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I found this over at the comments at The Obama Diary and just went DAMN at the end:
L3
September 27, 2011 at 12:35 pm
So in other words people from the CBC can lie about him daily and he is not to respond. It was not disrespectful, it was the truth. Free speech is a two-way street. They’ve been far more disrepectful of him and if they can’t take criticism they shouldn’t dish it out.
Whatever PBO does for all Americans, he is also doing for black Americans. When some black people say he’s done nothing for them it reveals their ignorance of politics and policy and either implies that one is knowledgeable of everything he’s done and can find nothing of benefit to black Americans or it presupposes that whatever he has done must accompany a bright neon sign attached that says I DID THIS FOR BLACK PEOPLE or it doesn’t count. Instead of whining and lying about what he hasn’t done, they need to be investigating what he has done and finding out how it benefits them. He saved the Auto industry and that saved my sister’s pension. Oh, and by the way she’s black. He used stimulus dollars to increase the Census Bureau’s hiring budget which enabled me to get a temporary job paying over $50,000 year because the Bush economy nearly destroyed my home-based business. And I am now drawing unemployment which he was able to extend. I expect to relaunch my business with the money I saved from my Census job and guess what? I’m Black. The Detroit Public Schools (where over 90% of the students are black) were selected to have all of its students receive free lunches through PBOs Healthy Kids Initiative because over 40% of the kids come from poor backgrounds. I have no complaints about PBO and I don’t mind criticism from the CBC or anywhere if it is fact-based, honest and is not wrapped in gratuitous personal or racist attacks and the overwhelming criticism of PBO does not meet those standards. In defense of my President, I will slam, phone, email, write a letter, vote out and protest anyone who perpetrates such nonsense regardless of color including that witch Maxine Waters and those lazy, jealous, vindictive, ineffective, ancient Negros in the CBC.
I live in the 14th district in the city of Detroit represented by another CBC idiot, John Conyers, for over 40 years. I was a baby when this man was elected and this city has declined precipitously over my lifetime and he wants to act as though less than 3 years of an Obama presidency trumps his 40 years of pathetic representation. His district may be redrawn and hopefuly he will be defeated because I fully plan to vote for his opponent. Many folks in this city believe his grudge against PBO is rooted in his love for all things Clinton, his jealousy of PBO’s meteoric rise and PBO’s refusal to pardon his crooked former wife who’s in prison for public corruption and rampant criminality associated with her city council seat that she won because of the Conyers name. She is as ignorant and classless as Maxine Waters.
Most of the people in the CBC were and are Clintonites, people willing to defend to the death a liar and a serial adulterer whose policies caused great damage to black people but can’t seem to find one nice word for the real first black president. They did not support him in the primaries and were dragged kicking and screaming by their constituents to give him their super delegate vote instead of Hillary and some of them never did. They are “handkerchief heads” black people who are far more comfortable with white people in charge and completely flummoxed and threatened by black people in charge. They are small minded, fearful of CHANGE, have very little to show for their time in office, have outlived their usefulness and hold President Obama to a standard they never held Bill Clinton to. They never defend the President on anything and every time you see them on TV, they spend more time complaining about him than they do challenging the Republicans.
Many of the problems black people have cannot be solved by this President or any president for that matter. I live in Detroit by choice. I am one of a dying breed of Detroiter, college educated and self-sufficient. My friends ask me often when are you going to move and I say never. As long as I reside in Michigan, I will always live in Detroit. Needless to say, we rarely see each other. Many of the “successful blacks” who grew up here have long since moved to the suburbs or reside in a few really nice neighborhoods in the city. A large percentage of the people in this city would not qualify for employment and if they did would not last long because of a long history of negative behaviors that are reinforced by the negative influences in their lives. I see it every single day, even in my own extended family.
This idea that PBO does not like to be seen with black people is a damn lie as we see everyday on this blog. Black people who feel this way need to stop tripping. PBO is bi-racial. His white family is mostly responsible for who he is. His black father was little more than a sperm donor. He did what a lot of men do, particularly in the black community. He left. So black people need to stop acting as though we own this man because it was his white mother and grandparents who courageously birthed, kept, raised, nurtured and educated a bi-racial child at a time when it was not widely viewed as an acceptable thing to do. It was white people who legitimized his candidacy in Iowa when blacks were still living on the Clinton plantation and did not believe he could win. It was blacks in Chicago who started that he isn’t black enough nonsense that contributed to his loss in the congressional race against Bobby Rush, so black people need to cut that shit out because at almost every pivotal juncture in his life, it was white people who believed in him first. We are 12% of the population and if we had 100% voter turnout without support from other groups he would lose this election. Don’t be jealous when he spends time with white people because not only is he half white, he is the President of the United States of America, not Black America.
Black people planning to withold their vote in 2012 do so at their own peril and should remember that whether PBO is re-elected or not, he and his family will be fine, better than fine. They’ll all eventually be happier because they won’t have to deal with the daily bullshit he’s dealing with now. He is already an historic figure with historic accomplishments and wealth. The people who thought they would punish PBO in 2010 only punished themselves and that will be true times ten if a Republican is elected president and they will have no one to blame but themseves.
http://theobamadiary.com/2011/09/27/the-cry-baby-caucus-2/#comment-130899
I had totally forgotten about Conyers’ jailbird wife and that he would actually be delusional enough to think that POTUS would waste an ounce of political capital freeing her crooked azz –but, it made sense the minute I read it.
Business Group Appeals Health Law To Supreme Court – By James Vicini Sep 28, 2011
A small business group said on Wednesday it has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in its legal challenge seeking to strike down all of President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law. The National Federation of Independent Business said in the appeal that the entire law should be invalidated because Congress exceeded its powers in adopting a key provision that requires Americans to buy health insurance or face a penalty. It asked for a quick resolution in the Supreme Court’s upcoming term, which begins next week and lasts through June 2012. The Obama administration also is expected to ask the Supreme Court to decide the healthcare law.
The National Federation of Independent Business, a Tennessee-based group representing 350,000 U.S. small businesses, had joined 26 states, led by Florida, in challenging the law. A U.S. appeals court in Atlanta in August declared unconstitutional the individual insurance requirement, but refused to strike down the entire law. While the business group appealed the case to the Supreme Court, Florida and the other states have yet to say whether they would bring their own separate appeal to the highest U.S. court.
The ruling by the appeals court in Atlanta conflicted with rulings by other appeals courts that have upheld the law or have rejected legal challenges, including a lawsuit by the state of Virginia that was dismissed earlier this month on procedural grounds. The law, passed by Congress and signed by Obama in 2010 after a bruising political battle, is expected to be a major issue in the 2012 elections as Obama seeks another four-year term. The major Republican presidential candidates oppose it.
~snip~
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2011/09/business_group_appeals_health_law_to_supreme_court.php
Wall Street Is Committing Economic Genocide – By Ray Medeiros
It seems that the largest obstacle to create jobs and enhance manufacturing in the United States isn’t taxes, regulation or unions. Businesses are not leaving the United States to escape high taxes or regulations. They are leaving to low wage countries. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Japan was the country many businesses wanted to move into. They moved there to take advantage of their lower wages, but once the Japanese people began to demand a little more money, the businesses left to China, which by then was industrialized enough to support these new factories. Now China is starting to lose low end manufacturing to places like Vietnam and the Philippines, citing wage increases as the reason for the outsourcing.
I don’t blame the CEOs or even the boards of directors for the outsourcing of American jobs; I blame the investors on Wall Street, the financial sector. Companies like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, hold more influence on a company than the consumer or the small investor, like average people that have a 401(k). Wall Street firms are in the business of investments, and they need to make as much money as possible, even if it ultimately ends up destroying the manufacturing sector of the United States economy.
Think about this, an investor in Spain or South Korea has a bigger mouthpiece than you, the American citizen. If the Spanish investor believes the American worker makes to much money and he could make 5% more in his dividend check, he will make the CEO outsource the American job to Vietnam. America has this law that publicly traded companies must make every attempt to increase profitability for their investors. If the investor believes that the publicly traded company is not making every attempt, the company can them be sued for millions of dollars. Now, the workers on the factory floor don’t have a say in this, even if he or she has a 401(k) in the business. Their influence is not a important as the 20K shares, say Goldman Sachs owns.
~snip~
Read more: http://www.politicususa.com/en/wall-street-economic-genocide
Americans Dislike the Tea Party More Than Ever Before —By Andy Kroll | Wed Sep. 28, 2011
It’s hard out there for a tea partier. The upstart conservative movement was all the rage in the summer of 2009, and channeled that energy into a wave of victories in the 2010 midterm elections, sending dozens of hard-line, intransigent Republicans to Congress. However, a new CNN/ORC poll (PDF) out Tuesday shows that the pendulum of public opinion has swung away from the tea party.
Just 28 percent of Americans hold favorable views of the tea party, an all-time low in the 19 months that CNN/ORC pollsters have gauged Americans’ feelings about the movement. At the same time, 53 percent of Americans think poorly of the tea party, an all-time high. According to CNN/ORC, the movement’s popularity peaked in the spring of 2010, when 38 percent of Americans said they liked the tea party and only 36 percent said they didn’t.
CNN’s polls aren’t the only ones to pick up a decline in support for the tea party. In a pair of Pew Research Center polls conducted in February 2010 and August 2011, disapproval of the tea party jumped from 18 percentage points; the percentage of those who said they liked the movement increased from 33 to 36 percent. Washington Post-ABC and Wall Street Journal-NBC polls also found declining support for the tea party from 2009 to 2010.
~snip~
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/tea-party-poll-unpopular
Bloomberg: Perry’s right on immigration – By: Diana Ozemebhoya
Washington (CNN) – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he agrees with Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent statements on immigration and he believes former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s views on the same points are “wrong.” “I don’t agree with Perry on other things, but on this one he’s right,” Bloomberg told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King Wednesday in an interview that will air exclusively on CNN’s “John King, USA.”
The New York mayor, an independent, said he agreed with Perry regarding two facets of the immigration debate: opposing the building of a fence along the Texas-Mexico border as a way to restrict entry by illegal immigrants, and providing in-state college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. When asked about Perry losing ground as the front-runner in the race for the GOP presidential nomination because of his views on immigration, Bloomberg noted that the debate is still unfolding as more constituencies and states come into the mix.
When asked about Perry losing ground as the front-runner in the race for the GOP presidential nomination because of his views on immigration, Bloomberg noted that the debate is still unfolding as more constituencies and states come into the mix. “I think you’ve got to differentiate between what may be good politics within the beginning of a primary race as opposed to what happens when the bigger states get involved in the primary race or what happens in a general election.”
“The bottom line is Romney is wrong on this one.” Bloomberg said. “This is the future of America.” When considering immigration policies, Bloomberg said he believes candidates ought to be thinking about “what’s right for the country, even if it doesn’t help or hurt your career.”
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/bloomberg-perrys-right-on-immigration/
What’s Eating the Left?
by BooMan
Wed Sep 28th, 2011 at 03:09:13 PM EST
There’s something missing from Glenn Greenwald’s otherwise excellent essay on the Wall Street protests and the response to them on the left. And it gets to something fundamental that has divided the left since President Obama inherited the TARP program from George Bush and Hank Paulson. It’s hard to describe this in precise fashion, but it comes down to a general versus partial indictment of modern capitalism and American institutions. Back in the first months of the Obama administration, much of the energy on the left was focused on nationalizing the banks. There was certainly a case for doing so, particularly in individual cases. But few people were looking at details. The banks needed to be nationalized as punishment for their sins, not because nationalizing them would necessarily be the best way to protect the taxpayer. I took a look at the arguments on both sides and took them very seriously. I came to the conclusion that wholesale nationalization would be more expensive (almost impossibly expensive) and would guarantee a huge permanent loss of money. It was also highly risky, in that it could have led to many unintended consequences at a time when the markets were in a panic and the economy was shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs every week. And it would also be slow and could prolong a period of frozen lending. To me, Geithner’s Plan seemed eminently more sensible and quite a lot less risky, at least in the short term. There was naturally a risk that putting things back together without some serious reforms would be a lost opportunity that could come back to bite us later.
Many people did not care about short-term risk at all, nor did they even contemplate the costs to the taxpayer. They wanted to use the opportunity of an epic collapse to usher in some creative destruction. I saw the emotional appeal of that, but I was more concerned about stopping the bleeding and doing an honest and prudent risk/reward analysis. Goal number one was to get the banks lending again. And that meant that the banks needed to be recapitalized.
The truth is that as badly as Wall Street behaved in the lead-up to the collapse, and as badly as they behave now and always behave, our livelihoods depend in large measure on Wall Street. When banks stop lending, we lose our jobs. When the stock market collapses, we lose our retirement savings. What we need is not to do away with Wall Street but to regulate it aggressively. And doing so is a political matter that is made almost impossible because of the power Wall Street wields to prevent strong regulation.
Wall Street and corporate money in general pervades our political process and heavily influences both political parties. And despite efforts at campaign finance reform, the problem has grown much worse over the last decade. Anyone looking at the Democrats to solve this problem is going to be disappointed. Even where the Democrats are attempting to do the right thing (such as increasing marginal income tax rates on the wealthy) they are easily thwarted. So, I see the desire and the need for some kind of movement that doesn’t rely directly on politics. Neither political party is capable or really even willing to create a fairer system or to truly protect us from the excesses of global capitalism.
In any case, I understand the motive behind the #OccupyWallStreet drive, and I can see why people are seeking non-political avenues to express their discontent. But I’m bothered by the lack of specificity in the movement. Greenwald says I should be able to understand it.
Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power — in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions — is destroying financial security for everyone else?
Is that really the point? Is Wall Street oozing corruption and criminality in a way that it was not last year or the year before that? Is it less accountable than it was before the Dodd-Frank bill passed? Or, is it more that people are sick of seeing how much these bastards pay themselves as they ship our jobs overseas and try to whittle away the safety net?
I suppose the answers to those questions will depend on whom you ask. But I get the feeling that people like Greenwald consider Wall Street investment firms and banks as criminal organizations by definition, rather than by circumstance. Or, to be more precise, there are many on the left who don’t believe in capitalism to begin with. They didn’t believe in it before the September 2008 crash, and they especially don’t believe in it now. And without getting into a defense of capitalism, I have to say that I’m not comfortable with a movement that has no more coherent message than ‘capitalism sucks.’ I don’t even like the name. You’ll occupy Wall Street until _____ happens?
Now, Greenwald suggests that people like me just don’t like to see people expressing their opinions outside of the bipartisan conversation in Washington. There is some truth to that. I see the president trying to mobilize people to pass a Jobs Bill and then I see a lot of the energy on the left going into something that isn’t helping move the ball down the field. But, honestly, the protests on Wall Street can be helpful if enough powerful interests get nervous enough to throw us some scraps. I don’t mind that the protests are unrelated to the legislative calendar nearly as much as I just think a generic condemnation of an undifferentiated Wall Street is too incoherent to be meaningful.
I understand that this is the beginning of something. Maybe it will flower into something beautiful. I don’t want to criticize people who have gotten off their butts and mobilized to try to change things for the better. But, in the end, we have a political problem. We can all try to imagine what will happen if the current iteration of the Republican Party wins the Trifecta next year. If you take your eye off that ball for too long, the worst will come and we’ll long for the days when Wall Street was relatively well-behaved.
Obviously, there is no easy choice here. Warding off the worst to protect a rotten status quo isn’t too exciting. But things can get much, much worse.
I’m glad people are angry enough to try something different, but the movement needs to move beyond blocking traffic to advocating for some concrete changes. And, frankly, I don’t see any consensus on anything beyond that Wall Street sucks. That’s not good enough for me. Wall Street isn’t going anywhere no matter what else people might accomplish.
What’s missing from Greenwald’s essay is any sense of what he would like Wall Street to do.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/9/28/15913/8992
Obama administration to appeal health care ruling – By: CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) – The Justice Department formally announced on Wednesday it will appeal to the Supreme Court an appeals court ruling that struck down key portions of the Affordable Care Act law.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/obama-administration-to-appeal-health-care-ruling/
TRENDING: Cain: Black community ‘brainwashed’ into voting for Dems – By: Kevin Liptak
Washington (CNN) – The one African-American running for the GOP presidential nomination said Wednesday the black community was ‘brainwashed’ for traditionally siding with liberal politicians.
“African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view,” Cain said on CNN’s “The Situation Room” in an interview airing Wednesday between 5-7 p.m. ET. “I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it’s just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple.”
Cain went on to explain that his interactions with African Americans led him to be optimistic about his own chances with the demographic. “This whole notion that all African-Americans are not going to vote for Obama is not necessarily true,” Cain said.
~snip~
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/cain-black-community-brainwashed-into-voting-for-dems/
Monday, September 26, 2011
Obama done you wrong? I feel bad for you, son…
An Open Letter…
Hey there, disgruntled citizen! I saw you on the news, internet, blogosphere going in on how Obama personally let you down. You are so disillusioned, disappointed, disheartened at the direction he’s taking this country. You are tired of all those pretty speeches and promissory notes and you either want him to straighten up and do the right thing or just get out of the way and let someone else handle it. I hear you, I hear you loud and clear.
Now hear me.
Maybe your issue is that he hasn’t done enough for black people, kindly have several seats. He is the President of the entire United States, not just the chocolate inhabitants. Did you think once he got into office, we were all going to get “da hook-up”? Please detail what more you would like him to do and how exactly you would like him to get that done working with the Congress he’s stuck with. And then allow me to point out that if you think he isn’t doing enough??? Wait till you see what you get out of Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Romney, whoever.
Maybe your issue is that he hasn’t worked hard enough to change/pass/update insert your legislative concern here. Please review my statement about Congress to issue #1 above and carry on.
Maybe your issue is that he’s not bowing down to kiss your ass, inviting you to the White House, or letting you hang out with the cool kids? (Yes, this is massive shade being thrown in the direction of Tavis and Cornel) Well, not everybody gets a beer summit. If this is the burr in your blanket, you need better people. Or better yet, why don’t you do something so awesomely useful and motivating that he has to acknowledge your sheer greatness? I’ll wait.
Maybe your issue is that he’s black, articulate, intelligent and not scared of you. All I can tell you is that haterade is not attractive.
Maybe your issue is that you thought things would be better under his regime and they just aren’t (for you). Yes, here is where I drag out the “who got us into this mess in the first place” argument. Here is where I give you the side-eye and wonder if you thought he had a magic wand, crystal ball or some pixie dust hidden behind his back. He’s out there stumping like a bible salesman to create some jobs, he’s fighting like a tired welterweight against heavy hitters trying to fix the economy, he’s hustling like Pookie on the corner at the first of the month… what more do you want him to do?
Maybe you have some other issue that I don’t care know enough about. I was taught that when presenting a problem, you also must present a solution. Do you have one? Care to share? And get it funded? And approved by a Congress that would rather see you fail than see America prosper? I’ll wait.
Clearly, I’m #TeamObeezy but I do realize he’s not perfect. For all his imperfections, missteps and miscues – I still believe at the bottom of it all that he has this country’s bests interests at heart. Can you honestly say that about any of the GOP contenders? (Can you say hidden agenda, turn the clock back, hide your children? I know I can)
I had the pleasant experience of someone disagreeing with me on Twitter yesterday. I thought Florida displayed an extraordinary amount of crazy for selecting Herman Cain as a viable candidate in a straw poll. This person said I was angry because I couldn’t shout racism and suggested that I go die in a fire. (He really did, and hashtagged it – #dieinafire) And that right there is what I’m talking about. When folks on the left get ticked off we whine and pout and act like Obama skipped out on a scheduled play date (Maxine). When folks on the right get slightly threatened they start reaching for kerosene. Alright, that’s a sweeping generalization but you get my drift.
I feel like half of America is treating Obama like a new husband. They loved the courtship, the build-up, the promises and the ceremony was breathtaking. But now that they’ve been in this for a few years, they’re mad he doesn’t take out the garbage or mow the lawn. And that’s all they can focus on. Never mind that he’s trying to build a new house from the ground up, cleaned up the neighborhood and took on the bullies from across the street. So what are you gong to do – trade him in for a new one? Think the next guy is going to do better? Think long and hard on that one.
And in case you’re wondering what Obama has done for you lately? Check out a list of the campaign promises he has kept so far. (Just imagine what he could do with some support!)
In closing, I will quote from the Book of Obeezy, CBC edition: “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”
http://www.blacknbougie.com/2011/09/obama-done-you-wrong-i-feel-bad-for-you.html
Man Charged With Possessing 4,000 Pounds Of Explosives, Saying ‘We Will Be Mercenaries’
Jillian Rayfield | September 28, 2011, 10:45AM
A Michigan man was charged with possessing over 4,000 pounds of explosives and allegedly told an informant that “when the government takes over, we will be mercenaries.”
John Francis Lechner was ordered to be held without bond on Monday after ATF agents found 4,100 pounds of explosives, 2,000 feet of detonating cord and dozens of blasting caps at three locations.
According to a complaint from ATF Special Agent Timothy DeClaire, on September 20 a confidential informant contacted the Chippewa County Undersheriff Michael Bitnar, and described how Lechner allegedly said he had “a large quantity of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil mix,” or ANFO, and that he needed help moving it. ANFO is commonly used in commercial construction. Lechner also allegedly said that he had detonating cord, blasting caps ad boosters.
The CI then wore a wire while helping Lechner move the explosives, and asked him what he planned to do with it. “When the government takes over, we will be mercenaries,” Lechner allegedly said.
“He’s not a terrorist, he’s not a mercenary, he’s not some freedom fighter,” Lechner’s attorney Charles Malette told the AP “He intended no type of violence, pro or anti-government. The man is not like that.”
Lechner was charged with several felonies in July, including false report of a felony and assaulting, resisting and obstructing a police officer. He was also charged with being a habitual offender, according to the complaint. It’s a 10-year felony to posses explosives while under indictment for other charges.
“For reasons that are completely unexplained, the defendant was in possession of 4,000 pounds of explosives with enough blasting caps, detonator cord and boosters to ignite that,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Greeley said in Monday’s hearing, according to the Marquette Mining Journal. “The court has been given no reason for him to have that and he was making efforts to hide that from the ATF, as the testimony indicates, and made anti-government statements.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/man_charged_with_possessing_4000_pounds_of_explosi.php
Super Committee Dems Avoid Trap That Skewed Debt Limit Fight
Democrats on the new deficit Super Committee are determined to be better negotiators than their predecessors in earlier deficit discussions leading up to the debt limit fight.
According to aides with knowledge of the discussions, they’re trying to keep the panel’s early focus on revenues, to avoid falling into a familiar trap of agreeing to a bunch of spending cuts only to have Republicans freeze up when they try to change the conversation to taxes.
A bit of background is appropriate here.
Republicans were never going to make it easy. But one of the reasons the debt limit deal included zero dollars in new tax revenue, explicit or implicit, traces back to the unfinished work of a bipartisan group of congressional negotiators, led by Vice President Joe Biden. Those discussions proceeded from the idea that Democrats and Republicans should begin talks on areas of agreement, then work their way outward to more contentious issues like safety net programs and taxes. But a funny thing happened once the group had exhausted the easy stuff, and even some of the issues near and dear to liberals. Democrats said, ‘let’s talk taxes,’ and the Republicans in the room — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) — bolted. That kicked the negotiations upstairs to President Obama and Speaker John Boehner, who were famously unable to reach a “grand bargain” that would have included new tax revenues.
Thus House and Senate leaders were left with the Biden group’s framework — all cuts, no revenue — as the basis for the debt limit deal.
Aides to Democratic committee members — who can’t be named because of the sensitivity of the discussions, and couldn’t comment on specific policy options — have confirmed that the six negotiators are very wary of falling into the Biden group trap. The aides say the panel’s Democrats are focused on making sure Republicans are truly willing to compromise when it comes to revenue and the tax code before any agreements are made on additional spending cuts.
President Obama’s threat to veto Super Committee legislation that doesn’t pair Medicare cuts with new tax revenues only strengthens the Democrats’ hand with this strategy.
This should hearten progressives concerned that Democrats — or one lone rebel Democrat willing to vote with all six committee Republicans — will sell the GOP the farm for zero, or trivial new revenues. But it will probably make the deafening “go big” crowd fret that the panel won’t do anything significant about future deficits and the debt. After all, it’s taken for granted by much of establishment Washington that Republican unwillingness to accept significant new tax revenues is an immutable fact of politics.
For now, members of the Super Committee have been exceptionally tight-lipped about their meetings, suggesting they’re making some headway. If and when that changes, it’ll be a sign that this strategy is encountering headwinds.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/super-committee-dems-avoid-trap-that-skewed-debt-limit-fight.php?ref=fpb
September 28, 2011 4:30 PM
Being conservative means never having to say you’re sorry
By Steve Benen
We talked earlier about the Daily Caller’s massive screw-up yesterday, on an important story about the Environmental Protection Agency. I figured the conservative outlet would grudgingly bury some awkwardly-worded correction and move on. I assumed wrong.
To briefly recap, the Daily Caller reported that the EPA is eyeing new greenhouse gas measures, which would in turn ask American taxpayers “to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.” The piece was quickly embraced by the conservative message machine, with Fox News, National Review, and others trumpeting the story.
The problem, of course, is that the story isn’t true. The EPA, which only has 17,000 employees, is specifically “tailoring” its rule so that it won’t have to hire 230,000 officials. It’s right there in the court filings the Daily Caller relied on to publish its bogus piece.
Instead of backing off its obviously-wrong reporting, though, Daily Caller executive editor David Martosko is doubling down.
“The EPA is well-known for expanding its reach, especially regarding greenhouse gas emissions. What’s ‘comically wrong’ is the idea that half of Washington won’t admit it. The EPA’s own court filing speaks volumes,” Martosko said in an email.
“What’s more likely: that the Obama administration’s EPA wants to limit its own power, or that it’s interested in dramatically increasing its reach and budget? Anyone who has spent more than a few months in Washington knows the answer,” he added. “The suggestion that the EPA — this EPA in particular — is going to court to limit its own growth is the funniest thing I’ve seen since Nancy Grace’s nipple-slip.”
Look, I realize conservative media outlets like to play fast and loose with the facts. I also realize the right’s version of reality is often, shall we say, malleable.
But this is just ridiculous. Martosko is trying to make an argument based on assumptions and evidence-free predictions, and while I’m sure that’s more fun than journalism and abiding by professional ethics, the question here is plainly empirical. The Daily Caller reported — in black and white, and without qualifiers — that the EPA agency is “asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats.” Either that’s true or it’s not. What’s “well known” or perceived as “likely” is irrelevant. The claim is either accurate or it’s inaccurate.
And in this case, what the Daily Caller reported is plainly wrong.
It happens. Media outlets get things wrong. I’ve been a professional writer for a while and I’ve made plenty of embarrassing mistakes. The responsible thing to do is correct the record and try not to do it again.
The conservative media world, though, just doesn’t seem to care. It explains a great deal about why those who rely on outlets like these seem so woefully uninformed about current events.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/being_conservative_means_never032497.php
September 28, 2011 3:30 PM
Quote of the Day
By Steve Benen
I’ve made a point of limiting my Sarah Palin coverage lately, but some lines are hard to overlook.
Last night on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren asked the former half-term governor about political campaign coverage as if Palin were a credible expert on responsible media. Noting the rumors surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), the host said, “I guess the, sort of, the question is how should we cover these races and the speculation? How much is too much? And how do we know, you know, when we’re not pitting one against the other, and how to develop the issues?”
Palin responded:
“The challenge is in this very quickly changing news cycle world that we are in, you know, there’s a lot of information out there. There’s a lot of white noise out there. And the viewers and readers then really have to be the filter themselves, trying to find out what’s the important information out there.
“I am a proponent, though, of the media providing as much coverage of candidates in order to vet these candidates as possible. We learned our lesson in electing Barack Obama, who was not vetted by the media. The media did not do its job, I believe, the last go-around. So learned a lesson. Now we’re embracing of as much information and vetting of every candidate as possible.
“But again, I do believe that there’s a lot of entertainment value and ratings value involved in this quasi-reality show that is being created through the GOP primary at this point.”
The notion that President Obama wasn’t “vetted” is deeply silly. His presidential campaign lasted a whopping 21 months — one of the longest, if not the longest, in American history. During that time, the media scrutinized every possible angle of his entire life. If there was anyone who sought national office in 2008 who had not been fully vetted, it would be Palin, who had spoken to John McCain for a grand total of about 20 minutes — spanning two conversations — before being invited onto the ticket.
But I especially enjoyed seeing Palin criticizing her party’s presidential nominating contest as a “quasi reality show.” Palin has starred in her own reality show.
The mind reels.
Postscript: By the way, Palin, in the same interview, referred to Herman Cain as “Herb Cain,” three times. Odd.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/quote_of_the_day_15032496.php
.Wed Sep 28, 2011 at 11:26 AM PDT.
Heritage Foundation on Republicans’ military draft threat: ‘It’s nutty talk’
by Joan McCarter
Last week, House Armed Services chair Rep. Buck McKeon threatened the Super Congress over defense cuts, warning that the country would have to reinstate the draft if cuts went too deep. This was his appearance on Fox, making the threat.
McKeon’s committee released a report emphasizing those claims on Monday, concluding that “additional Pentagon cuts would force a draft, gut the military and make ‘defending our freedom harder.'”
Military experts disagree, particularly over the blatant threat of bringing back the draft:
The HASC staff report contends a pre-9/11 force could not “decisively win” a war in one region “while defending vital national interests in another.” It also says a U.S. military of that size “jeopardizes [the nation’s] ability to respond to potential contingencies in North Korea or Iran, and adequately defend allies (including Israel and Taiwan).”
But Gordon Adams, who oversaw national security budgeting for the Clinton administration, said even a pre-9/11 force — after a number of weapons program cuts the panel’s report calls likely under sequestration — “would be a globally powerful military.”[…]
Even a defense analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has increasingly been in lockstep with McKeon and his committee on military policy and budget issues, called the draft warning far-fetched.
“I think it’s nutty talk,” said Heritage analyst Jay Carafano. “It’s an idle threat. There’s not a practical way they could institute a draft. For starters, the country couldn’t afford it.”
When Heritage is calling bullshit on Republicans, you know just how ridiculous they are being. But this bullshit threat shows just how far Republicans are going to go to prevent any more defense cuts.
.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/28/1020982/-Heritage-Foundation-on-Republicans-military-draft-threat:-Its-nutty-talk?via=blog_1
Closing out the musical interlude with George Duke, Love Can Be So Cold. Be safe, everyone~
Here’s Rachelle Ferrell singing, I Gotta Go.
Here’s Philippe Saisse, performing The Girl with Botticelli Eyes.
Here’s Tower of Power to help get you through the rest of your day.
Don’t Make The Economic Mistake Of Voting Republican – By Rmuse September 28, 2011
In the past 100 years, America has progressed in terms of equal rights, but on the economic front, equality is relatively non-existent. At the turn of the century there were approximately 400 families that controlled the lion’s share of the wealth and that figure has hardly budged in 2011. The American middle class that emerged after World War II is responsible for much of the economic prosperity the country experienced for a generation, but their numbers are dwindling as Republicans assail unions and public employees with spending cuts and their ridiculous deficit reduction scams. When Republican governors and legislatures began eliminating public employees’ collective bargaining rights, the middle class finally woke up and protested because they saw their way of life coming to an end. However, where was the middle class for the past 30 years as Republicans assailed the poor and minorities? They were silent because their income, lifestyle, and position in society were safe and secure with little chance it would ever change. How foolish they were.
Republicans are still gutting programs for the poor and minorities because their mission is to punish those least able to escape their economic situation and least able to make informed decisions at the ballot box. Since the GOP has the poor firmly entrenched in poverty, they turned their attention to the middle class and seniors because they had support from cognitively challenged teabaggers hell-bent on collapsing the government, and they emboldened Republicans to impose austerity measures that are devastating the entire country. It does not matter that the austerity measures affect the majority of teabaggers as much as anyone because they have fallen for the lie that cutting the deficit and slashing critical programs is good for the country and puts the socialist threat to rest once and for all. But who will Republicans go after once they have finished off the middle class?
~snip~
http://www.politicususa.com/en/economic-mistake-vote-gop
Transport Workers Ask Members of Congress ‘Didn’t You Say…’ – By Kenneth Quinnell
[Click on link to view video.]
Members of the Transport Workers Union went to Washington, DC, earlier this month to lobby members of Congress about passing legislation that would create more jobs in the transportation sector. They donned “Didn’t You Say” shirts that put pressure on legislators who were elected on a platform of creating jobs but have since done little to follow through on those promise. This is good, simple, effective messaging — the type we need more of in order to get our values out there to the masses.
http://crooksandliars.com/kenneth-quinnell/transport-workers-ask-members-con
Wis. Election Officials: Waukesha County Clerk Failed To Follow Election Laws — But Did Not Tamper With Court Race – By Eric Kleefeld
The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections in the state, has released its report on the controversial April election for state Supreme Court — where vote-counting problems in Waukesha County resulted in the announced discovery of un-tabulated votes, putting incumbent conservative Justice David Prosser ahead in the state Supreme Court race against his liberal-backed opponent JoAnne Kloppenburg. The report finds probable cause to believe that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus (R) violated the laws and procedures for administering the count — but that her actions were not willful, criminal misconduct.
Notably, the report concludes that Nickolaus could not have possibly manipulated vote totals, as some members of the public came to believe — because the City of Brookfield, the center of the vote-counting controversy, had in fact independently reported its correct vote totals to local media sources on election night. However, Nickolaus may have violated the law requiring county clerks to post all detailed results that night, when she made the mistake in calculating the county’s spreadsheet.
~snip~
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/wisconsin-election-officials-waukesha-county-failed-to-follow-election-laws—-but-did-no
Key Ex-NOTW Reporter Tries For Whistleblower Status In Wrongful Termination Suit – Jillian Rayfield
A former News Of The World reporter, who is a central figure in the phone hacking scandal, is claiming whistleblower status in a wrongful termination lawsuit against the defunct tabloid’s parent company News International. The Guardian reports that Neville Thurlbeck, the former chief reporter for the now-defunct paper, claims that he was unfairly fired by News International. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday before an employment tribunal. Thurlbeck, who was arrested in April on charges related to the phone hacking scandal, was still on the NI payroll until fairly recently, though it’s unclear when exactly he was fired.
~snip~
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/key_ex-notw_reporter_tries_for_whistleblower_statu.php
We May Find Out How Much Andrew Breitbart Paid James O’Keefe For One Of His ACORN Videos – By Ryan J. Reilly
A federal judge handling a federal lawsuit filed by a former ACORN employee against James O’Keefe has ordered the conservative provocateur and filmmaker to disclose video footage and payments he received from Andrew Breitbart in relation to one of his sting operations. “The Court believes that it may be relevant that Defendant was paid for the video of Plaintiff,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Mitchell D. Dembin. “Such a payment may inform the intent of the Defendant in engaging in the alleged illegal activity and Plaintiff must prove that the actions were intentional.”
At the same time the judge ruled that O’Keefe wouldn’t have to turn over a list of his expenses from filming the videos across the country or communications about other ACORN targets. “The Court simply cannot discern how the disclosure of expenses incurred, even if limited to the incident alleged in the complaint, informs any aspect of the asserted cause of action,” Dembin wrote.
The lawsuit in question was filed by former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, who was filmed by O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in August 2009. “These people are despicable. They’ve hurt his reputation,” Eugene G. Iredale, a lawyer representing Vera, previously told TPM. O’Keefe’s lawyers, representing him on a pro bono basis, have cited the work of everyone from James Madison to Ashton Kutcher in defense of his sting operations.
(H/T Courthouse News)
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/we_may_find_out_how_much_andrew_breitbart_paid_james_okeefe_for_one_of_his_acorn_videos.php?ref=fpb
Corruption? 5400 Lawmakers Have Become Lobbyists in the Last Decade – By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
More proof that Washington is corrupt? A new Legistorm study reveals there is a “revolving door” between Congress and lobbying firms, showing that almost 5400 lawmakers have jumped from the government to lobbying firms in the last decade. Washington Post: The report, which tallies a greater number of workers moving between Congress and lobbying than found in previous studies, underscores the symbiotic relationship: Thousands of lobbyists are able to exploit experience and connections gleaned from working inside the legislative process, and lawmakers find in lobbyists a ready pool of experienced talent.
Of the 5,400 lobbyists with recent Hill experience, the study found that 2,900 were registered to lobby on behalf of clients this year. Twenty-five powerhouse firms and organizations employ 10 or more former Hill workers. The largest number are at the Podesta Group, followed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which employs at least 21.
~snip~
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/665814/corruption_5400_lawmakers_have_become_lobbyists_in_the_last_decade/
Man Charged With Possessing 4,000 Pounds Of Explosives, Saying ‘We Will Be Mercenaries’ – Jillian Rayfield
A Michigan man was charged with possessing over 4,000 pounds of explosives and allegedly told an informant that “when the government takes over, we will be mercenaries.” John Francis Lechner was ordered to be held without bond on Monday after ATF agents found 4,100 pounds of explosives, 2,000 feet of detonating cord and dozens of blasting caps at three locations.
According to a complaint from ATF Special Agent Timothy DeClaire, on September 20 a confidential informant contacted the Chippewa County Undersheriff Michael Bitnar, and described how Lechner allegedly said he had “a large quantity of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil mix,” or ANFO, and that he needed help moving it. ANFO is commonly used in commercial construction. Lechner also allegedly said that he had detonating cord, blasting caps ad boosters. The CI then wore a wire while helping Lechner move the explosives, and asked him what he planned to do with it. “When the government takes over, we will be mercenaries,” Lechner allegedly said.
~snip~
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/man_charged_with_possessing_4000_pounds_of_explosi.php
Stand Up And Speak Out Against The Conservative Culture Of Hate – By Rmuse
It is natural for human beings to have idealized perceptions of a country based on history and anecdotal evidence. Depending on which part of the world a person lives, they may think of America as an imperialistic bully, or the land of opportunity where anything is possible and the people are warm and inviting. There are many Americans who are compassionate to their fellow citizens and harbor a great desire to see every person prosper in the spirit of equality to make this nation a source of pride at home and abroad. It is tragic, but there is a growing segment of society that are displaying behavior and attitudes that portend a nation of hateful people who rejoice in other’s misery and relish the thought of causing pain and suffering because of bigotry, greed and intolerance. Although those attitudes are not universal, they are giving the appearance that America is rife with mean-spirited and selfish people and it begs the question; is this the America people really want?
Many pundits have proffered the notion that the next election will decide if America is a country ruled by religious fanatics and corporatists, or a free democratic society where every citizen’s well-being is considered important and valuable. The past two Republican presidential debates have given a glimpse of the type of country America will become under Republican control and it does not look promising from a humanitarian point of view.
~snip~
http://www.politicususa.com/en/gop-culture-of-hate
Muslim Groups: FBI Response to Islamophobia Scandal Not Good Enough —By Adam Serwer
After reports emerged last week that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterterrorism training included materials that depicted Muslims as inherently radical and violent, the bureau moved quickly to reach out to a number American Muslim groups in an effort to smooth over relations. FBI officials promised to take the problem seriously and vowed to conduct an internal review of the materials, which included assertions that mainstream American Muslims were sympathetic to terrorism and that the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be violent.
“There was acknowledgement that what happened is wrong and what happens needs to be addressed immediately,” says Abed Ayoub, the legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). “It was a good first step in rectifying this.” But Ayoub and other Arab and Muslim leaders add that more still needs to be done to repair the damage caused by the FBI’s offensive training materials.
The problem, Muslim and Arab groups argue, is that this isn’t the first time they’ve complained about the FBI’s counterterrorism training. In August 2010, several organizations sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller after Islamophobic writer Robert Spencer, who believes “that there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists,” was invited to give two seminars to Virginia’s Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force in July. Spencer was also invited to give a presentation to the US Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, which is cohosted by the FBI in Norfolk.
~snip~
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/fbi-response-islamophobia-scandal
Sharp Rise In Premiums Exposes Health Insurers’ Greed —By Rick Ungar
According to a study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 2011 health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored family healthcare benefits rose 9 percent over last year’s prices, leaving employees to pay, on average, $4,129 and employer contributions at $10,944. The number represents a surprising rise given that increases experienced in 2010 were just 3 percent. So, why the sudden increase?
We know that Americans are using fewer medical services since the economy took a dive as people are staying away from the doctor and putting off non-life saving surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements, until they have more confidence that they will have the money required to pay deductibles and co-pays. We also know that fewer medical services are being utilized as a result of the increased popularity of Health Safety Accounts which require deductibles in excess of $2,000 per family, and employer provided policies that have increasingly large deductibles and co-pays. As a result, can it possibly make sense that medical costs are increasing by the 9 percent reflected in the hefty premium hikes? In a word, no.
That will not stop the anti-Obamacare forces, of course, from putting the blame squarely on healthcare reform. In a sense, I suppose the Affordable Care Act does bear some of the responsibility—if you can consider motivating the health insurers to falsely inflate their prices, by forcing them to do the right thing, to be a blamable offense.
Beginning next year, health insurers will be required to justify any increases in premium rates above 10 percent. They will further be obligated to refund money to customers if an insurer is found to have spent less than 85 percent of their premium income on medical expenses. Thus, it is hardly a stretch to conclude that the insurers are simply taking their last chance to raise premium rates before they find themselves having to be more accountable to the government, particularly when they are pretty much admitting to as much.
~snip~
Read more: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/sharp-rise-health-insurance-premiums
Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control – By Brad Friedman
It could be one of the most disturbing e-voting machine hacks to date. Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.
“We believe these man-in-the-middle attacks are potentially possible on a wide variety of electronic voting machines,” said Roger Johnston, leader of the assessment team “We think we can do similar things on pretty much every electronic voting machine.” The Argonne Lab, run by the Department of Energy, has the mission of conducting scientific research to meet national needs. The Diebold Accuvote voting system used in the study was loaned to the lab’s scientists by VelvetRevolution.us, of which the Brad Blog is a co-founder. Velvet Revolution received the machine from a former Diebold contractor
Previous lab demonstrations of e-voting system hacks, such as Princeton’s demonstration of a viral cyber attack on a Diebold touch-screen system — as I wrote for Salon back in 2006 — relied on cyber attacks to change the results of elections. Such attacks, according to the team at Argonne, require more coding skills and knowledge of the voting system software than is needed for the attack on the Diebold system.
~snip~
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/elections/2011/09/27/votinghack/index.html
September 28, 2011 1:35 PM
Dems hope the GOP takes Ryan’s advice
By Steve Benen
Remember the House Republican budget plan, as crafted by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)? It caused quite a stir several months ago when it, among other things, tried to end Medicare and replace it with a privatized voucher scheme.
Nearly every GOP lawmaker in the House and Senate voted for the monstrosity, but the American mainstream hated, and Democrats used it to win a special election in Buffalo — flipping a district that Republicans had held for decades.
The expectation was that congressional Republican leaders might push for some of the budget plan’s measure in debt-ceiling talks, but when push came to shove, the GOP didn’t even bother. The proposals were just too unpopular, and the more Republicans pushed them, the more likely it was that they’d put their majority in jeopardy in 2012.
Four months later, Paul Ryan apparently has a very different take on the developments.
In a speech at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) offered a recitation of his controversial, alternative vision for the country’s social safety net.
But despite the backlash Republicans have faced taken since they voted overwhelmingly in the spring to adopt his approach, Ryan says now’s the time for conservatives and GOP candidates to renew their support for that vision, not to walk away from it.
“[W]e took a few dings at first, we survived,” Ryan admitted. “The Democrats’ tried the same old scare tactics for a few months, and in the first special election that took place after our budget passed, we learned a costly lesson. We learned that unless we back up our ideas with courage, and defend them in the face of attacks, we will lose.”
What’s more, in his speech, Ryan proudly boasted that “a funny thing happened” after Republicans started to get their “message out” — namely, “the scare tactics stopped working.”
In no way does this resemble reality.
Democratic criticism of Ryan’s radical budget plan stopped, not because the accurate attacks failed, but because Republicans abandoned the proposal. Indeed, Ryan became a notorious and unpopular public figure for a while, prompting the right-wing Ayn Rand acolyte to take on a much lower public profile.
But if Paul Ryan wants to make the case that his radical vision actually resonates with the American mainstream, I suspect Democrats would be delirious with joy if the Republican Party listened to the right-wing Wisconsinite’s advice. Indeed, if Dems are really lucky, the political world can have this debate all over again.
Let’s have Republican lawmakers re-declare their support for the Ryan plan. Let’s get the Republican presidential candidates on record, yea or nay, on whether the Ryan plan would get their signature.
Paul Ryan wants his party to renew their support for his vision? That sounds like a terrific idea. What do you say, Republicans? How about it, Mitt Romney?
Update: The DCCC appears eager to call Ryan’s bluff. Just a couple of minutes after I posted this, Greg Sargent reported, “I’m told the DCCC plans to go on the offensive in the districts of 50 House Republicans, pressuring them to say whether they agree with Ryan’s latest designs on the health care system.”
And just as aside, Greg noted that GOP officials believe their success in the NY09 special election proves the Ryan plan is no longer a winner for Dems. That might be true if Bob Turner had actually endorsed the Ryan plan, but he didn’t.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/dems_hope_the_gop_takes_ryans032493.php
US prisoner forbidden to read Pulitzer-winning history book – By Alison Flood
A prisoner in an Alabama jail has claimed in a lawsuit that his jailers prevented him from reading a Pulitzer prize-winning book about America’s racial history, thereby violating his civil rights. Kilby Correctional Facility inmate Mark Melvin says he was sent Douglas Blackmon’s award-winning history book Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II in September 2010, but was told he was not allowed it, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed by the Equal Justice Initiative in the US district court for the middle district of Alabama. The news comes as the US marks Banned Books Week, an annual nationwide celebration of the right to read.
The complaint claims Melvin, serving a life sentence after being charged at 14 with helping his older brother commit two murders, was denied access to the book because of regulations which allow officials to withhold mail if it could be “an attempt to incite violence based on race, religion, sex, creed or nationality”. Based on original documents and personal narratives, Slavery By Another Name tells of the tens of thousands of “free” black Americans who were bought and sold as forced labourers decades after the official abolition of slavery. “[The book] is a Pulitzer prize-winning historical account of racial oppression and racial bias in the Southern United States [which] does not advocate violence or a violent ideology, nor does it attempt to incite violence based on race,” writes Equal Justice Initiative director and lawyer Bryan Stevenson in the complaint.
~snip~
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/28/us-prisoner-forbidden-pulitzer-history-book
The White House Blasts Fox News For Misleading Viewers On Tax Cuts – By Jason Easley
Today, the White House accused Fox News of misleading their viewers about taxing the rich, and offered a point by point debunking of the Fox talking points. Here is the Fox News Sunday video where Chris Wallace misinforms his audience about the wealthy and taxes: Chris Wallace tried to argue that taxes should not be increased on the wealthy by saying, “1 percent of households with the highest incomes pay 38 percent of federal income taxes. The top 10 percent pay 70 percent of federal income taxes. Meanwhile, 46 percent of households pay no federal income tax at all.”
Today on the White House Blog, Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer called out Wallace’s stats, “These statistics are misleading and don’t tell the whole story. They leave out payroll taxes that every worker pays to make sure they will have Social Security and Medicare when they retire, which fall disproportionately on the middle class. And they don’t mention that the share of the nation’s income going to the highest earners grew rapidly in the past two decades – at the same time tax rates fell for the highest earners. In fact, because of growing income inequality, the top 10 percent of American earners now earns 42 percent of the nation’s income, and when correctly calculated, pay about 50 percent of the federal income and payroll tax burden – not much larger than their share of earnings.”
Pheiffer was just getting warmed up. He followed up with a point by point debunking of the Fox News talking points,
~snip~
Read more: http://www.politicususa.com/en/white-house-fox-tax-cuts
Darrell Issa, the Not-So-Grand Inquisitor – By Rick Ungar
When the 2010 electoral wave handed control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) had finally arrived at his moment in the sun. With the GOP now in the majority, the twice-arrested (but never convicted) six-term Congressman, whose ability to charm and exude good humor belies behavior that would suggest the heart of a shark, ascended to the chairmanship of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Armed with subpoena power and the authority to investigate, hassle, and obstruct the Obama White House for at least the remainder of the president’s first term, Issa found himself firmly ensconced in the catbird seat.
Making the position all the sexier was the media attention that came with the job, including guest appearances on Real Time With Bill Maher, frequent visits to the cable news shows, and a busy Sunday morning network talk show schedule. All the attention seemed to suit Rep. Issa just fine. And then…nothing. Almost a year into his term as chairman, Issa has produced no headline-grabbing investigation capable of putting the White House on the defensive or, for that matter, causing so much as a flutter of indigestion for the president.
The congressman’s efforts to probe everything from Homeland Security to Obamacare have failed to create the media buzz that might catapult the California representative to GOP hero status—and maybe even a spot on the national ticket as a vice presidential candidate. Who knew that the freshman tea party members were going to suck all of the oxygen from the halls of Congress and leave Chairman Issa gasping for air?
~snip~
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/darrell-issa-house-oversight-chairman
September 28, 2011 2:35 PM
A jobs agenda Obama and Romney can love
By Steve Benen
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who seems to be getting worse, appeared on Fox Business this week to insist that President Obama’s American Jobs Act is “the most socialist thing you can imagine.” Why? Because it’s “a government takeover of everything.”
Now, as an objective matter, I suspect most fair-minded observers would agree that Louie Gohmert isn’t terribly bright. That said, in case anyone’s forgotten, the White House plan totals about $450 billion, and roughly $250 billion of the package is made up of tax cuts. The rest includes about $60 billion for unemployment aid and job training, and $140 billion for infrastructure and saving public-sector jobs (teachers, firefighters, police officers).
If that’s “the most socialist thing you can imagine,” you (a) don’t know what “socialism” means; and (b) have a deeply strange imagination.
Indeed, when President Obama stresses the notion that the American Jobs Act is exactly the kind of package that should enjoy bipartisan support, he’s not kidding. To drive the point home, the DNC recently put together this video of Mitt Romney “endorsing” several key provisions in the White House plan.
Obama’s American Jobs Act offers $4,000 tax credits to businesses who hire those who’ve been out of work for six months or more — an idea Romney has explicitly endorsed in the recent past.
Obama’s American Jobs Act would cut payroll taxes in half for every worker and every small business — an idea Romney has also explicitly endorsed in the recent past.
Obama’s American Jobs Act would allow businesses to write off the cost of capital investments they make in 2012 — an idea Romney has also explicitly endorsed in the recent past.
Obama’s American Jobs Act intends to create jobs by investing heavily in infrastructure — an idea, you guessed it, that Romney has also explicitly endorsed in the recent past.
Taken together, it not only appears that Mitt Romney is on board with the Obama plan he claims to reject, but it also appears that Louie Gohmert believes Mitt Romney’s economic ideas are “socialist.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/a_jobs_agenda_obama_and_romney032494.php
Posted at 01:36 PM ET, 09/28/2011 Can Dems reopen the wound Paul Ryan inflicted on GOP?
By Greg Sargent
Republicans like to argue that the GOP’s upset victory in NY-9 proved that Paul Ryan’s budget has lost its potency as a weapon for Dems in their quest to tar House Republicans as dangerous radicals who want to end Medicare as we know it. The argument is a bit strained, but it’s fair to ask whether Ryan’s plan is still as damaging to the GOP as it once was.
Now Dems are preparing a fresh offensive that they hope will reopen the wound Ryan inflicted on his party with his proposal to fundamentaly transform Medicare. I’m told the DCCC plans to go on the offensive in the districts of 50 House Republicans, pressuring them to say whether they agree with Ryan’s latest designs on the health care system.
Ryan gave a speech yesterday at Stanford University that laid out a new proposal to target employer health care tax breaks and replace them with a system of refundable tax credits for individuals. The plan would expand the approach he suggested for Medicare to workplace health insurance.
As Reuters put it: “The new proposal is likely to revive the political controversy surrounding Ryan’s proposal to phase out government-run Medicare and give subsidies to the elderly to purchase coverage from private insurers.”
Dems certainly hope so. The DCCC is going out in the districts of 50 House Republicans with a press release designed to get local media to pressure them to say whether they will — again — support Ryan’s controversial health care vision.
“Ryan acknowledged his new plan doubles down on his earlier controversial budget proposal to end Medicare that Bucshon supported,” reads the release going out in GOP Rep. Larry Buschon’s district. “Will Representative Bucshon go along again, with Ryan’s latest radical scheme to end employer health care at the expense of the middle class? ”
The NRCC didn’t immediately return an email for comment.
The political context here is interesting. As Brian Beutler notes, Ryan himself has been urging fellow Republicans to redouble their push for his Medicare plan, insisting that it’s no longer politically damaging to the party. Ryan insists that Dem “scare tactics” have stopped working, and that Republicans should not fear “false attacks” in 2012.
But Dems are now hoping that Ryan has given them fresh ammo to remind voters just how serious Republicans are about fundamentally transforming the health care system — and profoundly altering aspects of it that remain very popular — in the months and years ahead.
Florida Likely to Hold January Primary: Report
Move throws Republican calendar into disarray
Florida officials have all but decided to hold their presidential primary at the end of January, essentially shredding the carefully orchestrated Republican nominating calendar, Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon tells CNN. “We are expecting to meet on Friday, and I expect that they will pick January 31 as Florida’s primary date,” Cannon says.
The move would cost Florida half its delegates to the Republican National Convention, thanks to RNC rules, and would likely cause the early voting states—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada—to move their dates even earlier. The RNC is pushing Florida to settle for Feb. 21, which would at least put it after those four states, but Florida is worried another state—say Colorado or Georgia—might jump in before Feb 21.
http://www.newser.com/story/129726/florida-likely-to-hold-january-primary-report.html
FOR IDRIS ELBA FANS:
New season of LUTHER begins TONIGHT on BBC AMERICA at 9 pm EST
Thanks for the reminder, rikyrah! I absolutely love that show.~
I’m pretty much tv-LESS these days. We’ve let go of cable for about a week. And my sanity is intact. I do enjoy seeing pics of the handsome Idris, though. LOL Ok, I’m old, but I ain’t cold.
SORRY…10 PM EST
Metia~ you don’t need cable if you use your computer along with Netflix, Hulu (free content), CBS, and NBC–which run episodes of shows you may like. And you can also get movies from the library streamed to your computer.
September 28, 2011 10:10 AM
Eric Cantor’s new found interest in FEMA aid
By Steve Benen
I’m beginning to think self-awareness isn’t the House Majority Leader’s strongpoint.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, is pushing for information on the status of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s request for federal disaster assistance for Louisa County residents in the wake of an earthquake there last month.
On Friday, Cantor held a conference call with Federal Emergency Management Agency and Louisa County officials. A readout of the call provided by Cantor’s office indicates that he asked FEMA officials about the timeline and process for determining whether the agency would grant federal assistance. […]
Cantor also spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, asking for additional information and a better sense of timing, according to his office.
Is that so. Now Cantor is interested in FEMA’s timetable.
How convenient. The one congressional leader who was most interested in holding disaster aid hostage — the one congressional leader who fought harder than any other to make sure FEMA has fewer short-term resources — now wants to ask the emergency-response agency, “So, what’s the hold up in my home state?”
Making matters slightly worse, as Brian Beutler explained, Cantor appears concerned about a delayed response that he helped create: “If he’d just said nothing — never insisted for emergency supplemental funds for disaster relief be offset — then disaster aid wouldn’t have gotten mired in a budget fight, and the funds might have been easier to come by.”
Jesse Ferguson, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), added, “The only thing worse than Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s outrageous plan to hold disaster relief hostage to his push for radical cuts in job creation is his brazen hypocrisy in trying to convince his constituents back home that he stood with them in the first place.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/eric_cantors_new_found_interes032482.php
Blog
September 28, 2011 11:25 AM
DeMint isn’t even trying
By Steve Benen
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has an op-ed in the conservative Washington Times this week, making the case against federal loans to clean-energy companies. In the hopes of exploiting the “controversy” surrounding Solyndra’s collapse, DeMint labels the investments themselves, “Venture Socialism.”
Billions … have been wasted by politicians betting on favored companies and making Washington bigger, using the brute force of government to force liberal preferences into the economy. Mr. Obama calls them ‘investments,’ but this is really venture socialism.
I often wish far-right lawmakers would make it more challenging to ridicule them.
The complaints were much the same in the Senate, where DeMint said the Solyndra case exposed the “unintended results when our government tries to pick winners and losers.” That’s a valid criticism, but it would be more valid if DeMint hadn’t been a supporter of the loan-guarantee legislation in 2005. [emphasis added]
By DeMint’s reasoning, he was a “venture socialist” during the Bush era, helping create the same loan program that (a) happens to be a good idea; and (b) gave Solyndra a fairly modest loan that ended up not working.
How does DeMint explain being for “using the brute force of government to force liberal preferences into the economy” before being against it? He doesn’t.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/demint_isnt_even_trying032484.php
Mad at Obama’s Speech? Check the Tape
Date: Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 6:49 am
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com
Somehow, I had a feeling that there was more to the story.
It seems the headlines that emerged from a recent Congressional Black Caucus dinner caused a number of black people to wonder whether President Barack Obama decided to serve up a dish of the GOP’s personal responsibility hypocrisy at the affair.
Such headlines ran the gamut, from “Obama tells blacks to stop complaining” to “Obama tells blacks to stop complainin’ and fight,” to “Obama to CBC: ‘Stop complaining, stop whining.’”
No doubt those words, taken alone, wouldn’t go down well at dinner with the CBC – whose members are seeing their constituents grapple with unemployment rates of more than 16 percent. That obscene jobless rate isn’t because of whining on the part of black people, but largely because of greed and excesses on the part of Wall Street.
Those words, in fact, have inspired questions about whether Obama would tell Jewish or Hispanic voters – two of his other key constituencies – to stop whining. They’ve provoked criticism from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, who believes that Obama was suggesting that the CBC wasn’t doing enough to help battle black unemployment.
And if I was at that dinner, and if Obama was speaking in the way that many of the headlines and isolated quotes implied, I’d probably walk out. If I wanted that, I could just turn to Fox News.
Which is why I had a hard time believing that Obama would resort to that kind of shallowness. So I looked at the video.
What I saw wasn’t a president who was fussing at black people about whining too much, but one who was exhorting black people to put their frustrations behind them long enough to help him battle the forces that are behind it.
What I saw was a president who urged the CBC to tap into their history of beating back demons like segregation and discrimination and use it to join him in beating back those who’d rather see the country fail before they allow him and people who look like him to succeed.
I didn’t see a chider. I didn’t see a “you people,” kind of condescension coming from him.
What I saw was a motivator.
“Throughout our history, change has often come slowly,” Obama said. “It’s never easy … I never promised easy. But you can’t stop.
“Even when folks are beating you over the head, you can’t stop … through the mud and the muck and the driving rain, you can’t stop. We know our cause is just. It’s a righteous cause.”
And the president wrapped up his speech with this: “I don’t have time to complain; I’m going to press on. I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.”
That wasn’t a president urging black people to ignore their own plight. It was a president urging black people and black leaders to not become so discouraged about him or about their plight until they give up on fixing it.
Yet, the only thing that made headlines was the last few words of his speech.
There’s a cautionary tale here, folks.
First of all, let me say that there’s nothing wrong with criticizing the president. I’ve done so in many of my columns. But in criticizing Obama, what we need to be aware of is that many times, much of the media cares more about the narrative than the truth.
And right now, the narrative that seems to be ruling the day is the fact that …..
http://blackamericanweb.com/?q=articles/news/baw_commentary_news/32896
September 28, 2011 – Pennsylvania Voters Want Winner-Take-All, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Obama Ties Romney, Tops Perry Or Santorum
Word format
By a slight 52 – 40 percent majority, Pennsylvania voters want to continue the state’s current winner-take-all Electoral College system, rather than switch to a system where Electoral College votes are awarded based on the winner in each congressional district, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Voters say 57 – 32 percent that Republicans in the State Legislature want to switch to a district-by-district count to help Republican presidential candidates, rather than to better reflect the will of the voters, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.
And voters say 51 – 38 percent that the switch will diminish Pennsylvania’s importance as a key presidential swing state.
Keep winner-take-all, Democrats say 63 – 30 percent and independent voters say 53 – 43 percent. Republicans are divided 44 – 48 percent. Support for the current system is strongest in Southeast Pennsylvania, 62 – 34 percent, and Philadelphia, 59 – 29 percent. Support for a shift to district-by-district is strongest in Northwest Pennsylvania, 49 – 48 percent.
The shift would help Republicans, Democrats say 78 – 14 percent and independent voters say 61 – 30 percent. Republicans say 57 – 29 percent the switch would better reflect voter will.
“Pennsylvania voters say stick to the winner-take-all formula used in most states: Whoever gets the most popular votes, wins all of the state’s Electoral College votes,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
“The survey, not surprisingly, comes down along party lines. With 20 electoral votes at stake in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, Republicans see an advantage in having electoral votes divided between candidates based on the individual congressional districts they win.”
“Democrats especially are opposed, while independent voters side with them. Strangely, Republicans are not strongly in favor of the change,” Malloy added.
“Pennsylvania voters think abandoning the traditional Electoral College formula would reduce the state’s swing state clout.
“Overall, most Pennsylvanians think the proposal is being presented to give partisan advantage to Republicans. By large margins, Democrats and independent voters are not buying that ‘will of the voters’ argument.”
In the Republican presidential primary race, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 18 percent, with 16 percent for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 12 percent for former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, 8 percent for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and no other candidate, including Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, above 6 percent.
In an early look at the 2012 presidential election:
•President Barack Obama gets 45 percent to 43 percent for Romney, a tie and virtually unchanged from the August 2 Quinnipiac University poll;
•President Obama tops Perry 46 – 40 percent, also virtually unchanged;
•Obama beats Santorum 45 – 42 percent, compared to 45 – 43 percent.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1327.xml?ReleaseID=1653
Give The Republicans What They Want: Privatize The Post Office
September 27, 2011
By Teeluck Sooknarine
What do the republicans want? They want to destabilize and destroy the one thing that helps small businesses and the American people the most. They want to destroy the Postal Service…an incredible world renowned postal service the likes of which has never existed before. It was actually started in 1775 and has existed and grown to be the largest and most efficient postal system in the world.
The US postal service handles 40% of the world’s cards and letters. It has 574,000 workers, has 215,625 vehicles which I believe is the largest non military fleet in the world, has 31,871 retail locations, had $67 Billion in income in 2010 and uses zero dollars of tax payers’ money.
Many in the US do not know that the republicans put a really large weight around the neck of the Postal Service and is trying to drown it by requiring them to prefund their retirement and pension benefits for the next 75 years…and do so in a 10 year period. A phenomenal and impossible feat that means that the Postal Service will have to find 5 1/2 Billion dollars each year to fund this.
Instead of helping to create jobs this could cause at least 120,000 jobs to be lost.
So, what can we expect if the Postal Service is privatized? Well one example is this, people who have had their garbage collection privatized, has seen their collection fees doubled. Everyone who uses the postal service will see their fees rise. Right now medications are mailed, the majority of all correspondence…business and otherwise are mailed, bills and checks are mailed, even grandma’s cookies are mailed.
Obviously there will be much business in the large cities for Fed ex and UPS to do, but the urban areas will prove to be unprofitable for these delivery companies, which will result in two possible scenarios.
First, the urban post offices will have to be run by the Government using tax payers’ dollars, or secondly the delivery companies will operate central offices in urban areas where patrons will be required to travel many miles to these offices to collect their mail, this could be as many as or more than 50 miles…did I mention the service or postal fees will be considerably more than 44 cents?
Oddly enough, the largest amount of inconvenience will be felt in known conservative areas where they will really feel the love from the caring Republican individuals they rushed to vote for. These are the same Republican officials who are trying to end collective bargaining, totally privatize their health care by repealing President Obama’s health care plan, Medicare and Medicaid… and of course privatize their Social Security.
I wonder if after they get a taste of the bad medicine they are voting for, they will come to their senses…unfortunately we cannot let these programs and services be privatized just for the confused and uninformed republican voters to learn their lesson and taste their bitter medicine…so, no…we cannot give them what they want!!
This article was written by the Author of the newly released book titled “Shock and Awe on America” which can be bought in print or for Kindle at Amazon.com
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/09/27/give-the-republicans-what-they-want-privatize-the-post-office/
September 28, 2011 9:25 AM
‘A warrior for the working class’
By Steve Benen
It’s a good thing that Elizabeth Warren video went viral; it’s starting to have an impact on the national discourse.
In the now-famous clip, Warren explained to a group of voters, “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.” In our society, success tends to be the result of cooperative action — private-sector leaders move products on public roads, they hire workers educated in public* schools, their enterprises were secure thanks to public services like police and firefighters, etc.
On Monday, President Obama spoke at a LinkedIn town-hall meeting, and sounded a similar note. By yesterday, the argument worked its way into a speech Obama delivered in Denver touting the American Jobs Act. Consider this rhetoric:
This is the Land of Opportunity. What’s great about this country is that any of these young people here, if they’ve got a good idea, if they go out there and they’re willing to work hard, they can start a business, they can create value, great products, great services. They can make millions, make billions. That’s great. That’s what America is all about. Anybody can make it if they try.
“But what’s also a quintessentially American idea is that those of us who’ve done well should pay our fair share to contribute to the upkeep of the nation that made our success possible because nobody did well on their own.
“A teacher somewhere helped to give you the skills to succeed. Firefighters and police officers are protecting your property. You’re moving your goods and products and services on roads that somebody built. That’s how we all do well together. We got here because somebody else invested in us, and we’ve got to make sure this generation of students can go to college on student aid or scholarships like I did. We’ve got to make sure that we keep investing in the kind of government research that helped to create the Internet, which countless private sector companies then used to create tens of millions of jobs.”
Responding to Republican attacks, Obama declared himself “a warrior for the working class,” adding, “I will wear that charge as a badge of honor. The only ‘warfare’ I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against middle-class families in this country for a decade now.”
I had a chance to check this rhetoric against the speech as it was written, and most of this was ad-libbed. (Contrary to GOP rhetoric, the president rarely sticks to what appears on a teleprompter.)
The larger point, though, is that Obama’s rhetoric is echoing Warren’s rhetoric in fairly obvious ways. The president, in explicit ways we haven’t heard before, is linking his vision of government activism to a meaningful social contract.
For those who enjoyed Warren’s comments in the video, this is a very positive development.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/a_warrior_for_the_working_clas032481.php
7 Long Island Students Charged in SAT Scheme
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 27, 2011
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) — A college student from Long Island was paid to take the SAT exam for at least a half-dozen students at his former high school, a prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Six students were arrested on Tuesday on misdemeanor charges, although authorities said that the inquiry remained active and that students from at least two other area high schools might also have been involved.
The college student, Sam Eshaghoff, 19, of Great Neck, was arraigned on charges of scheming to defraud, criminal impersonation and falsifying business records, according to the Nassau County district attorney’s office. His bail was set at $1,000 bond or $500 cash.
Mr. Eshaghoff’s lawyer, Matin Emouna, said his client would plead not guilty. “He has cooperated with the investigation, and he denies the charges,” Mr. Emouna said.
Mr. Eshaghoff is a 2010 graduate of Great Neck North High School who spent his freshman year at the University of Michigan before transferring to Emory University in Atlanta.
The Nassau County district attorney, Kathleen M. Rice, said that in 2010 and 2011, six students at Great Neck North paid him $1,500 to $2,500 each to take the SAT. The students were not identified because of their ages, a spokesman for Ms. Rice said.
This year, Great Neck North faculty members heard rumors of the scheme, Ms. Rice said, and administrators identified six students who “had large discrepancies between their academic performance records and their SAT scores.”
The students registered to take the tests at a different school. Then, Ms. Rice said, Mr. Eshaghoff went to the schools and showed identification with his picture but another student’s name on it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/nyregion/7-long-island-students-charged-in-sat-fraud-scheme.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
President Obama participates in open roundtable discussions in English & Spanish at 11:25 am this morning.
Watch them live here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
About As Bright As A Potted Plant
Posted by Zandar
Because the Winger mindset is that everything political must be motivated by the unending desire to win more power, the only possible explanation of the “horrifying” exchange between the President and a Google employee named Doug Edwards at yesterday’s LinkedIn town hall in Silicon Valley where Edwards asked the President to raise his taxes is that the employee had to be an obvious plant in the audience.
Oh, liberals gushed when a rich audience member asked Obama that question today. It seems relevant to point out that this rich liberal is Doug Edwards from the Obama-friendly and regulation-friendly Google.
Edwards has given $300,000 to politicians since 2000 — every single dime to Democrats. He specifically said he wanted his higher taxes to cover Pell Grants.
Oh, the abject horror of that! The wingers are in full poutrage mode this morning, with FOX Nation calling Evans a plant and Malkin shrieking about President Obama possibly doing something Bush 43 did for eight years without a peep out of her.
The Right’s position on taxes is that every successful businessperson in the country succeeded in spite of them, not because of services and programs funded by them. The fact that Massachusetts Dem Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren dared to call out conservatives on this has clearly struck one hell of a nerve, and the President took up Warren’s argument yesterday at the town hall event. Greg Sargent:
Conservatives have offered a number of responses to this argument. Some have insisted that if wealthy people like Buffett and the former Google exec want to pay higher taxes, by God, they should go ahead and pay higher taxes. But this badly misses the point: These men are making an argument about the imperative that their whole income group do more to help solve our fiscal mess, not just about their own desire to chip in more themselves.
And that’s what the modern GOP can’t comprehend, the notion that with great wealth in society and the power and freedom that wealth brings there comes responsibility to help maintain that society. Since as I mentioned before the only possible motivation in the GOP worldview is self-aggrandizement and the relentless pursuit of more wealth, it’s simply a foreign concept to many of them.
It all comes down to whether or not you believe society’s wealthy should work to make the system capable of producing more like themselves, or to do everything they can to produce fewer so that wealth stays with those who have it, and by dint of possession are those most capable and worthy of having it by making sure it’s not “malinvested” with the unwashed, unworthy masses.
Or, as the joke goes, American exceptionalism means a bunch of people who were born on third base in life believing they got there because they hit a triple.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2011/09/about-as-bright-as-potted-plant.html
Poll: 73 Percent Support ‘The Buffett Rule’, Including 66 Percent Of Republicans
Ever since President Barack Obama proposed raising taxes on millionaires as part of a debt reduction package, Republicans have been refining their defense for resisting the change. These are the job creators, they argue, and economic growth will be hampered if they have to pay more income to the government. But it looks like they may have to find something more effective.
In the first public polling available on the so-called “Buffett Rule” specifically — the proposal to raise taxes on millionaires advocated by billionaire investor Warren Buffett — Daily Kos/SEIU’s weekly “State of the Nation” survey asked the following: Do you support or oppose ensuring that people who make over a million dollars a year pay the same percentage of taxes or more on their total income as those who make less than a million dollars a year?
The answer wasn’t close. 73 percent supported the idea, versus 16 percent who did not, and 11 percent who were unsure. The poll was of 1,000 registered voters.
Kos took the opportunity to revel in the results:
Indeed, every demographic sub-group favors the idea. Republicans back it 66-17. Hell, even self-identified tea partiers, the weakest supporters, are at 52-29. Oh, and those making over $100,000? 73-16.In recent polling, voters have shown a willingness to include raising taxes within a plan to address the deificit, and especially on those Americans making $250,000 or more. A recent Pew survey showed 66 percent support for that idea, and 63 percent in a poll from CBS News and the New York Times. The President himself has seemingly grasped on to that sentiment, going on the road promoting his jobs and debt reduction plans with populist rhetoric. It’s also further evidence that Obama is distancing himself from the ongoing squabbling of Congress, embracing more popular proposals and taking them directly to voters.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/poll-73-percent-support-the-buffett-rule-including-66-percent-of-republicans.php
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Last Call
Posted by Zandar
Yeah, this story has me hopping mad. Turns out the banks had some help selling subprime garbage to minority groups, in particular Wells Fargo had radio host Tavis Smiley on their payroll selling crap loans during the housing bubble and now I can’t think of anyone else who deserves the lawsuit against them as a result.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions:
As the housing market began booming in the mid-2000s, Wells Fargo & Co. teamed up with prominent African American commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley and financial author Kelvin Boston, the host of “Moneywise,” a multicultural financial affairs show, to host something called “Wealth Building” seminars in black neighborhoods.
Smiley was the keynote speaker, and the big draw, according to Boston and Keith Corbett, executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, who attended two of the seminars. Smiley would charge up the audience — and rattle the Wells Fargo executives in attendance — by launching into a story about how he hated banks, and how they used to refuse to lend him money for his real estate projects in Compton, Calif., and elsewhere. After Hurricane Katrina, Smiley also emphasized the importance of building assets and wealth, saying those who had done so were able to leave New Orleans, while people with nothing had to stay behind, Boston said.
Seems like a good plan, until Wells Fargo went in to close the sale.
But what appeared on the surface as a way to help black borrowers build wealth was actually just the opposite, according to a little-noticed explanation of the “Wealth Building” seminar strategy, contained in a lawsuit recently filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Wells’ plan for the seminars all along was to target black borrowers for higher-cost subprime mortgages, not for wealth-building, the suit charged. And the seminars were a part of the bank’s overall illegal and discriminatory practice of steering black and Hispanic borrowers into riskier and more expensive loans, the suit said.
“According to a former Wells Fargo Home Mortgage employee, one of these ‘Wealth Building’ seminars held in Maryland was planned for an audience that would be virtually all African American,” the suit said. “The plan for the seminar was for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage employees to talk about subprime mortgages, although they were directed by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage to use the term ‘alternative lending’ when marketing these products.”
The former employee, who is white, was scheduled to speak at the seminar, but was told by a manager that she was “too white,” and that only black employees could make presentations, the suit said.
Yeah, in other words, Tavis Smiley and Kelvin Boston got paid to bring in the marks and Wells Fargo bagged subprime loans as a result. Boston seems to be throwing Smiley under the bus pretty quickly in this story, and Smiley has said very little.
If I didn’t think Smiley was a brazen opportunistic asshole before, I sure as hell do now. Not everybody that ruined the economy for minorities was white, folks.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2011/09/last-call_27.html
I’m Looking at the Man in the Middle
by mistermix
Researchers at Argonne National Labs have developed a $10-30 set of parts that can be inserted into a Diebold voting machine and used to alter votes. The machine can be opened by using a standard hotel minibar key, or a similar, easily copied key, and the parts can be inserted in a matter of seconds. Once the parts are inserted, votes can be altered by remote control from a distance of up to 1/2 mile (or I assume the device could be set to do a pre-programmed vote modification).
Researchers didn’t have to alter the machine’s software—in fact, no special knowledge of the machine’s software was required. They didn’t have to solder anything inside the machine, so the devices could be easily removed with little or no signs of tampering. Since machines often sit for weeks in church basements and school storage rooms, it’s easy to imagine a successful hack.
The is just another reminder that the voting machine procurement storm that followed Bush v Gore was mainly a boondoggle. All of the touchscreen-only machines are going to be invalidated by court order someday, and they’ll be thrown away and replaced by a paper-based system that’s counted by machine, or at minimum, a kludged-together touchscreen system that prints a human-readable printed ballot output. In the meantime, we’re just going to have to trust local election boards, which don’t have a lot of money or knowledge of technology.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/09/28/man-in-the-middle/
Fugitive Who Stole Warden’s Car, Moonlighted As Model Caught Overseas After 41 Years
Federal agents ended a 41-year search for a fugitive from a New Jersey prison on Monday when they captured him in a town outside Lisbon, Portugal.
George Wright was serving a 30-year sentence in New Jersey for robbing and killing World War II Bronze Star recipient Walter Paterson at a gas station in 1962.
According to Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz of NBC New York, in August 1970 Wright escaped from prison with two other people and headed to Atlantic City in the warden’s car. The three then went to Detroit and joined the Black Liberation Army, while Wright worked under a fake name as a male model.
From NBC New York:
Two years later, Wright and several others commandeered a Delta Airlines flight from Detroit to Miami — Wright boarded the flight dressed as a priest, with a gun hidden in the cut-out pages of a Bible.
His fellow members of the Black Liberation Army also boarded with weapons, and 88 passengers were held hostage.
Wright and the other hijackers demanded a suitcase of cash from federal agents, and instructed them to deliver it wearing nothing but bathing suits so they could make sure the agents weren’t carrying weapons. The hostages were released, but the crew was kept on board and flew the plane to Boston, and then to Algeria.
The FBI was able to track down Wright, now 68, in Portugal after he began contacting family members in the U.S. He is being held without bail, and authorities are seeking to get him extradited.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/fugitive_who_stole_wardens_car_moonlighted_as_mode.php?ref=fpb
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Dick Morris Is Lying About Black Support Of Obama
Posted by Zandar
Shocking, I know. But Dick Morris is lying through his teeth when he says President Obama has lost support among African-Americans.
According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, his favorability rating among African-Americans has dropped off a cliff, plunging from 83 percent five months ago to a mere 58 percent today — a drop of 25 points, a bit more than a point per week!
Nothing is more crucial to the president’s reelection strategy than a super-strong showing among black voters. In the election of 2008, he was able to increase African-American participation from 11 percent of the total vote in 2004 to 14 percent. He carried 98 percent of them. This swing accounted for fully half of his gain over the showing of John Kerry. Now his ability to repeat that performance is in doubt
The bolded part is an outright lie. I will repeat this and call Mr. Morris out: he is a liar and is lying on purpose to make President Obama look bad. Here is what the poll actually said:
New cracks have begun to show in President Obama’s support amongst African Americans, who have been his strongest supporters. Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.
So yes, the number of African Americans holding strongly favorable opinions of the President right now are down. This is not the same as these opinions going to unfavorable, and Dick Morris knows it. He thinks you’re too stupid to notice. And what’s President Obama’s actual, total favorability rating among African Americans, counting both strongly favorable and favorable positions?
Obama is strongest in the West, and has maintained substantial favorability among Hispanics (61 percent) as well as among African-Americans (86 percent).
That’s right, 86 percent. A far cry from the 58 percent that Dick Morris claims, because Dick Morris is an outright liar. He takes one fact and claims it’s another, and he does it on purpose to suggest that the President has lost 25 percent of African Americans in just a few months. He hasn’t.
But Dick Morris knows the news orgs aren’t going to fact check him, not even the Washington Post or ABC News. It was their poll after all, and the first thing they talk about is the drop among those strongly favorable numbers. Is that a problem? Yes. Does it mean Obama has “lost blacks” as Morris’s column implies? No. He’s lying. Period. End of story.
But he’ll go unchallenged by the people who should call him on it.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2011/09/dick-morris-is-lying-about-black.html
Managers Pushed for Fake Job-Placement Numbers, Ex-Workers Say
By MICHAEL POWELL
Published: September 26, 2011
“Despite the downturn in the economy, our Workforce1 career centers are on pace to match last year’s record-setting total of more than 17,000 job placements. But we can do more.”
.— Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Dec. 1, 2008
Our mayor takes much pride in his “I’m one tough businessman” ethos. Each year he instructs commissioners to set higher goals for placing the unemployed in jobs, and each year contractors deliver those numbers on the dotted line, even in hard economic times.
It is quite miraculous, particularly if the numbers are based in reality.
Unfortunately, a question mark hangs over such claims. Six weeks ago, I wrote of Bill Harper, a manager at a city-financed job center who discovered that staff members, in at least 400 cases in three months, had taken the history of jobless clients, changed dates and salaries, and claimed past employment as a job found.
Senior officials at Mr. Harper’s nonprofit group, Seedco, dismissed his accusations as overblown. They saw “sloppiness” and prescribed training as an antidote. City officials pronounced that satisfactory. Only reluctantly and after press questions did officials turn to the Department of Investigation, which has begun an aggressive inquiry.
Now Seedco has a new headache.
Seven former Seedco employees say managers encouraged employees to produce hundreds, even thousands, of fake job-placement numbers over several years.
“The falsification of this data was not a mistake, nor was it an accident,” said Ana Defillo, who came to Seedco as an AmeriCorps worker. “It was endemic.”
There are many ways to harvest job placements. When Harlem residents used Seedco’s free tax-filing service, employees asked them to fill out forms that made it appear that they had found jobs through Seedco, employees said. In another instance, an account manager, Marlene Steele, said she went last year to companies that worked with the program, like Costco and Target, and asked dozens of employees to fill out forms falsely claiming they had obtained jobs with Seedco’s assistance.
“My manager would stand right over me and say: ‘Marlene, get me the damn numbers!’ ” Ms. Steele recalled. “I know what I was doing was not right, and so did he. My livelihood was on the line.”
A “Gong Show” atmosphere attended as deadlines approached. Managers applauded high producers, and handed out movie tickets, fruit baskets and Starbucks vouchers. They berated those who fell short.
“They told us to get placements by any means necessary,” said Ms. Defillo, whose account was supported by another front-line employee who requested anonymity because she works at a city-financed nonprofit organization. “That meant what? Lying. Falsifying records.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/nyregion/managers-pushed-for-fake-job-placement-figures-ex-workers-say.html
Flirting with Disaster
by mistermix
Chris Christie has definitely gone from being a straight governor to presidential-candidate-curious. He’s probably not going to run, but when he spoke at the Reagan Presidential Library last night, he was a little more coy than usual.
Let me first express my surprise that people are actually allowed to speak inside the St. Ronaldus Magnus library—I would have thought that reverential whispers, accompanied by the occasional “shush” of a nervous mother, would be the only human vocalization heard in that sacred chamber.
That said, this kind of desperation is really begging for the full Palin:
Don’t even say anything tonight, go home and think about it. Do it for my daughter, do it for our grandchildren, do it for our sons, please sir: we need you. Your country needs you as president.
What’s next? Are these people going to stand on the lawn at Drumthwacket holding up a ghetto blaster playing a Peter Gabriel song?
A Christie candidacy, Christie shaking his man boobs and staring slyly into the camera—hell, even the mere mention of the alliterative syllables of his name—are all good news for Democrats. It all highlights the weakness of Perry and Romney, was well as Republicans’ disgust with their repugnant choices. To Christie, I say: dance, motherfucker, dance.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/09/28/flirting-with-disaster/#comment-2799449
September 28, 2011 8:00 AM
What is ‘earned’ American exceptionalism?
By Steve Benen
It seems the big overnight political story was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) speech in California, and the breathless speculation about his possible national ambitions. The conjecture varies by media outlet — the governor opened the door to running for president, closed the door to running for president, or dodged the question altogether.
In fairness to the political reporters struggling to read the tea leaves, Christie didn’t exactly make an effort to clarify his intentions. At one point, the governor seemed to deny any interest in running, only to say in the next breath that it would be arrogant of him to ignore those urging him to run. Yeah, that ought to clear things up.
That said, while the political world obsesses over every Christie-related rumor, what I found far more interesting last night was the governor’s speech itself. Most notably, this portion of the pre-written remarks stood out:
“A lot is being said in this election season about American exceptionalism. Implicit in such statements is that we are different and, yes, better, in the sense that our democracy, our economy and our people have delivered. But for American exceptionalism to truly deliver hope and a sterling example to the rest of the world, it must be demonstrated, not just asserted….
“Without the authority that comes from that exceptionalism — earned American exceptionalism — we cannot do good for other countries, we cannot continue to be a beacon of hope for the world to aspire to for their future generations.”
After having listened to the right for a long while, I’m pretty familiar with their preoccupation with “American exceptionalism.” I have no idea, however, what “earned American exceptionalism” is.
The response to Christie’s speech among conservatives was apparently quite positive, but since when does the right believe that American exceptionalism is anything less than self-evident?
I certainly can’t speak for conservatives on this, but my sense is that as far as the right is concerned, the United States has already earned our exceptional status. We did so, the argument goes, over the course of more than two centuries of historic, inspirational greatness.
To hear Christie tell it, American exceptionalism is hollow — indeed, it may not even exist — unless the nation, to his satisfaction, has “demonstrated” and “earned” it. I’m fairly certain this isn’t close to what the right has it mind.
Put it this way: what do you suppose the reaction would be if President Obama declared that the United States still has to “earn” American exceptionalism. I suspect the right would be apoplectic; his Republican rivals would speak of nothing else, and the White House would never hear the end of it.
So why are conservatives silent on Christie’s apparent ideological heresy?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/what_is_earned_american_except032479.php
A Look at the Next Senate
by BooMan
Wed Sep 28th, 2011 at 12:09:30 AM EST
I’m pretty depressed about the political situation in the country. I guess the most dispiriting thing is that Obama can win reelection in a landslide, we can win back control of the House, and we can retain control of the Senate and even pick up a couple of seats, and all of that will not be enough to break the Republicans’ ability to stonewall. Blame the filibuster.
But there are some things that might change for the better in Washington. Control of the House and all its committees is obviously something worth fighting very hard for. But things could get better in the Senate, too. Let me highlight a few things.
The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, is retiring. We’ll probably lose his seat to the Republicans. But Sen. Patty Murray is in line to take over the chair if the Dems hold onto control of the Senate. I think we all can agree that Murray would be a vast improvement over Conrad in that role.
Most of you probably know that Joe Lieberman chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee. What you might not know is that the Homeland Security Committee has a dual role as the committee on government oversight. If the Dems retain control of the Senate, Tom Carper of Delaware will probably take over Lieberman’s chair. Carper is, like Lieberman, a former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. He’s a fairly shitty senator. But, unlike Lieberman, he’ll defend the administration from unfair attacks. Also, Lieberman’s likely replacement is Rep. Chris Murphy, and he’ll be a major upgrade over Holy Joe.
Sen. Dan Akaka of Hawaii is retiring. He is the chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. Otherwise, he’s not much noticed in Washington. Sen. Maria Cantwell will probably take his gavel on the Indian Affairs Committee. Rep, Mazie Hirono, a true progressive, will probably take his seat in the Senate. She’ll be an upgrade. She’ll also be the first Buddhist to serve in the Upper Chamber.
There is a good chance that Elizabeth Warren will replace Scott Brown as one of the two senators from Massachusetts. That would be a massive improvement.
If Tammy Baldwin is successful in replacing the retiring Herb Kohl, that would be a major injection of progressivism into the Senate.
In New Mexico, its possible that Martin Heinrich will take Jeff Bingaman’s place in the Senate and provide a little spark. More importantly, Sen. Ron Wyden is poised to take over Bingman’s gavel on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.
It can’t be bad that Arizona’s Jon Kyl is retiring even if we don’t yet have a strong candidate to compete for the seat.
Tim Kaine would be a modest improvement over Jim Webb (on most issues) in Virginia.
And Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska will probably lose, meaning we won’t have to suffer his betrayals anymore.
There could be interesting primary challenges to Olympia Snowe, Orrin Hatch, and Dick Lugar, but they all seem likely to survive. Maybe the Texas replacement for retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison could be a Democrat. But, I doubt it.
Rep. Shelley Berkley could unseat Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada. She’d be a very modest improvement.
If things go well and Obama is reelected, we should see a better Congress. But it’s all relative. It won’t be good enough to solve our problems.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/9/28/0930/23418#5
The Honeymoon Is Over
Dismissing the “new narrative” of Rick Perry’s post-debate collapse, Erica Grieder distills his real weaknesses:
He explicitly rejects moderation and bipartisan behaviour, even though his behaviour is occasionally quite temperate, as on the tuition issue. This truculence is slightly unusual in a national politician, at least a winning one. Mr Perry’s second major liability is that he has no record of leading people places they don’t want to go, on politics or on policy. He usually doesn’t even try. This isn’t a thoroughgoing drawback in an elected leader—it forestalls crusading—but it does challenge his ability to form coalitions, electoral or otherwise.
Ed Morrissey wants Perry to “stop acting like a second-tier candidate and start acting like a frontrunner.”
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/perrys-implosion.html
September 27, 2011
Good Will Huntsman
Finally, incontrovertible statistical evidence that the Republican Party is nuts:
CNN, which is hosting a [GOP presidential] debate in Las Vegas on Oct. 18, has … said candidates must reach an average level of support of 2 percent in three separate polls by news organizations published since Sept. 1. [Jon] Huntsman has reached 2 percent in two polls, but has been at 1 percent in the rest.
If he doesn’t reach 2 percent in a third poll by Oct. 16, Mr. Huntsman will not be on the stage.
We probably shouldn’t begrudge CNN its qualifying druthers. After all, it can’t allow just anyone to debate on its stage for the world’s most powerful office; for heaven’s sake, such free-for-all liberality would only distract from Michele Bachmann’s noted lucidity, or Herman Cain’s love of Nines, or yet another of Newt Gingrich’s fffffundamental lectures on the media’s responsibilities, or Rick Perry’s struggle with syntax.
On the other hand, CNN, in a daring effort to break out of its third-rated cable status, could decide to stage a debate among the party’s actual conservatives, although that would mean Jon Huntsman, on stage, alone, for two hours.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2011/09/good-will-huntsman.html
Good grief!
I saw Bob Johnson brown- nosing on Fox News. I could smack him! Harriet Tubman would have no use for these negroes!
CNN Breaking
Florida is expected to hold its presidential primary on January 31, likely throwing the carefully arranged Republican nominating calendar into disarray, CNN has learned.
The move would jumpstart the nominating process a month earlier than GOP leaders had hoped and almost certainly force Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada to leapfrog Florida and move their primaries and caucuses into early- to mid-January.
“We are expecting to meet on Friday from 11 to 12, and I expect that they will pick January 31 as Florida’s primary date,” Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon said about a state commission exploring potential primary dates.
September 28, 2011
Checking the patient charts
Updating oneself on the Republican presidential campaign first thing in the morning is like reading overnight patients charts at a psychiatric ward.
They said, did, what?
Really, and though today’s reports are, in their own way, striking, they’re also relatively mild … considering.
Rick Perry, for instance, has just sailed through some of the roughest political weather a candidate has ever rained-danced on himself. His lead over Romney has been cut at least in half; he’s proven himself — for a white guy — incredibly inarticulate; and he’s quite literally (see “SNL”) become a national joke. Hence, says his spokesman, “We’re not going to change what we’re doing.” Good call.
Chris Christie, the leading non-candidate candidate, who succeeds leading non-candidate candidate Mitch Daniels, who succeeded leading non-candidate candidate Sarah Palin, “didn’t give a definitive yes or no to the people who came to hear a sold-out speech” at the Reagan Library. He did, however, say last night that we mustn’t become “a country that places comfortable lies ahead of difficult truths.” That the Republican audience cheered that line is a real puzzler, since it only suggested that Christie is thinking about leaving the GOP.
Meanwhile, Dana Milbank, via the Daily Beast’s reporting, reports on Herman Cain: ” ‘Some people want to say there’s still unhappiness with the field. That is bullfeathers!’ The article noted that the candidate was drinking wine — in the morning.” Well, hell, no wonder Cain can fire up a crowd; he himself is lit — and wouldn’t you be if you were running behind the likes of a Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry?
And I see there was another Palin tease, so called because in the GOP, being a non-candidate candidate is as good as being a candidate. “As for her own plans,” reports Politico, “she gave no indication, acknowledging that ‘for logistical reasons, decisions do have to be made. You have to get your ducks in order.’ ” This is called giving “no indication”? Palin is saner than the press.
I haven’t tracked down the other patients’ charts yet, but Newt Gingrich was ideating another Big Idea, no doubt; Rick Santorum was quivering with latent delight over beastly man-boy love associations; Ron Paul was reverentially drooling over the economic harmony of the 19th century; and Jon Huntsman was struggling to achieve 2 percent popularity. And Mitt Romney, I’m sure, simply sat in the corner, surveying the field and preening himself as Lord of the Ward.
One doesn’t know whether to be appalled or amused. That “wine — in the morning” thing sounds like a pretty good and decisive remedy, though.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2011/09/checking-the-patient-charts.html
OMG, this piece is HILARIOUS and frighteningly true.
September 28, 2011 8:35 AM
Economists: Jobs Act may prevent recession
By Steve Benen
Almost immediately after President Obama unveiled the American Jobs Act, some of its biggest fans were economists and economic forecasters. Moody’s Analytics estimated that the plan would boost economic growth by 2 percentage points and create 2 million jobs. Macroeconomic Advisers wasn’t quite as optimistic, but its analysis projected that the White House plan “would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term.”
Three weeks later, support for the American Jobs Act continues to be much stronger among economists than members of Congress. Indeed, I suspect the White House will be awfully pleased with this Bloomberg News headline this morning: “Obama Jobs Plan May Prevent 2012 Recession.”
President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
In fairness, the economists surveyed had widely divergent estimates, and some were far more optimistic about the proposal’s impact than others. But the overall consensus among the experts is that the Americans Jobs Act would create hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs, and boost economic growth. Some projected a pretty significant boost: “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimated the plan would add 1.5 percent to the economy, while Macroeconomic Advisers LLC said 1.3 percent and UniCredit Research, up to 2 percent.”
Reactions to the Republican approach were far less kind.
A reduction in government spending, the end of the payroll- tax holiday and an expiration of extended unemployment benefits would cut GDP by 1.7 percent in 2012, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli in New York.
Feroli doesn’t expect big results from the White House proposal, but he nevertheless makes clear the Republican policy would quickly push the economy backwards.
As a practical matter, I don’t imagine this will matter to Congress. Republicans, after all, “do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities,” even though they occasionally claim “every economist” agrees with the GOP agenda.
But the Bloomberg report once again brings the debate into focus. The economy is struggling, there are fears it may start to shrink, and the nation needs Washington to act. The president has presented a credible plan that, according to knowledgeable experts who get paid to answer these questions correctly, would give the economy a much-needed boost at an important time.
The choice for Congress seems to down to recovery and jobs vs. negligence and ignorance.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/economists_jobs_act_may_preven032480.php
Obama Jobs Plan May Prevent 2012 Recession
QBy Timothy R. Homan – Sep 27, 2011 11:00 PM CT
President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
The legislation, submitted to Congress this month, would increase gross domestic product by 0.6 percent next year and add or keep 275,000 workers on payrolls, the median estimates in the survey of 34 economists showed. The program would also lower the jobless rate by 0.2 percentage point in 2012, economists said.
Economists in the survey are less optimistic than Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who has cited estimates for a 1.5 percent boost to gross domestic product. Even so, the program may bolster Obama’s re-election prospects by lowering a jobless rate that has stayed near 9 percent or more since April 2009.
The plan “prevents a contraction of the economy in the first quarter” of next year, said John Herrmann, a senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC in Boston, who participated in the survey. “It leads to more retention of workers than net new hires.”
Some 13,000 jobs would be created in 2013, bringing the total to 288,000 over two years, according to the survey. Employers in the U.S. added 1.26 million workers in the past 12 months, Labor Department data show.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-28/obama-jobs-plan-prevents-2012-recession-in-survey-of-economists.html
Good Morning, Everyone at 3CHICS!
Morning Rikyah…with your soft spoken self! :)
Morning Ametia!
How U B?
Hola, SG2. You hittin’ those books? I’m watching you. **
Uh…see what had happen…
:)
LOL Get it done, young lady, MAKE THE GRADE! :-)
Good Morning, 3 Chics, Friends & Visitors!
I hope your Wednesday rocks!
Good Morning, Everybody; Happy HUMP day! :-)