Three observations

1. The right repeatedly tells us that we can't tax our way to our prosperity. Then why were we more prosperous when our taxes were higher?

Bush responded to the Wall Street collapse with massive tax cuts for the better-off. Obama's "stimulus" was primarily a matter of further tax cuts, although our media keeps that fact a secret. What more proof do we need that tax cuts don't bring prosperity?

2. Why are some scandals more scandalous than others? Breitbartian Lee Stranahan (who, like the Mighty Seixon, pretends to be a "liberal" even though all of his connections go toward the right) says that he has a solution for the "Nikki" subplot of the Weiner affair. Naturally, he has found a way to blame a liberal -- yes, he says that there was a liberal plot to destroy Weiner and make Andy Breitbart look like a martyr. I don't buy it. Nevertheless, the right is talking and talking and talking about this.

I'll go into the details later. Right now, even if you're sick of the whole business, consider this: Three days ago, a persuasive charge of bribery was brought against Republican David Vitter, already tarred by a prostitution scandal. Now, I have never wanted Vitter (or anyone else) to resign over a mere sex scandal, but bribery is serious.

Yet concern over the charge against Vitter seems to have vanished already.

Meanwhile, on the right, it's still all Weiner all the time. Looks to me like some right-wing writers whom lefties normally ignore are using sock puppets to threaten themselves, and thereby keep up the martyrella routine.

How are the righties able to control the national conversation to that extent? You think that "persona" software (as discussed in previous posts) might play a role?

3. You can't build a New Jerusalem without an apocalypse. This is the point of the previous post. Robert Parry makes the same point.

Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using almost any means available, from challenging the legitimacy of opponents to spreading lies and disinformation to sabotaging the economy.

Over the past four decades or so, the Republicans have simply not played by the old give-and-take rules of politics. Indeed, if one were to step back and assess this Republican approach, what you would see is something akin to how the CIA has destabilized target countries, especially those that seek to organize themselves in defiance of capitalist orthodoxy.