking," "deregulation," and "interconnection." That's a tragic loss for the world of literature. Here's a line from Wallison's official FCIC bio: "(H)e was General Counsel of the (Reagan) Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry."

(Amusingly, the word "deregulation" was apparently scrubbed from Wallison's American Enterprise Institute bio after this flap became public. )

As for that disingenuous "minority"... er, something... Wallison won't call it a "report"... it simply parrots what Yves Smith rightly called "urban legends" about the causes of the crash. (More about that "minority non-report" here.)

Those false "legends" spun by Wallison and his friends conveniently hide Wall Street's culpability in our recent, entirely avoidable economic train wreck. That's good for Wall Street and Wallison. As an employee of the American Enterprise Institute, Wallison receives his paycheck from an organization that was created by New York business executives, and whose board includes senior officers from TPG Capital, Clearview Capital, Crow Holdings, the Carlyle Group, Harrison Street Capital, American Express, Hanna Capital, KKR, State Farm Insurance, and CIGNA.

Why, a person would almost consider this roster a who's who of influential Wall Street types... that is, if Wall Street existed.

***

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." 
- Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
- George Orwell, 1984

"What we were asking for was precision in the use of these words, so that when the words "Wall Street" were used they referred to the major commercial and investment banks that were underwriters for the private label securities that the commission majority's report discusses. What we were told, in the case of "Wall Street" is that it's a general term for the financial system and thus could in fact include a subprime lender like Countrywide, based in California. Maybe this was changed in subsequent drafts of the report, maybe it was not, but using the term Wall Street to describe the financial system generally is -- most objective observers would conclude -- a political statement rather than an accurate one. You decide."
- Peter J. Wallison, The Huffington Post

 

The GOP and the Banks: Cutting the Garlic Budget As the Vampires Attack

Van Helsing: "The strength of the vampire is that nobody will believe in him." 

America's debt to Wall Street has soared since 1945 - and although the banks were rescued at public expense, the public's been left holding the bag for the recent drop in housing prices:

Hmm ... How many times has the word "vampire" appeared in books during the same period [1]?

What does this mean? Does it reflect the public's subconscious response to predatory banking? Or is it just some guy having nerdy fun with data sets by juxtaposing two trend lines that have nothing to do with one another? We report, you decide.

Here's what we do know: Like their fictional counterparts, America's banks are revenants, re-animated creatures who were brought back from the dead through the public's generosity. Now they're feasting on the rest of us again, while politicians in Washington work to rob us of the few tools we can use to defend ourselves. With some Democratic complicity, Republicans are fulfilling the promise of Rep. Spencer Bachus, who said that "Washington and the regulators are there toserve the banks."

And what they're serving them is you.

The Count: "Listen to them! The creatures of the night. What music they make ..."

The rap sheet against America's banks grows longer and longer. They keep stringing people along with phony foreclosure negotiations, and then foreclose anyway. And we're hearing more and more stories about bank agents who, as they're invading and padlocking illegally foreclosed homes, also steal the private property inside them. In a recent ghoulish case, they stole a box containing the ashes of the homeowner's husband - ironically enough, from a woman named Ms. Ash. Even vampires don't do that.

The states of Arizona and Nevada are suing Bank of America, one of corporate America's worst offenders, for repeatedly breaking the law as forecloses on homeowners. The Arizona suit says that the bank has "consistently misled homeowners about its home loan modification process."

Foreclosure fraud isn't the only kind of bank criminality, of course. Deutsche Bank just plea-bargained its way out of criminal charges for helping people get out of paying their taxes. There's that matter of laundering drug money. And countless other crimes, large and small. But the widespread criminality surrounding foreclosures strikes the closest to home, but literally and metaphorically. After their taxpayer-funded bailout, these revenants are literally biting the hand that fed them.

The financial reform bill passed this year was less than the public wanted, according to polls, and less than it needed, according to experts. But it was a start, and Wall Street didn't like it.

Renfield: "I'm loyal to you, Master! I didn't betray you!"

Fortunately for them, the bankers have friends in low places. First the GOP killed the omnibus spending bill that funded many of the financial reform bill's provisions for protecting the public against predatory bank policies. Senate Democrats are trying to avoid a shutdown of government by introducing a continuing resolution but, as Pat Garafolo points out, it doesn't include any of the additional money needed to enforce the financial reform bill.

The Democratic resolution adopts the classic right wing budget-cutting notion that government should avoid spending increases and keep its budget numbers flat - or, as their resolution puts it, "funding would continue at FY 2010 enacted levels for most programs." That's a terrible mistake, both tactically and practically.

The SEC would be particularly hard-hit but this resolution, just when it's starting to pursue foreclosure fraud more aggressively by issuing subpoenas to the big banks and loan servicers. (Isthat a coincidence, too?)

One of the reforms blocked by this funding move include the appointment of an "Investor Advocate" to assist stockholders who have been misled by corporations. Apparently these "conservatives" are more than happy to interfere with a free market, even the stock market, if their paymasters direct them to do it. The broad category of "investors" includes pension plans and other plebeian organizations, after all - and private investors are merely wealthy, rather than theextremely wealthy they live to serve.

The Bacchanalians have also stalled the funding of a whistleblowers office. That action will ensure that bank criminals aren't interrupted in their wrongdoing just because some underling is struck with an excess of conscience. They've also blocked the Office for Credit Ratings,, so we're still stucked with the corrupt, rigged ratings game that led to the last economic collapse.

Our elected leaders aren't the only ones baring our necks to the predators' fangs. The Federal Reserve's also getting into the act. As the National Consumer Law Center puts it, the Fed has "proposed new rules that make it much harder for homeowners to escape abusive loans, avoid foreclosure or obtain refinancing." The timing's not coincidental. They're rushing to put this rule into place before responsibility for mortgages is transferred to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In this vampire story, Elizabeth Warren is Professor Van Helsing and the Federal Reserve is Renfield, Dracula's eager human servant.

Van Helsing: "We are dealing with the undead."

We know what needs to be done. A roster of banking and economics professionals has signed anopen letter to regulators asking them to step in and correct these systemic flaws and abuses. But they couldn't do that without money, even if they wanted to. The head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission says he can't implement financial reform without these funds.

We realize that comparing bankers to vampires is harsh, excessive, and unfair ... to vampires. Vampires only target one victim at a time, after all. Vampires have the common decency not to show themselves in broad daylight. And as we all know from the movies, they're charming, polite, elegant - and terrific dancers. (I used to work on Wall Street and believe me: Bankers aren't a pretty sight when they dance.)

What's more, vampires won't enter your house without an invitation. As Ms. Ash learned to her horror, bankers aren't that civilized.
_____________________

[1] Created with Google's nifty new NGram tool.

 

 

Destruction For The Hell Cash Of It: The Republican Saboteurs' Playbook

(This is the second in a two-part response to the attempted Republican sabotage of the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission. Part One is here.)

sabotage [ˈsæbəˌtɑːʒ] n. 1. the deliberate destruction, disruption, or damage of equipment, a public service, etc., as by enemy agents, dissatisfied employees, etc. 2. any similar action or behaviour. - Collins English Dictionary

The Republican Party's Sleeper Cell in the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has finally done its dirty work. The four GOP Commissioners staged a phony crisis as a pretext for walking out, and now there are a lot of headlines like this one: "Crisis Panel's Split on Blaming Wall Street May Limit Impact of Findings." This is Wall Street's message to its four operatives on the Commission: Mission accomplished.

It's been clear for a long time that Republicans aren't interested in working for the best interests of the nation, and the "S" word hasbeen making its way into the political conversation lately. "None dare call it sabotage," Steve Benen wrote. "Sabotage?" asked Dave Johnson. Zach Carter and Digby also took up the call.

Despite this clear pattern of Republican obstructionism, I haven't been comfortable adopting language that's been used so often to marginalize legitimate dissent and disagreements in the past. But when these four Commissioners began their Orwellian campaign against language, one that was destined to fail and which clearly had no objective beyond disruption, the pattern became too obvious to ignore.

It's startling to see how many of these synonyms for "sabotage" describe the past twenty years of Republican behavior: "attack, block, bollix, break up, cripple, deep six, destroy, disable, disrupt, do in, foul up, frustrate, hamper, hinder, louse up, mess up, obstruct, put out of action, put out of commission, screw up, subvert, take out, throw a monkey wrench into, torpedo, undermine, vandalize, wreck."

Consider Newt Gingrich's shutdown of government. Or the passive destruction George W. Bush wreaked by appointing arms control directors who hated arms control, bank regulators who hated regulation, or disaster relief agency heads who hated ... well, work, I suppose. ("Heck of a job, Brownie!") There's no ethical difference between those actions and pouring sand in a fire truck's gas tanks. In both cases the goal is to disable a government-provided service.

It's now clear that the same moral bankruptcy motivates career Republicans who join organizations like the FCIC with the sole intention of disrupting its work and destroying its credibility. It's important to study these four saboteurs, if only to familiarize ourselves with an M.O. we're bound to see again. The FCIC attack followed the classic Fifth Column playbook.

The first thing would-be subversives must do is recruit the agents. Let's meet our quislings: At Commission hearings, former GOP Rep. Bill Thomas was a likable and amiable blowhard who clearly knew his mission from the start, and carried it out with a considerable amount of warmth and charm. (He was less charming in 2003 when he had the Capitol Police forcibly eject Democratic representatives from a meeting.) Peter Wallison, the "deregulation" double-talker, is an attorney and longtime member of the Republican establishment. Keith Hennessey worked for Sen. Trent Lott before joining the Bush Administration. Douglas Holtz-Eakin is an economist who held various positions during the Bush years.

Of the four, Holtz-Eakin is the real disappointment. He's a hard-core, doctrinaire conservative. But he's always seemed like a decent guy with integrity who simply holds a different economic philosophy. (I guess there's a little Obama in me, too. I look for people like that.)

Once they've been identified, a Fifth Column needs to support and train its operatives. When not serving in government, all four Republican Commissioners have enjoyed steady incomes working within a network of well-funded right wing think tanks where they can also trade ideas, strategies, catch-phrases, and long-range plans for the disruption of government institutions.

The next step is to infiltrate your target organization. In this case, that was easy. The FCIC was created by an act of Congress in 2009, and Speaker Pelosi graciously shared the appointment of its Commissioners with the other party.

Once the agents are in place, their first mission is to delay and disrupt the orderly operation of the target. Historically, this has taken the form of work slowdowns and strikes, which in this case began when the four Republicans reportedly bogged down the Commission with complicated, time-consuming procedural requests. By last August they were refusing to participate in most Commission activities altogether.

It's important to stage seemingly 'spontaneous' demonstrations in an attempt to turn public opinion. That's why they made that absurd, Orwellian demand to exclude certain words and phrases. It couldn't possibly be accepted, which allowed them to initiate their next action. (Did they have a fallback plan if the Commission actually accepted that demand? Maybe they would've insisted that the entire document be typed without using the space bar.)

The last phase of the operation calls for subversives to manipulate the media, leaving a fog of confusion that makes it impossible for casual observers have no way of knowing the truth. I'd say their chances of pulling that off successfully are pretty good, wouldn't you?

The Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission - the real one, the legitimate one - will issue a report in January. The saboteurs must not succeed in diluting its impact. If they do, bankers will still have free reign to keep gambling, cheating, and breaking the law. That'll leave us vulnerable to another crash, one that's even more destructive than the last one.

Stay vigilant. Fight sabotage. It's the American way. In the meantime, here's an inspirational poster for the uncelebrated hero who will eventually be assigned to type and edit the Commission's final report. Whoever you may be - young or old, male or female - we know your job will be harder now that words like "deregulation" and "Wall Street" are staying in the report. So please ignore the gender stereotyping if you can, and consider this image a thank-you message from a grateful nation:

Republican "Fifth Column" Strikes Financial Commission. Are YOU Next?

A sleeper cell of four Republicans struck the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission this week, escalating what had previously been a campaign of covert obstruction into an overt act of sabotage. That act should be seen for what it is: A "denial of service attack" on bipartisan cooperation and public deliberation, designed to destroy the Commission's work and discredit its findings.

The subversives also released a document which they characterized without any apparent embarrassment as a "primer." You may remember that "primers" are the simple books used to teach small children, like the Dick and Jane reading series, My Little Book of Dinosaurs, or So You Want to be a Lobbyist.

But the most important book the saboteurs used was the Republican playbook -- for disrupting, subverting, and destroying government institutions. Pay attention to that playbook. It's been used before, and it will be used again.

"Fifth column" -- noun: A group of people working secretly to help the enemy of the country or organization they are in. 
-- Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary

In a now-famous quote, President Obama said this to the 13 Bankers who provided the title forSimon Johnson's book: "I'm the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks." We now know that the Republican appointees to Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission had pitchforks, too, which they planned to plant in their fellow Commissioners' backs when the right time came.

These Republicans know that their party has enjoyed a terrific year for Wall Street contributions, which were funneled through the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and other front organizations. Now they've paid its benefactors back with in-kind services by acting as Wall Street's Fifth Column on the Commission. Like all such subversives, theirs was a silent and deadly game. It finally culminated when they made demands they knew could not be granted, precipitating a "crisis' in order to discredit the Commission's work. They triggered their phony crisis by insisting that phrases like "deregulation," "shadow banking," "interconnectedness," and even "Wall Street" be excluded from the final report. That's like demanding that a report on crime in America exclude the phrases "robbery" and "murder."

One of the Republicans who voted to ban the word "deregulation" is Peter J. Wallison. Here's a sentence from Wallison's official biography, as it appears on the Commission's website: " (H)e was General Counsel of the (Reagan) Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry."

These people are shameless.

The Minority Report

The Minority Report film, and the Philip K. Dick story that inspired it, based their storylines on the ability to predict crimes before they've been committed. That makes the phrase an ideal name for the Republican "alternative" to the Commission's report. In retrospect, one of the strangest aspects of the Commission's hearings was the way one high-powered Wall Street figure after another would behave exactly the same way during their testimony. They would answer direct questions with vague circumlocutions, repeating the same talking points that the others had used. Why, you'd almost think they'd been coached ...

Their testimony certainly became predictable. So did their explanations for the crash: Freddie and Fannie caused it. Lower-income people received too many loans. Shit Bubbles happen. Good-hearted banks tried to help too many people. We need better risk management.

If you were wondering what the FCIC's Minority Report says, let me spare you the trouble of reading it. It says: Freddie and Fannie caused it. Lower-income people received too many loans.Shit Bubbles happen. Good-hearted banks tried to help too many people. We need better risk management.

Why, you'd almost think ... never mind.

Remember how the mutant psychics in The Minority Report would all open their eyes simultaneously and then speak in unison? This report is a lot like that. And remember when the "nice" mutant told Tom Cruise they were coming for him? All of a sudden she opened her eyes wide and screamed "Run!"

We haven't gotten to that scene yet, but it's coming.

Even the authors of the minority group's missive couldn't bring themselves to describe it as a "report," however. Famed deregulator Peter J. Wallison wrote: " It is very important not to see this statement as in any sense a dissent or as the Republicans' 'report.' It is neither. It's not a dissent... because there is as yet no report to dissent from, and it is not the Republicans' report because it is a very limited statement of the key issues we think should be addressed in the final document."

It's not a "report." It's not a "dissent." What is it? Says Wallison, "It's a primer on the issues we think will be important to cover in the final report of the commission." It certainly reads like a primer, with headings like "Why was there a housing bubble?" and "Why was the panic so painful for the economy?"

See Rubin. See Rubin fail. See Rubin say he couldn't have known.

Every fallacious idea in this report has been addressed at great length, but here's the primer version:

It wasn't Fannie, Freddie, or all those poor, black, and brown people. Losses weren't confined to Fannie and Freddie loans. They cascaded across every kind of banking institution. Heavy losses were seen in commercial real estate and luxury housing, neither of which received Fannie or Freddie backing. Other countries had real estate bubbles, too.Were there problems at Fannie and Freddie? Sure. Did they cause the crisis? Of course not.

You know what all these bad loans had in common? Bankers. They made tons of money writing them. You know what else they had in common? They were all written after the financial industry was deregulated. (Oops. I said a bad word.)

Shit Bubbles happen. "We couldn't have known," said Robert Rubin. "I'm right 70% of the time and wrong 30% of the time,' said "Maestro" Alan Greenspan (thereby giving himself a lifetime grade of C- or D+). But lots of people knew there was a housing bubble. Why didn't they? Because it was in their own best interests not to know. That left them free to make their fortunes. Here's what they did know: No matter what happened to housing prices, they knew the government would have to rescue them if (when) things collapsed.

Bankers were betting on housing prices, ignoring property law so they could swap mortgages (and people's homes) like bubble gum cards, and making a fortune by gambling with the entire economy. The Fifth Columnists want to make sure they can do it all again.

If we need better risk management ... ?. One banker after another, from Robert Rubin on down, came before the Commission to explain that despite their billion-dollar salaries they really didn't know very much. And all this time we've been told how smart they are. Why, they didn't even know what their own banks were doing! But don't bother regulating us, they all said. We've learned our lesson.

But, gosh! (Remember, this is a primer.) If we need better risk management, why should we trustthese guys to do it? And why would they "manage risk" at all, when they can make billions ignoring it instead?

They played a rigged game in a crooked casino, using your house as one of the chips. Here's how the Four Horsemen of the Financial Apocalypse describe the Wall Street casino: "The primary role that financial firms played in mortgage lending was that of financial intermediary, providing a link between those who wished to invest in mortgages and those who wanted to take out a mortgage to buy a home. This is the value of a robust financial system--it allows investors to make investments wherever they choose and borrowers to borrow at the lowest cost."

Here's what they're really saying: Financial firms were like Hell's Kitchen bookies, but without their charm, class, or principles. They peddled loans to everybody with a pulse, hired crooked auditors to overstate the value of their homes, then bundled the mortgages and used them as chips in a crooked game where they took both sides of the bet and then rigged the outcome. The value of the system comes when it's time to ask them for campaign contributions - or to fund the think tanks that employ us.

The Final Scene

As they were releasing this "primer," the economy continued to reel and stagger as the result of Wall Street's criminality, greed, irresponsibility, and stupidity. Millions of lives remained in ruins, while millions more continued to suffer. Some initial steps have been taken to reign in the bankers, but much more needs to be done. In the meantime, we desperately need government investment to get people back to work and get the economy moving again.

In light of this ongoing misery, and with most economists agreeing that we need short-term government spending to turn things around, this is the primer's concluding sentence: "We caution our nation's leaders to learn the appropriate lessons from history and take seriously the need to reduce our federal deficit."

Yes, they really said that. Remember that scene from the movie, the one we said we hadn't gotten to yet? This is it.

Run!
____________________________________

(Part Two of this report is here. It's called "Destruction for the Hell Cash of It: The Republican Saboteurs' Playbook.")

 

 

milbank strikes again

Paul Krugman is understandably offended by Dana Milbank's clueless and misleading comments about Obama and the left.  Milbank does get the facts very, very wrong.  Sadly, that's no longer a surprise.   As for me, I was particularly struck by Milbank's opening sentence:  "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of President Obama."

Meaning what?  He was proud of Obama before, but only in the innocent days of childhood?  

This is probably indirect snark directed at Michelle Obama.  If I recall correctly, she made some comments about being proud of her country that used similar phrasing.  It was a big controversy, remember?  If you don't remember then, unlike Milbank and his ilk, you were paying attention to the country's real problems instead of focusing on content-free, Republican-fed celebrity gotcha stories.  

Snark or not, this comes across as plain old-fashioned bad writing.  So do tortuous paragraphs like this one:

"But rather than caving in to liberals' complaints and allowing Democrats on Capitol Hill to take the lead - as Obama did to his peril over the past two years - he has pushed back with the full force of his office. In private persuasion and in public talk, the White House has delivered to disgruntled liberals a message summed up by Vice President Biden in a private session with lawmakers on Wednesday: Take it or leave it."

Here's my problem with this paragraph, as Milbank himself might have expressed it: 

Rather than stating his main theme and then elaborating on it - as writers have done to their great credit throughout the centuries - Milbank has perambulated with the twisted indirection of his prose.  In public paragraphs and on-air ellipses, Milbank has continued to opine in a prolix, qualifier-before-main-statement style which displays an attitude toward his readers that might be summed up with words from this very editorial as it was published on Sunday:

Take it or leave it.

Who cares about the poor quality of Milbank's prose?  Nobody, really.  But clarity in language equals clarity in thought, and the same is true of its absence.  Milbank is emblematic of the sloppy thinking and poor focus that has reached epidemic proportions in his profession, and which continues to confuse and misdirect millions of people every week.

Not that I think I'm perfect.  Far from it.  I'm never satisfied with my own writing. But Milbank's prose made my teeth hurt.  And not for the first time in my adult life.

 

 

The Deficit Commission In Real Life: Rick Smith Show Interview

I appeared on the Rick Smith Show this weekend to talk about the Deficit Commission report (it's technically not an official report, but it's being treated like one anyway), and what its recommendations would mean to a lot of people in this country.

Rick, who's based in central Pennsylvania, does a great job of discussing the issues from the perspective of working men and women.  As if that weren't enough, the intro music for this segment (Social Distortion's cover of "Ring of Fire") will be met with great approval among Southern California punk-rockers.  

Our conversation is below the jump (it will start to play if you click, so don't click if you're anyplace where the punk version of a Johnny Cash song might not be well received):