Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American music.[1][2] He was also a multi-instrumentalist who played the guitar, bass, piano, saxophone, and drums. Mayfield is a winner of both the Grammy Legend Award (in 1994) and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (in 1995), and he was a double inductee into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted as a member of The Impressions into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and again in 1999 as a solo artist. He is also a two-time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee
Susan Rice to John Mcshame: “Please PROCEED Senator.”
Republicans aimed criticism at U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice Thursday for having modest stakes in companies that did business with Iran. And while the revelation has driven new questions and fodder for those opposing her nomination as secretary of state, one of Rice’s most vocal critics, Senator John McCain, maintains investments in two of the same companies — ENI and Royal Dutch Shell –through funds revealed in his financial disclosures.
More at the link here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/john-mccain-has-same-iranian-business-investments
Rikyrah, who shot Fitz?!
I do not know. My money would be on that old colleague of Huck’s from a few weeks ago – Charlie.
http://youtu.be/d9895tFybQ0
The president who must not be named
By Steve Benen
Fri Nov 30, 2012 2:49 PM EST
The Wall Street Journal editorial page believes President Obama has an “economic growth deficit,” and publishes an image comparing GDP by year under Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Obama.
Now, in a comparison like this, context is everything. Reagan and Clinton didn’t inherit global economic catastrophes, didn’t need mandatory Senate supermajorities to pass legislation, didn’t have debt-ceiling fiascos to put up with, didn’t have the luxury of getting economic boosts from the Fed lowering interest rates, etc. All of these relevant details went unmentioned.
But Jon Chait notices something else omitted from the WSJ visual.
No George W. Bush! Possibly there wasn’t enough room. Or possibly the lesson of the most recent former president, whose tax cuts are set to expire and who presided over poor economic growth, might not offer the lesson the Journal editorial page is seeking to convey
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/
McConnell’s vision of a ‘compromise’
By Steve Benen
Fri Nov 30, 2012 4:59 PM EST.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), not surprisingly, has no use for President Obama’s $4 trillion reduction/economic stimulus plan. Greg Sargent, however, flags the Republican’s vision of what a bipartisan agreement would look like.
………………………………………………………………………………
If this sounds vaguely familiar, there’s a good reason: it’s the blueprint of the plan Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Sunday he could support.
What I hope the political world — policymakers, Sunday show participants, etc. — will consider as we go into the weekend is how truly baffling McConnell’s concept of a “compromise” really is.
Despite an election cycle in which Democrats did very well up and down the ballot, the Senate GOP leader envisions an agreement in which Republicans get the Medicare cuts they want, Republicans get the Social Security cuts they want, and Republicans get the tax rates they want. In exchange, McConnell would give Democrats Mitt Romney’s revenue plan.
Seriously.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/30/15578203-mcconnells-vision-of-a-compromise?lite
Go, Craig! Wow!
Go Craig Go!!!
Fiscal Cliff Fictions: Let’s All Agree to Pretend the GOP Isn’t Full of It
By Michael GrunwaldNov. 30, 2012
It’s really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing along Republican complaints that President Obama’s opening offer in the fiscal cliff talks is just a recycled version of his old plan, when those same reporters spent the last year dutifully passing along Republican complaints that Obama had no plan. It’s even more amazing to see them pass along Republican outrage that Obama isn’t cutting Medicare enough, in the same matter-of-fact tone they used during the campaign to pass along Republican outrage that Obama was cutting Medicare.
This isn’t just cognitive dissonance. It’s irresponsible reporting. Mainstream media outlets don’t want to look partisan, so they ignore the BS hidden in plain sight, the hypocrisy and dishonesty that defines the modern Republican Party. I’m old enough to remember when Republicans insisted that anyone who said they wanted to cut Medicare was a demagogue, because I’m more than three weeks old.
I’ve written a lot about the GOP’s defiance of reality–its denial of climate science, its simultaneous denunciations of Medicare cuts and government health care, its insistence that debt-exploding tax cuts will somehow reduce the debt—so I often get accused of partisanship. But it’s simply a fact that Republicans controlled Washington during the fiscally irresponsible era when President Clinton’s budget surpluses were transformed into the trillion-dollar deficit that President Bush bequeathed to President Obama. (The deficit is now shrinking.) It’s simply a fact that the fiscal cliff was created in response to GOP threats to force the U.S. government to default on its obligations. The press can’t figure out how to weave those facts into the current narrative without sounding like it’s taking sides, so it simply pretends that yesterday never happened.
The next fight is likely to involve the $200 billion worth of stimulus that Obama included in his recycled fiscal cliff plan that somehow didn’t exist before Election Day. I’ve taken a rather keen interest in the topic of stimulus, so I’ll be interested to see how this is covered. Keynesian stimulus used to be uncontroversial in Washington; every 2008 presidential candidate had a stimulus plan, and Mitt Romney’s was the largest. But in early 2009, when Obama began pushing his $787 billion stimulus plan, the GOP began describing stimulus as an assault on free enterprise—even though House Republicans (including Paul Ryan) voted for a $715 billion stimulus alternative that was virtually indistinguishable from Obama’s socialist version. The current Republican position seems to be that the fiscal cliff’s instant austerity would destroy the economy, which is odd after four years of Republican clamoring for austerity, and that the cliff’s military spending cuts in particular would kill jobs, which is even odder after four years of Republican insistence that government spending can’t create jobs.
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/30/fiscal-cliff-fictions-lets-all-agree-to-pretend-the-gop-isnt-full-of-it/#ixzz2DkXQJsko
http://youtu.be/NmYhbNZ5Zac
I loved this from the comments at BooMan Tribune:http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/11/29/231032/17
McConnell burst out laughing when Geithner presented his proposal. Then he was like, “Oh, wait. You’re serious.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/mcconnell-burst-laughter-geithner-outlined-obamas-plan_664210.html
………………………………………
then folks were reminded of this from Turtle Lips:
http://youtu.be/W-A09a_gHJc
and, they TOTALLY forgot this clip of the President – one of my favorites:
http://youtu.be/ZC8C_JH2eQc
Barack Obama :I give people the benefit of the doubt. I try and understand their point of view. If I perceive they are trying to take advantage of that, then……well, I crush them…..
(shit-faced grin)
That was just a joke….maybe…sort of, kind of.
And now we know. It’s not a joke.
Priceless. Absolutely priceless.
and finally, this video reminding folks of ‘ The Chicago Way’
http://youtu.be/xOvH-7lcjb0
BWA HA HA HA HA Smash Tippy’s head down into his body, PBO He aint’ got NO NECK!
November 29, 2012
You want good comedy?
Wow. I just watched six minutes of Sean Hannity, a personal record. In them I learned that 18 months ago the Middle East was peaceful and stable under dictators but hey they were “pro-American dictators” and now under the Obama administration the region has gone to hell. I also learned there are administration officials who are quaking under all the administration’s lies about the Benghazi Disaster and subsequent Cover-Up but hey they don’t wish indictment on themselves so the Truth eventually will out. I learned this administration ruthlessly deceived us about the Benghazi Disaster for election purposes. I learned that the Benghazi Disaster (and subsequent Cover-Up) and the 1998 Kenyan Embassy Disaster were eerily similar in their terrorist planning, but Democratic administrations just don’t get it.
I learned nothing about 9/11’s terrorist planning. It wasn’t mentioned on Sean Hannity’s show.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/11/you-want-good-comedy.html
Setting the Record Straight on Medicare, Budget Negotiations and Obama’s Record on the American Social Compact
Thursday, November 29, 2012 | Posted by Deaniac83 at 4:59 PM
21
This morning, a report in Politico by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen made some pretty bold claims about the progress of the negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff between the White House and House Republicans, or specifically, between President Obama and Speaker Boehner.
Cut through the fog, and here’s what to expect: Taxes will go up just shy of $1.2 trillion — the middle ground of what President Barack Obama wants and what Republicans say they could stomach. Entitlement programs, mainly Medicare, will be cut by no less than $400 billion — and perhaps a lot more, to get Republicans to swallow those tax hikes. There will be at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and “war savings.”
It’s this $400 billion “cut” in Medicare that has liberals concerned. Some liberal members of Congress are getting out in front against entitlement cuts, and groups like MoveOn are losing their collecting bowel movements:
“If this report in Politico is correct, then some ‘senior Democrats’ are sorely misguided about where their base stands. So let me be crystal clear. Any benefit cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, including raising the retirement or eligibility age, are absolutely unacceptable,” […]
“What’s worried some about the Politico article is that it kind of tossed in reforms or efficiencies along with talk about raising the Medicare retirement age or adjusting the cost of living adjustment — those two things would essentially start a nuclear war on the left,” [Adam] Green [the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee] said.
Let me first re-iterate my stand that President Obama owes to whom MoveOn thinks are his base almost exactly as much as he owes Teabaggers. Which is to say, nothing. As for the Left’s racist-in-chief Adam Green, his comments are as laughable as someone with sticks and stones threatening nuclear war. Also, yes, MoveOn is allowed to claim that slightly raising the Medicare eligibility age is a “cut” in benefits (i.e. it’s a ‘cut’ in the length of time one can claim the benefit), but only if they are willing to also concede that every year of increase in longevity is an addition to benefits, thereby should the age be linked to longevity, the cuts and additions cancel out. That’s not ideology. That’s math.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/11/setting-record-straight-on-medicare.html
Judge Rules Louisiana School Voucher System Unconstitutional
Casey Michel – 4:37 PM EST, Friday November 30, 2012
A judge in Baton Rouge, La. ruled on Friday that the state’s recently implemented school voucher system is unconstitutional.
The AP reported that State Judge Tim Kelley determined the voucher program, currently serving nearly 5,000 students in the state, improperly diverts funds allocated for the state’s public schools to private ones. Kelley also said the program unconstitutionally diverts local tax funds to private schools.
The lawsuit, brought by a coalition of Louisiana educational organizations, will likely be appealed, according to CBS affiliate WAFB. The decision came four days after a federal judge ruled the voucher program also violated one parish’s desegregation orders.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/judge-rules-louisiana-school-voucher-system-unconstitutional
Nate Silver: Politico Covers Politics Like Sports But ‘Not In An Intelligent Way At All’
New York Times polling guru Nate Silver took aim at Politico’s brand of reporting on Friday, saying the Washington-based news outlet covers politics like sports but “not in an intelligent way at all.”
Reflecting on Politico’s pre-election criticism of his FiveThirtyEight model, Silver told Grantland’s Bill Simmons on his “B.S. Report” podcast:
What was remarkable to me is that you had some, like, journalist for, um, Politico, or something … who, like, tweeted … ‘All Nate’s doing is averaging polls and counting electoral votes?’ … ‘That’s the secret sauce?’ It’s like, well, yeah, and the fact that you can’t comprehend that very basic thing … that says more about you than, than about me, right?”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/nate-silver-politico.php
Joy Reid@TheReidReport
God, is that you? MT @BverInFL:
Karl Rove Served W/ Subpoena for Illegal Election Operations in OH http://shar.es/6gUjY / Hmmm
What?
BWA HA HA HA HA HA AH HA
BWA HA HA HA HA HA AH HA
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Ok, I’ve caught my breath, now.
It was one HUGE GRIFT.
From beginning to end.
Willard was one big long con for them.
hilarious.
134 to 6
134 to 6
But, Willard was oh so ready to be President of the United States, because he was a rich, White businessman.
134 – 6
HEE HEE HEE
…………………………………………………………….
WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney’s campaign has directed $134.2 million to political firms with business ties to his senior staff, spotlighting the tightknit nature of his second presidential bid and the staggering sums being spent in this election.
Nine firms that are run by, or recently employed, top Romney aides have received almost a third of the $435.8 million that Romney’s campaign and a related fundraising committee have spent on operating expenses through Oct. 17, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of federal election finance reports.
President Obama’s reelection campaign and a joint fundraising committee have paid about $5.8 million in consulting fees to companies with business ties to senior strategists, according to the finance reports.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign-payday-20121027,0,6084625.story
ROTFLMBAO!!!!
Didn’t we call it all along? They were robbing Romney blind in broad daylight. He fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Willing to do pay to be LIED to. Serves the LIAR right. when someone lied as much as Romney has done for the last year, it’s not surprising he ate, slept, and shit LYING.
Democratic Strategist on Bashir right now says that GDP was at -9 when the President took office. With the revealing of +2.7 for the quarter, that means there has been a change of +12 since the President took office.
November 30, 2012 9:07 AM
Team Mitt Fell Prey To Two Big Myths
By Ed Kilgore
Before we get into the Daily Kabuki of the fiscal talks, it’s worth taking a look at the new evidence TNR’s Noam Scheiber dug up about the misplaced confidence that Mitt Romney’s campaign took into November 6. Given a glimpse of some internal Romney polling data and then a bit of phone time with Romney pollster Neil Newhouse, Scheiber deduces that the Romney campaign was especially deluded by how it was dominating most-likely voters down the stretch—those to whom it assigned an 8-10 “most interested in the election” number on a scale of 10:
What’s striking is how much better Romney does among those with the greatest interest in the campaign. If you look at Colorado and New Hampshire in particular, Romney is running up big margins among even the 8-10s, which Newhouse said routinely accounted for 80-90 percent of the sample in his internal polling. (In New Hampshire, the 8-10s represented 88 percent of the sample.) Newhouse said the reason the campaign broke out these numbers is that it helped them “try to gauge intensity.” But it also led them astray—it led them to assume that voter intensity was driving Romney’s leads. And it reflected a flaw in their polls. The people who told the campaign they were 8s, 9s, or 10s were a smaller share of the November 6 electorate than the 80-90 percent they accounted for in Romney’s polls—partly because Newhouse and his colleagues underestimated the number of young people, African Americans, and Latinos who wound up voting
In other words, Team Mitt forgot that in the end a “vote is a vote,” and that interest or enthusiasm beyond the level necessary to get (in conjunction with GOTV efforts) people to show up and cast a ballot is nice but has no electoral value unless it is somehow infectious.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_11/team_mitt_fell_prey_to_two_big041491.php
National Review Advises Surrender
by BooMan
Fri Nov 30th, 2012 at 03:16:45 PM EST
The editors at the National Review are urging surrender. Total surrender. They say it would be “better to pass legislation extending the middle-class tax cuts and to allow the top rates to rise” than it would be to accept anything approaching what Tim Geithner offered them. After advising senators to keep their yaps shut about capitulation in order to avoid undermining the House’s negotiating position, they give up on linking the tax hikes to entitlement reform:
We have more sympathy for those Republicans who are urging the White House to show some leadership on restraining the growth of Medicare and Social Security — but they too are making a mistake. Republicans cannot politically sustain a public position of being willing to raise taxes on the rich only if popular benefits are cut. If they come across as being willing to shield the middle class from tax increases only if entitlements are cut, that position will hurt them still worse. Entitlement reform is a possible result of this deal only if Obama leads on it publicly. Since he does not seem inclined to do that, Republicans should stop expecting entitlement reform as a likely outcome of negotiations
What they are saying is unambiguous. They want the House to pass an extension of the middle-class tax cuts without preserving the cuts for the top two percent, and without getting anything in return.
However, they recognize that the base must be appeased somewhat, so they have a proposed script for some Kabuki theatre:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/11/30/151645/82
this is the 30th Anniversary of Michael Jackson’s THRILLER –
WOW
Disturbing new evidence reveals racial discrimination in 1970s Civil Rights Case
http://huff.to/Sk9dPy
Citing new evidence, the NAACP has asked the North Carolina governor to pardon the so-called Wilmington Ten who were convicted of arson and conspiracy more than four decades ago in a case some say was tainted by racial discrimination and jury tampering.
The NAACP last week began circulating an online petition aimed at pressuring North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) to pardon the 10, convicted of firebombing a white-owned grocery store and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 years to 34 years.
The petition comes as the NAACP on Tuesday revealed trial notes by prosecutor Jay Stroud that the civil rights group said show the assistant district attorney trying to select jurors who were KKK members and “uncle Tom” types. Stroud also wrote of weighing pros and cons of a mistrial, later granted based on his claim of illness. A second trial resulted in the convictions.
“We rarely get such direct evidence of prosecutorial racism in jury selection,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP. “The prosecutor is ethically bound to put justice over winning. District attorneys represent all the people in North Carolina, not just white people in North Carolina.
November 30, 2012 2:56 PM
Another Reason Obama Should Avoid Self-Negotiation
By Ed Kilgore
Earlier today I noted Ezra Klein’s astute observation that Barack Obama has decided not to “negotiate with himself” in the fiscal talks by initially offering anything other than the preferred formula he’d pursue if Republicans were suddenly lifted up in the Rapture or driven into madness by all the soul-struggling they’re pretending to do.
But there’s another reason other than gamesmanship why Obama should avoid moving in the direction of the GOP until they’ve moved first: Republicans desperately want Democrats to throw them into the briar patch of Medicare cuts that they spent much of the last four years pretending to deplore. Jonathan Chait sums up their quandry in a manner than his powers of logic and sarcasm best equip him to do:
The Republican positioning on Medicare has set the tone for the current budget impasse. Obama is asking for $1.6 trillion in higher tax revenue. Republicans are demanding more spending cuts, but they won’t say how much they want, let alone what specifically they will cut. The current party thinking on Medicare, sanctified by Romney and Ryan, has defined itself as matching or even outspending Obama on Medicare for anybody aged 55 and up. That would lock out any budget savings at all for the next decade, and make any savings roll in extremely slowly afterward.
Republicans could present a plan like that in negotiations — deep Medicare cuts that don’t start to take effect until 2022. But, since the two sides have already cut discretionary spending to the bone, that would necessarily require that any deal necessarily have far more tax hikes than spending cuts over the next decade. But Republicans don’t want that, either. It’s not clear that their goals can be expressed at all, at least not in arithmetically coherent form.
Hence their current demand that Obama formulate a proposed slate of entitlement spending cuts on their behalf. Right now Republicans seem to need Obama to conduct both sides of the negotiation
If Obama refuses to put Medicare cuts “on the table,” then Republicans will either have to abandon the Mediscare tactics that are so important to their ability to hang onto their voting base of white seniors, or propose insane cuts elsewhere, or just give in, or just obstruct any deal and let the Bush tax cuts expire (quickly followed by a middle-class tax cut they dare not oppose) along with defense cuts that will freak out their militarist wing. They are indeed deep in a trap of their own design.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_11/another_reason_obama_should_av041505.php
Transformation vs. Restoration: Which Political Position Will Prevail?
By Ronald Brownstein
Updated: November 21, 2012 | 11:09 a.m.
And yet, what historians are likely to most remember about this campaign is what it revealed about the evolving nature of the country itself and how the parties are positioning themselves against those dynamics. Above all, this was a year when it became clear that, in a time of hurtling change, the two parties now represent a Coalition of Transformation and a Coalition of Restoration.
In terms of shaping the Democrats’ long-term trajectory, by far the most important decisions Obama made this year were to dive into the powerful cultural and demographic currents transforming the American landscape. Previously, many party leaders have qualified (or entirely withheld) their support from causes such as gay marriage or legalizing undocumented immigrants, for fear of alienating culturally conservative whites. Obama this year embraced both without qualification; then, for good measure, he accepted a collision with the GOP and the Catholic Church (over the availability of free contraception under health care reform) that crystallized contrasting attitudes about the role of women. Obama, beginning an overdue rebalancing in federal spending, even shifted resources from seniors to the much more racially diverse working-age population by funding health coverage for the uninsured partly through savings in Medicare.
Romney, in his sulfurous postelection remarks, interpreted Obama’s moves as providing voters “gifts” to buy their support. But these decisions represented nothing more malevolent or unusual than a party responding to the needs of its emerging constituencies.
Obama’s choices undoubtedly contributed to his historically weak showing among older- and blue-collar whites. Yet, with those voters stampeding toward the GOP, Obama won reelection behind a much more ideologically unified coalition than Democrats usually assemble; according to exit polls, four-fifths of his voters, for instance, said they supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Notably, in the exit polls, most Hispanics and African-Americans also said they supported gay marriage. All this means that, compared to even President Clinton’s era, the Democrats are now operating with a largely coherent Coalition of Transformation that will allow (and even pressure) them to align more unreservedly with the big cultural and demographic forces remaking America.
For better or worse, this election more clearly stamped the Republicans as a Coalition of Restoration, overwhelmingly dependent on the votes of whites unsettled by those changes. After Obama’s victory, conservative grandees such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly portrayed the election as something like the Alamo, with true Americans overrun by hordes of benefit-grubbing minorities and young people. “We are outnumbered,” Limbaugh despaired. Romney capped this keening last week with his postelection diatribe to donors about Obama’s “gifts”–possibly the bitterest screed from a loser since Richard Nixon declared, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore” after he lost California’s 1962 governor’s race.
Romney’s remarks weren’t just sour grapes; they reflect a widespread fear among the Right that a heavily nonwhite class of “takers” will vote itself ever-expanding benefits at the expense of mostly white “makers.” Romney earlier expressed that conviction in his broadside against the “47 percent,” and running mate Rep. Paul Ryan has made similar arguments for years. Yuval Levin (identified this week by David Brooks as one of the Right’s “two or three most influential young writers”) recently described Democrats as “an incoherent amalgam of interest groups … vying for benefits … at the expense of other Americans.”
These comments reveal a profound sense of demographic retreat on the Right that makes explicit the sub rosa implications of the tea party’s 2010 cry to “take back our country.” To the extent that longing means restoring the political dominance of married, churchgoing white families, the most important message of 2012 is that those days are gone. As if with a cannon burst, this election announced the arrival of a reconfigured America. Led by Romney, many in the GOP have responded by raging against it. It’s just a guess, but responding to the needs of this emerging Next America might prove a more profitable long-term strategy.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/politics/transformation-vs-restoration-which-political-position-will-prevail–20121121
November 30, 2012 9:58 AM
Who’s “Serious” Now?
By Ed Kilgore
\
The President’s formal opening offer on a fiscal deal to avoid year-end appropriations sequestrations and a full expiration of the Bush tax cuts hit Capitol Hill last night, and congressional Republicans are outraged that he offered pretty much what he’s been publicly saying he’d offer from the moment the talks began. Indeed, the offer is thought to be a “slap in the face” because it did not include the concessions Republicans have been demanding for moving even an inch on taxes, most notably highly specific spending cut proposals that could give bipartisan cover to the GOP’s most avaricious dreams.
In terms of the thinking at the White House, it seems Ezra Klein has nailed it again:
Perhaps the key lesson the White House took from the last couple of years is this: Don’t negotiate with yourself. If Republicans want to cut Medicare, let them propose the cuts. If they want to raise revenue through tax reform, let them identify the deductions. If they want deeper cuts in discretionary spending, let them settle on a number. And, above all, if they don’t like the White House’s preferred policies, let them propose their own. That way, if the White House eventually does give in and agree to some of their demands, Republicans will feel like they got one over on the president. A compromise isn’t measured by what you offer, it’s measured by what the other side feels they made you concede.
The GOP is right: This isn’t a serious proposal. But it’s not evidence that Obama isn’t serious. He’s very serious about not negotiating with himself, and his opening bid proves it. Now that they’ve leaked his initial offer, the next question is obvious: What’s their offer
Answering that question is problematic, for the very interesting reason that what Republicans want most—benefit cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, and if possible Social Security—is what they want least to identify themselves with in any kind of public way.
Already, Rush Limbaugh is telling Republicans they should just cancel negotiations and let Obama take total responsibility for whatever happens. To the extent that Obama’s strategy involves forcing Republicans to very openly identify themselves with very specific and very unpopular domestic spending cuts before he deems them as being “on the table,” Rush will soon have some “serious” company.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_11/whos_serious_now041493.php
Feeling Our Oats, Can’t Stop the Party
by BooMan
Fri Nov 30th, 2012 at 12:37:21 PM EST
Here’s the thoroughly dishonest Conn Carroll’s fairly accurate depiction of Tim Geithner’s proposal to the Republican leadership:
1. An immediate $1 trillion tax hike through higher top marginal income tax rates as well as higher taxes on both capital gains and dividends.
2. An agreement to raise $600 billion more in taxes later this year by limiting tax deductions for top earners.
3. $50 billion in new infrastructure stimulus spending.
4. Another “emergency” extension of unemployment benefits.
5. An extension of either the payroll tax cut or the reinstatement of Obama’s stimulus Making Work Pay tax credit.
6. A mortgage refinancing program.
7. Billions in new spending to prevent cuts to Medicare reimbursement payments for doctors.
8. An infinite debt limit hike
Mr. Carroll says that the Republicans should respond by simply giving up on any pretense of trying to avoid the fiscal cliff. They should just go home, enjoy the holidays, and wait for the Obama administration to grow up. Charles Krauthammer basically concurs, comparing Geithner’s terms to General Grant’s at Appomattox. Of course, General Lee didn’t have the option of walking away at Appomattox. Much like Mitt Romney and the Republicans, General Lee and his Confederate Army were defeated.
It doesn’t sound like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans on following Carroll and Krauthammer’s advice, however. He wants to lock in cuts to entitlements.
…………………………………
So, McConnell should probably start a tour of the country so he can take his case for raising the eligibility age of Social Security and Medicare to the people. While he’s at it, he can explain how “changes in CPI” means smaller Social Security checks for everyone.
It’s time for the Republicans to sell their plan to the people. They might like it better than gonorrhea!!
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/11/30/123721/14
The GOP’s got NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH, ZERO to offer the majority of Americans. That’s why they took a beatdown at the polls this month. And in 2014 they’ll take another shelacking.
Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS
Obama’s message to GOP in PA today: We don’t need to play on your turf. You need to play on ours: wapo.st/Tr8ZF2
Spread this:
– Barack Obama is the first Democratic President to win 2 terms with over 50% of the vote since FDR!
– And, he is the first President of either party to win 2 terms with at least 51% of the vote since Dwight Eisenhower!
Historic Presidency, indeed.
http://youtu.be/XFNcj_T0y10
Chernynkaya @Chernynkaya
GOP Furious That Obama Is Acting Like He Won The Election nationalmemo.com/gop-furious-th…
LOL Still in shock since 2008, huh?
http://youtu.be/8sqtBkbCMDY
Go now!
Faking Me Out?
by BooMan
Fri Nov 30th, 2012 at 10:00:53 AM EST
I’m trying not to think too hard about this. Is it double reverse psychology? If the Republicans truly want John Kerry to leave the Senate to serve as the next Secretary of State, surely they know that saying as much only makes that outcome less likely, right? This is especially true when it is coupled with unfair attacks against UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Speaking just for me, I originally wanted Kerry to get the job, but I am now feeling like it should go to Rice. The only reason I feel that way is because I don’t want the Republicans to be rewarded for their bad behavior or for Rice to lose out on a post she’s earned and that she was otherwise going to get. Are the Republicans smart enough to know that Democrats will respond to their antics in this way? Are we being played into abandoning Kerry? Despite all their words of support, are the Republicans looking to screw their colleague from Massachusetts?
No. I don’t think they are that clever. I think they just don’t like Susan Rice. Why ever could that be?
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/11/30/10053/793
http://youtu.be/GbycvPwr1Wg
Republicans Say They Expect Spending Offsets for Sandy Disaster Aid
By Kerry Young and Niels Lesniewski
Roll Call Staff Nov. 29, 2012, 1:16 p.m.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, signaling that Republicans may revive last year’s battles over offsets to disaster aid relief, says he expects that any package to help Northeast states hit by the superstorm Sandy will have to including matching cuts in spending elsewhere in the federal budget.
“We always help communities during disasters,” he said Wednesday after having met earlier in the day with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is pushing for quick passage of an aid package. “The difference you have got now is that it is going to have to be offset.”
[…] Lawmakers are waiting to see how much the White House will seek for an initial disaster relief package to aid communities hard-hit by Sandy, which devastated portions of coastal New Jersey and metropolitan New York City. Officials from the region said in meetings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that they want the White House to seek an $80 billion aid package for the region.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/republicans_say_they_expect_spending_offsets_for_sandy_disaster_aid-219509-1.html?pg=1
The dog and cat are so cute.
LOL!
Too sweet! He’s saving the kitty.
This is precious. Who says animals aren’t SOUL too?!
President Obama: “Call, send an email, post on their Facebook wall. If you tweet, use My2K. Because it’s about your $2k in your pocket”
Congress phone 1-202-224-3121
Obama: “Scrooge Christmas” coming if Congress does nothing on fiscal cliff http://tpm.ly/TwWw5W
This bish…
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer compares undocumented immigrants to drunks and children
http://thkpr.gs/TwWGGM
President Obama Speaks at the Rodon Group Manufacturing Facility
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
Love this pic. Is it recent and where was it taken?
Stevie Wonder, Ban Ki Moon, Susan Rice, Kiyotaka Akasaka
(L-R) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, musician Stevie Wonder, H.E. Ms. Susan Rice, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN and Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information attend the United Nations Messenger of Peace induction ceremony at the United Nations on December 3, 2009 in New York City.
(December 2, 2009 – Source: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images North America
The gorgeous and fierce Ambassador Susan Rice!
ALL.OF.THIS.
Exclusive: The Internal Polls That Made Mitt Romney Think He’d Win
Noam Scheiber
It’s no secret that the Romney campaign believed it was headed for victory on Election Day. A handful of outlets have reported that Team Romney’s internal polling showed North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia moving safely into his column and that it put him ahead in a few other swing states. When combined with Ohio, where the internal polling had him close, Romney was on track to secure all the electoral votes he needed to win the White House. The confidence in these numbers was such that Romney even passed on writing a concession speech, at least before the crotchety assignment-desk known as “reality” finally weighed in.
Less well-known, however, are the details of the polls that led Romney to believe he was so close to the presidency. Which other swing states did Romney believe he was leading in, and by how much? What did they tell him about where to spend his final hours of campaigning? Why was his team so sanguine about its own polling, even though it often parted company with the publicly available data? In an exclusive to The New Republic, a Romney aide has provided the campaign’s final internal polling numbers for six key states, along with additional breakdowns of the data, which the aide obtained from the campaign’s chief pollster, Neil Newhouse. Newhouse himself then discussed the numbers with TNR.
The numbers include internal polls conducted on Saturday, November 3, and Sunday, November 4, for Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, and New Hampshire. According to Newhouse, the campaign polled daily, then combined the results into two-day averages. The numbers for each day along with the averages are displayed in the chart below, followed by the actual result in each state:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/110597/exclusive-the-polls-made-mitt-romney-think-hed-win#
November 30, 2012
IMO,
This was just the last person to take Willard’s money. they just gave him what he wanted to hear. …
and CASHED THE CHECK.
Spot on. Does anyone really believe that if Romeney were told to NOT START PACKING, Mittens would be handing them a check?
Which one do you like?
I love the black ensemble
Me too! The boots are killa but the heels might be a bit too high. A lower heel and I’m game.
The BLACK ensem is to LIVE FOR!
http://youtu.be/RHGuiZdOZzw
http://youtu.be/a7uFethVA6Y
Collins’ new Rice offensive crumbles
By Steve Benen
Fri Nov 30, 2012 9:57 AM EST
As part of the larger smear campaign against Susan Rice, most Senate Republicans have focused on Benghazi and the intelligence available four days after the attack. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), however, brought up a new line of criticism this week — by focusing on an old crisis.
After Rice paid Collins a courtesy visit, the Maine Republican told reporters that Rice served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs when al Qaeda attacked American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania: “What troubles me so much is the Benghazi attack in many ways echoes the attacks on those embassies in 1998, when Susan Rice was head of the African region for our State Department.”
David Corn reports on just how wrong Collins is.
[Collins questioned] whether Rice was somehow partially responsible for security failures that led to hundreds of casualties in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania when she was assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Yet State Department reports undermine Collins’ expanded line of attack. […]
With this remark, Collins was suggesting that Rice had screwed the pooch in 1998. It’s a powerful charge, suggesting Rice’s supposed inaction may have played a role in the deaths of hundreds. But that’s not what a State Department inquiry found.
Corn found that one of the ambassadors in Africa asked for greater security before the 1998 attack, and in that case, additional security was indeed provided.
And what did the State Department inquiry have to say about Rice? Nothing. She had no role in making decisions about security or embassy operations.
——————————————————————————–
In other words, Collins’ superficial criticisms rely on child-like reasoning: 14 years ago, Rice was the assistant secretary of state for African affairs; two U.S. embassies were attacked in Africa; ergo, there’s something wrong with Rice’s record.
This makes about as much sense as condemning Rice for appearing on a Sunday show — which as it turns out, is the other deeply ridiculous talking point Collins is pushing. All things considered, it looks like the senator owes the ambassador an apology.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/30/15570919-collins-new-rice-offensive-crumbles?lite
Romney didn’t win the middle class
By Steve Benen
Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:45 AM EST
It was inevitable that Mitt Romney’s aides, if only to improve their own career prospects, would start pushing back against the notion that the Republican campaign was a failed, poorly-run enterprise. And after a few weeks in which Team Romney has taken a lot of heat in recent weeks, most notably from their allies, former chief strategist Stuart Stevens has become the leading defender.
So far, it’s off to a rough start. Stevens seemed to brag this week about losing poor, minority voters to President Obama, as if their votes were somehow less important. Alec McGillis labeled it “47 percenterism,” since the attitude is clearly an extension of the haughty elitism that plagued the overall campaign.
But Tim Noah took this a step further and questioned Stevens’ factual claims. For the Republican strategist, what matters is the fact that Romney won “every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year,” which means “he carried the majority of middle-class voters.”
Putting aside the fact that nearly half the country makes less $50,000 a year and their votes count, too, Noah notes that the claim itself isn’t quite right.
[W]here does Stevens get the idea that winning the more clubbable majority of voters earning $50,000 or more means Romney “carried the majority of middle-class voters”? Perhaps from President Obama, who during the election preposterously defined as poor or “middle class” any household earning up to $250,000. But if you follow the lead of Romney adviser Martin Feldstein, who defined as poor or middle class any household earning up to $100,000, then that group went for Obama by a healthy 10-point spread, 54-44 percent. This group represented a hefty 72 percent of the electorate
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/30/15569402-romney-didnt-win-the-middle-class?lite
LOL Romney’s now part of the 47%.
Posted at 09:05 AM ET, 11/30/2012
The Morning Plum: Skittish Democrats putting filibuster reform in peril
By Greg Sargent
Republicans have threatened all out war in order to block Democratic efforts from reforming the filibuster. But it turns out the real obstacle to changing the Senate rules may be Democrats themselves.
The problem: Some Dem Senators are leery of changing the filibuster via the “constitutional option,” i.e., a rules change by a simple majority. In one sense, it’s apt that this is what is driving their reluctance: After all, what these Senators are really doing is reinforcing a status quo in which there is no longer majority rule in the Upper Chamber.
The Hill reports this morning that senators Dianne Feinstein, Mark Pryor, and Carl Levin are uncomfortable with a simple-majority change. Senators Max Baucus and Jack Reed have yet to be persuaded. Senators John Kerry and Jay Rockefeller say they’re undecided but leaning towards a change. Senator-elect Joe Donnelly is uncommitted. Presuming Republicans vote unanimously against any changes, if Harry Reid loses six votes, filibuster reform is toast.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Obama offers GOP an ambitious, progressive debt-reduction plan
By Steve Benen
Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:59 AM EST
President Obama had to endure some deeply unpleasant experiences with Congress over the last couple of years, but the result of the incidents taught him valuable lessons. It’s clear, especially after last year’s debt-ceiling crisis, that the president now knows exactly how to negotiate with reckless, radicalized Republicans.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal on Thursday to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, $50 billion in immediate stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits.
The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, met strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced the goal of finding $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other social programs to be worked out next year, with no guarantees.
For years, Obama hoped to strike deals by being conciliatory, starting with opening offers designed to satisfy Republican demands. These efforts repeatedly failed miserably, and only emboldened GOP leaders to demand agreements tilted heavily in their favor.
Fine, the president is now saying. Let’s start with an ambitious plan designed to make Democrats happy, and see how that works out. The days of preemptive concessions and negotiating from a defensive crouch are over.
Republicans seemed stunned late yesterday while condemning Obama’s offer, as if the president shouldn’t have the audacity to present a plan he knows they won’t like. But I’d remind GOP lawmakers that everything in Obama’s proposal is consistent with his previous budget plans and the policies he presented to the public during the recent national campaign (which he won fairly easily).
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/30/15568521-obama-offers-gop-an-ambitious-progressive-debt-reduction-plan?lite
Thirty-Six Congressional Republicans (And Counting) Have Distanced Themselves From Norquist’s Pledge
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/11/30/1259051/22-republicans-norquist/?mobile=nc
Every day, more Republicans in Congress are backing away from Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquit’s anti-tax pledge. For more than 20 years, the pledge, which stipulates that those who sign will never — under any circumstance — vote to raise taxes while in Congress, has virtually been a requirement for Congressional Republicans. According to ATR, just 16 of the 234 House Republicans and 6 of the 45 Senate Republicans that comprise the 113th Congress did not sign the pledge.
However, the pledge may not have the staying power it once did. As of this writing, more than a dozen House Republicans — including Majority Leader Eric Cantor — and 10 GOP senators have distanced themselves from the pledge to one degree or another. Here are just a few examples or what members had to say:
— Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH): “The only pledge that keeps me up at night is the pledge I owe to the people of New Hampshire and our country to work as hard as I can to make sure America doesn’t go bankrupt.”
– Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge . . . I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.”
– Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN): “Well, I’m not obligated on the pledge. I made Tennesseans aware, I was just elected, that the only thing I’m honoring is the oath I take when I’m sworn in this January.”
– Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA): “When I go to the constituents, it’s not about that pledge. It’s about trying to solve problems.”
– Rep. Peter King (R-NY): “A pledge is good at the time you sign it . . . In 1941, I would have voted to declare war on Japan. But each Congress is a new Congress. And I don’t think you can have a rule that you’re never going to raise taxes or that you’re never going to lower taxes. I don’t want to rule anything out.”
– Rep. Timothy Johnson (R-IL): “I would never in a million years have considered this as some kind of a locked-in-granite pledge. Frankly, I didn’t even remember it. That shows you how obscure it was to me.”
MORE…
Where’s the bye graphic, SG2? LMBAO
Democrats will hold 55 seats in the Senate in the 113th Congress.
http://thehill.com/video/senate/267821-sen-elect-king-i-have-decided-to-affiliate-myself-with-the-democratic-caucus …
Corbett says he might talk with Kane investigators
Gov. Tom Corbett said Thursday that he probably would agree to meet with investigators as part of state Attorney General-elect Kathleen Kane’s promised probe of that office’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse case.
“If I believe it’s a political game, no. If I believe that they want to know exactly what was going on when I was there and my thought process, sure,” Corbett told reporters.
The topic of Kane’s planned investigation cropped up during a year-end interview of Corbett by reporters from several news organizations.
Corbett was attorney general when the state took over the investigation of Sandusky in early 2009 and continued through his 2010 election campaign. He had been governor for nearly a year when the ex-Penn State assistant football coach was charged in November 2011.
The Republican governor’s political adversaries have repeatedly suggested that he stretched out the investigation to ensure that it did not become public during the campaign and — theoretically — prompt Penn State loyalists to vote against him.
Sandusky, once a nationally renowned sports figure, was convicted in June on 45 counts of sexually abusing boys. He is serving a 30- to 60-year prison term.
Kane, who once specialized in child sex-abuse cases as a Lackawanna County prosecutor, vowed to launch an investigation into why it took 33 months to bring Sandusky to justice. She ran on the issue in her campaign to become the state’s first woman and first Democrat to be elected attorney general.
Kane, who has not spelled out details about her planned investigation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment relayed Thursday through her campaign spokesman.
http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20121129/Corbett_Sandusky_probe/?cid=hero_media_phillyitn
From Institute of the Black World:
Hands off Ambassador Susan Rice
The Institute of the Black World 21st Century and its allies are outraged at the persistent assault directed at U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice over preliminary statements she made from talking points provided by U.S. intelligence agencies, regarding the fatal assault on the U.S. Embassy compound in Benghazi, Libya — which resulted in the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three Embassy staff. Despite President Obama’s pledge to conduct a thorough investigation of this matter, there has been a steady pre and post election partisan drumbeat insinuating that Ambassador Rice lied to the American people about the nature of the attack on the Embassy. Honorable sirs, you have not only impugned the character of Secretary Rice, but boldly and boastfully threatened to block her confirmation should she be nominated for the office of Secretary of State by the President. Equally outrageous, you have called for a Joint House/Senate “select committee” to investigate the Benghazi tragedy, invoking “Watergate” and the “Iran Contra” scandal, not so subtly suggesting a cover-up of impeachable proportions.
Our response to this preposterous assault is clear: Hypocrites have no moral or political authority to stand in judgment of Ambassador Susan Rice! We find it utterly incredulous that the Honorable Senators who uncritically supported the war against Iraq, based on inexplicably flawed intelligence or outright deception, could even perk their lips to criticize Ambassador Rice. Who could ever forget President Bush emphatically asserting that the reason for the war was the danger posed to the region, America and the world by Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction? Who could ever forget Cheney and Rice parroting this fallacious proposition and that embarrassing performance by an ill informed Colin Powell before the Security Council of the United Nations?
http://ibw21.org/hands-off-ambassador-susan-rice/
…Wednesday night’s memorial service for Jordan Davis was, of course, very sad and full of emotion, but the overall tone was not what many expected. There was not a lot of anger, negativity or any harsh words. Instead, the overwhelming feeling and message was that Jordan’s death should not be in vain.
Ron Davis is hoping that this tragedy leads to a “butterfly effect.” He told me that if he can just influence one person to stop before they pick up a gun in anger, that maybe they will influence the next person. And so on, and so on, and so on.
His goal, though only a few days underway, is to stop gun violence.
Knowing Ron Davis for the last seven years, it was heartbreaking to see him go through something so tragic. He was wearing sunglasses and crying through most of the night. He’s been crying since we first talked on the phone early Saturday morning.
http://www.news4jax.com/news/1st-person-Inside-the-Jordan-Davis-tragedy/-/475880/17591818/-/7rf3pm/-/index.html
Fiscal cliff crisis: Made in the GOP
By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Both major political parties may have their fingerprints on long-simmering problems in the federal budget, but just one created the current crisis known as the fiscal cliff.
Blame them or thank them, it was the Republicans who forced a series of budget moves over the last decade that now are bringing the government to a breaking point that threatens sweeping tax increases and indiscriminate spending cuts that could plunge the country back into recession.
Part of it was a political gimmick, working the rules of the Senate to push through sweeping tax cuts in a way Republicans later would lambaste when President Barack Obama’s Democrats used the same tactic to enact the new health care law. The legislative gimmick got the tax cuts through Congress, but it made them the first such tax cuts with an expiration date. Those temporary tax cuts are expiring
‘
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/29/175922/fiscal-cliff-crisis-made-in-the.html#storylink=cpy
CHICAGO PEOPLE-
A REMINDER: Tonight begins the Winter Parking Ban.
DON’T leave your car out on the marked streets – it will be towed tonight.
Good Morning, Everyone at 3CHICS!
Morning, everyone!
Where are my manners? Good Morning Everyone! :-)
Charles V. Bush, first black Supreme Court page, dies at 72
By Emily Langer,
Nov 30, 2012 04:04 AM EST
The Washington Post Published: November 29
Charles V. Bush, who became the first African American to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court page in 1954 — the same year the court desegregated public schools — and later was one of the first black graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy, died Nov. 5 at his home in Lolo, Mont. He was 72.
His death, from colon cancer, was confirmed by his wife, Bettina Bush.
Read on
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/charles-v-bush-first-black-supreme-court-page-dies-at-72/2012/11/29/f8424bb6-397d-11e2-a263-f0ebffed2f15_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
The Supreme Court’s Big Gay-Marriage Day, Explained
What you need to know about the seven cases in the hands of the justices on Friday.
—By Dana Liebelson
| Thu Nov. 29, 2012 12:55 PM PST
On Friday, the Supreme Court will convene privately to make a highly anticipated decision: Will it weigh in on gay marriage? There are currently seven cases in front of the court, covering issues from whether married gay veterans can be buried together in a military cemetery to whether same-sex couples can once again marry in California. The court can decide to hear all, some, or none of the cases. And merely deciding to take a case or not will have broad implications for the future of gay marriage in the United States.
Which cases are involved?
■Hollingsworth v. Perry, a challenge to Califorinia’s Proposition 8, is the only case facing the high court that deals specifically with the right of same-sex couples to marry. After the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2008, anti-gay-marriage activists passed an amendment to the California constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. A federal appeals court then declared the proposition unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-rights