The Ward Report

George Carlin -God bless America and other observations

2012-01-30T22:56:00.000-06:00

George Carlin's social commentary was genius and fearless. I miss him very much.

Dust up in Phoenix

2012-01-25T22:14:00.001-06:00

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had a dust up with President Obama in Phoenix today. Gov Brewer was telling everyone who would listen that 'No Drama' Obama was upset with her for her characterization of him in her book.

No one who might have heard what was said is talking, but in this photo it seems pretty clear that it's Gov Brewer who is upset. I suspect Governor Brewer lives in a world where no one disagrees with her to her face.

Photo by Haraz N. Ghanbari / Associated Press.

The next Bloomberg Businessweek cover?

2012-01-23T14:08:00.000-06:00

According to BuzzFeed, Bloomberg isn't saying.

Gingrich Family Values

2012-01-23T12:51:00.002-06:00

From Ron Dreher at The American Conservative.

Andrew surveys the current state of the GOP

2012-01-23T12:34:00.000-06:00

I've long said that the current GOP is the result of it's leaders spending years radicalizing their base, to the point that they can no longer control them, and now those chickens are coming home to roost.

In a long-winded rant, Andrew Sullivan reaches the same conclusion. Here's the crux,

This is the current GOP. It purges dissidents, it vaunts total loyalty, it polices discourse for any deviation. If you really have a cogent argument, you find yourself fired - like Bruce Bartlett of David Frum - or subject to blacklists, like me and Fox. You can find Steve Schmidt lamenting Gingrich for very good reasons, and then you realize that it was Schmidt - a moderate, sane, level-headed professional - who helped pick Sarah Palin for the vice-presidential nomination. Because he correctly realized that she would actually add base votes and prevent a total Obama tsunami. In the end, he knew what he had to do. In the end, the "establishment" knows the party they have created.

This now is the party of Palin and Gingrich, animated primarily by hatred of elites, angry at the new shape and color of America, befuddled by a suddenly more complicated world, and dedicated primarily to emotion rather than reason. That party is simply not one that can rally behind a Mitt Romney. He too knows what he has to say - hence his ludicrous invocation of Obama as some kind of alien being. But it doesn't work. He believes it - since he seems capable of genuinely believing in anything that will win him votes and power. But he doesn't have the rage to make it work. And that rage cannot be downward, as Romney's often is - toward hecklers or interviewers. It has to be upward - at vague, treasonous elites. It has to have that Poujadist touch, that soupcon of contempt, that sends shivers up the legs of the Republican faithful, reared on Limbaugh, propagandized by Fox, and coated with a shallow knowledge of a largely fictionalized past.

It's all fun and games until a Federal Courthouse gets blown up or Newt Gingrich wins the Republican nomination for President.

Romney's new FL stump speech goes after Newt

2012-01-23T11:05:00.000-06:00

NPR has the audio from Romney's new stump speech being rolled out in Florida. Romney is now directly attacking Newt Gingrich for his many flaws and failures.

The list of scandals to choose from in attacking Newt is endless, but what's interesting here is how truly awful Romney is at attacking his opponent. This is a good example of why those Republicans desperate for someone to bloody Obama are turning away from Romney.

Romney's new FL ad hitting Newt

2012-01-23T10:29:00.003-06:00

Anyone know if this is running on TV in Florida?

Romney's Cayman Island accounts and the 'job creator' narrative

2012-01-21T11:39:00.001-06:00

It's now been widely reported that the Romneys hold millions of dollars (maybe as much as $32M) in Bain Capital Cayman Island accounts. These 'off shore' accounts allow the Romneys to pay only the 15% capital gains tax on the income derived from these funds as opposed to having the income taxed as ordinary income.

And while there appears to be nothing illegal about these Cayman Island funds, it blows the whole Republican 'job creators' narrative right out of the water.

The GOP has been insisting for years now that millionaires should only be paying the lowest possible tax rate on their income (15% being a favorite) because they are the engines driving American job creation.

So who will be the first to ask Mitt how many jobs his $32,000,000 in the Cayman Islands has created here in the United States?

Will Newt's second ex-wife end his campaign

2012-01-19T21:42:00.000-06:00

I was talking about this today with co-workers and I think it is likely that it will. Many evangelicals know of Gingrich's affairs and mistresses but none of the details. Today, they are willing to hold there nose and vote for him but will they be tomorrow?

From The Economist,

there is a difference between reading an article about Mrs Gingrich and watching her tell her story, in her own words, on network television, two days before a primary election. The conventional wisdom is that Mr Gingrich is already inoculated against the effects of damaging revelations about his personal life. He had better hope that wisdom holds.

Exactly. I think this will peel off enough supporters to wreck his campaign.

But think about how much fun it will be in Gingrich wins SC and slugs it out with Romney all the way to Tampa.

Colbert's Herman Cain Ad

2012-01-18T12:33:00.000-06:00

Again, is this running anywhere in South Carolina?

Colbert Super PAC Ad against Romney

2012-01-18T12:30:00.000-06:00

Is Colbert's PAC really running this ad in South Carolina?

When Mitt Romney Came To Town

2012-01-12T13:15:00.000-06:00

Here is the full 28 minute short film purchased by Gingrich's Superpac taking on Romney's time at Bain. It has surprisingly high production values and is going to be devastating to Romney.

Newt's latest anti-Romney ad

2012-01-11T15:12:00.000-06:00

Contrary to the ad's assertion, isn't the real question 'who can beat Obama in the election'?

Take a load off Annie

2012-01-10T21:36:00.000-06:00

Wilco with the incomparable Mavis Staples and Nick Lowe rehearsing 'The Weight' in the Chicago dressing room before a December show.

Mavis steals the show but then this isn't the first time she's sang this song. She did the same when performing the song with The Band as part of the concert filmed by Martin Scorsese for the best of his music documentaries, The Last Waltz.

UPDATE: I decided to go ahead and post the original. Here is The Band in The Last Waltz performing 'The Weight' featuring Mavis and Pops Staples. Play in 480P for best audio.

Bungee Jumping is Never a Good Idea

2012-01-08T15:16:00.000-06:00

22 year old Australian tourist Erin Langworthy fell 364 feet into the crocodile infested Zambesi River when the bungee cord snapped as she jumped off the Victoria Falls while on holiday in Zimbabwe.

She hit the water hard with her legs still bound. She entered the downstream rapids periodically getting sucked under water and then pushed to the surface disorienting her such that she didn't know what was up and what was down. As if there weren't bad enough, She told Channel 9 news,

It was quite scary because a couple of times the rope actually got caught on some rocks or debris. I actually had to swim down and yank the bungee cord out of whatever it was caught on to make it to the surface.

Remember this next time you're traveling and someone says, "hey that bungee jumping looks like fun!"

Erin was lucky enough to be over water. Others have not been so fortunate.

American Airlines Apoligizes to Alec Baldwin

2011-12-12T21:45:00.000-06:00

Gingrich!

2011-12-12T11:38:00.000-06:00

As Newt Gingrich appears poised to seize the 2012 Republican nomination, I'm reminded of this dramatic reading of one of Newt Gingrich's press releases. The reading starts at about 3:45

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What a Wonderful World

2011-12-11T15:45:00.001-06:00

Via The Dish, a tribute to David Attenborough's final appearance on the BBC. I crew up loving his nature programs. How much longer do we have to enjoy any of these miracles on nature?

Musical Interlude

2011-12-10T16:30:00.000-06:00

Cocoon - Dee Doo from Seduce Management on Vimeo.

Pujols could have had it all, but instead he chose $254 million

2011-12-09T11:39:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure if Albert understands the difference between being a much loved icon and being just another hired gun, but he will very soon.

CBS baseball columnist Scott Miller certainly understands the difference. His column today is a must read.

When it gets ugly for Albert Pujols -- and it's going to get ugly for Albert Pujols -- he'll have himself to blame. Because it didn't have to be this way.Pujols could have been Derek Jeter. He could have been Cal Ripken. He could have been Ernie Banks or Ryne Sandberg or, yes, Stan Musial. Instead he'll be Alex Rodriguez or Manny Ramirez or Gary Sheffield, just another big-bopping mercenary playing out the string in a city he chose because it offered the biggest selection of his favorite color: green.And if there's one thing sports fans don't have tolerance for, it's a mercenary who isn't earning his keep.
_____

It's not just what will happen late in his career, when Pujols turns 40 -- or maybe 45; there are scouts who believe he was born in the 1970s, not 1980 -- but what will happen as soon as he hits a prolonged slump. Pujols just signed for A-Rod money, and A-Rod gets no slack from Yankees fans. Same goes for Pujols when he starts another season the way he started 2011, hitting .233 in early May and languishing 50 points below his career batting average into August. Fans in L.A. will see his batting average on the scoreboard and they'll boo. That's what fans do, especially to players who make about $60,000 per plate appearance and who spend an evening at the ballpark striking out twice and grounding into a double play. That's $180,000, down the tubes.

This is the future for Albert Pujols, just as it's the future for all but baseball's immortals. Pujols could have been one of those, but he sold his soul. At least he got top dollar for it.

Newt Gingrich: Judas

2011-12-05T12:38:00.000-06:00

Not everyone on the Christian Right is a Newt fan.

Carrier IQ

2011-12-01T12:56:00.000-06:00

Trevor Eckhart is all over the news with the below video showing how Carrier IQ software on your Android phone is recording and transmitting every possible detail of your phone use (including all web pages visited and the content of your text message BEFORE you even see them). The software company initially threaten to sue Trevor for exposing them, but as since back away, presumable having spoken to their own counsel and PR people.

I would expect several major class action lawsuits filed by the end of this week.

UPDATE: As predicted, Carrier IQ has been hit with the first, of what will be many, many class action lawsuits.

Herman Cain's new lie detector ad

2011-12-01T12:19:00.001-06:00

This guy is one serious wack job.

Ron Paul puts a hit on Newt

2011-11-30T20:11:00.000-06:00

This is brutal.

Bruce Bartlett. Not a Gingrich fan

2011-11-29T22:50:00.001-06:00

Bruce Bartlett, who served in WH of both Ronald Reagan and George H.W, is a dying breed in GOP ranks. Bartlett, who values expertise, pinned a column today defending Congresses professional institutions which Speaker Gingrich gutted in the 90's and now attacks. On Gingrich's recent attacks on the CBO and GAO? "utter nonsense".

Mr. Gingrich’s unprovoked attack on the C.B.O. is part of a pattern. He disdains the expertise of anyone other than himself and is willing to undercut any institution that stands in his way. Unfortunately, we are still living with the consequences of his foolish actions as speaker.We could really use the Office of Technology Assessment at a time when Congress desperately needs scientific expertise on a variety of issues in involving health, energy, climate change, homeland security and many others. And given the enormous stress suffered by state and local governments as they are forced by Washington to do more with less, an organization like the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations would be invaluable.It is essential that Congress not cripple what is left of its in-house expertise. Gutting the G.A.O. and abolishing the C.B.O. would be acts of nihilism. Any politician recommending such things is unfit for office.

The anti-intellectualism that controls the radical Republicans running GOP comes at a very real price to the U.S and could ultimately be our undoing. Bartlett is not alone in Republican ranks on protecting the institutional expertise of Congress. Uber conservative Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK) issued a report defending the GAO and pointing out the savings the GAO generates by identifying and eliminating government waist.

FMGD: Former Massachusetts Governor Disorder

2011-11-29T11:21:00.001-06:00

FMGD is a delusional disorder that afflicts certain political nerds who convince themselves despite all contrary evidence that a former Governor of Massachusetts can win a national election.

I've suffered from FMGD twice and now I see it infecting otherwise bright and reasonable Republican friends.

DNC's new ad "Trapped"

2011-11-28T13:33:00.001-06:00

Running in 5 battleground states.

Given the timing, does this indicate a DNC preference for Gingrich over Mitt?

Below is the long form DNC video.

Mitt v. Mitt: The story of two men trapped in one body

2011-11-28T13:26:00.002-06:00

There is just too much of this. I can't see how he survives these attacks.

Newt's child labor proposal put to music

2011-11-22T11:56:00.000-06:00

The bottom line on accusations against Cain

2011-11-03T15:20:00.001-05:00

Pejman Yousefzadeh tries to talk some sense into Cain Supporters,

I don’t even care at this point whether the charges are accurate; even if we assume that they are not, Cain’s habit of shifting his story in addressing the accusations, his campaign’s treatment of reporters asking questions about the charges, and now, the wild claims that other campaigns are behind the attacks, offered with little supporting evidence, show the Cain campaign in a very bad light, and show that the candidate himself is confused, desperate, and entirely on the defensive. No one should have any confidence whatsoever in Cain’s ability to survive a fall election campaign against a battle-hardened Obama team

(h/t to Andrew)

Andrew sums up the Republcan field

2011-10-27T10:34:00.003-05:00

In one clever paragraph, Andrew Sullivan has perfectly summarized the Republican field,

My own take on this is that Cain is a great performer - he makes a living as a motivational speaker, after all - and the rest of the field is hobbled by one glaring problem respectively, while Cain isn't. Perry is simply too dumb and lazy to be president. Romney too transparently opportunist for a purist party. Paul is disqualified because of foreign policy. Bachmann is a programmed bonkers-bot. Santorum is a frothy substance whose views of the world are frozen in place sometime around 1986. Gingrich is an asshole who could never win the presidency, and even those who like his permanent smirk/snarl understand that. Huntsman might as well be Al Sharpton, because of his views on climate change, gays and because of his working for Satan. No wonder Cain has a shot, given the debates. He is likable and brilliant at simple, effective presentation. He has the skills of an actor, and a roguish shamelessness that reminds me a little of Clinton. Even though you know he's a total charlatan, you still kinda like the guy.

It's funny because it's true.

Romney calls out Perry and Jeffress

2011-10-11T16:03:00.001-05:00

Romney deserves credit for calling out Perry and Jefress over Jefress' Value Voter's summit when Jeffress called the LDS church a cult. Perry has a long history of being way too cozy with every bigoted and racist wackadoodle paster south of the Mason Dixon line (here's a primer). It's notable that Romney apparently has no problems with Perry's friends who are racists or bigots except for anti-Morman bigotry, which would make for a good t0pic for an enterprising journalist to ask Mitt about. And FYI, not surprisingly LDS church isn't the only faith with which Jeffress has issue. For fun, someone should ask Jeffress about Roman Catholicism.

But the bigger problem Romney faces in this confrontation is that Dr. Robert Jeffress isn't just any wackadoodle bigoted pastor, He's the current President of the 16,000,000 member Southern Baptist Convention. "Progressive" is not a word that one would use to describe the Southern Baptist Convention-- It wasn't until 1995 that they repudiated slavery, support for which was a founding principle of the organization. One would think that such a repudiation would be an easy thing 130 years after the Civil War, but it turns out many of it's members were not at all happy with the move. And when Jefress called the LDS church a cult, he was in fact simple stating the current position of the Southern Baptist Convention he leads.

So, when Romney confronts Perry demanding he repudiate Jeffress, he's indirectly asking Perry to repudiate the Southern Baptist Convention -- and in so doing, Romney is repudiating the Southern Baptist Convention.

Can Romney realistically hope to win the White House without the Southern Baptists?

(Posted from Rome, Italy)

Remembering Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T10:14:00.002-05:00

I'll be honest with you, I always had the impression Steve Jobs was an asshole. I also always thought he was a genius. He and Steve Wozniak changed the way we view the world. Companies like IBM and Xerox were experimenting with desktop computers, but it was Jobs and Wozniak and their start-up company Apple that had the vision to bring consumer computers into our homes and on our desks and in doing so, transformed our lives. I know this sounds like hyperbole, but it's true. Just imagine for a moment how different your daily life would be without a computer.

Brian Lam was the editorial director of Gizmodo in April, 2010, when they had the good fortune to obtain a prototype copy of the iPhone 4, and showed it to the world. The ensuing imbroglio between Gizmodo and Apple got pretty ugly.

Brian has now left Gizmodo and is writing his own blog. In a very warm and sweet post today, Brian remembers Steve Jobs and shares some regrets of his own following the iPhone 4 story.

I was on sabbatical when Jason got his hands on the iPhone prototype. An hour after the story went live, the phone rang and the number was from Apple HQ. I figured it was someone from the PR team. It was not.

"Hi, this is Steve. I really want my phone back."

He wasn't demanding. He was asking. And he was charming and he was funny...

"I appreciate you had your fun with our phone and I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the sales guy who lost it. But we need the phone back because we can't let it fall into the wrong hands."

I thought, maybe its already in the wrong hands?

He continued, "There are two ways we can do this. I can send someone to pick up the phone–"
Me: "I don't have it"

"–But you know someone who does…or we can send someone with legal papers, and I don't want to do that."

He was giving us an easy way out. I told him I had to talk to my dudes. Before he hung up, he asked me, "What do you think of it?"

I said, "It's beautiful."

There's much more and it's well worth the read.

Are we finally winning the war on terror?

2011-09-30T15:53:00.000-05:00

Andrew thinks so and makes his case in an excellent post I commend you to read.

While the Bush administration spent 8 years pursing an ideological war of division at home (Americans who disagreed with them were as much the enemy as bin Laden himself) and abroad and squandering billions of dollars like drunken sailors, the Obama administration has gotten serious about taking the fight to the terrorist leaders who have waged war on the West long before the events of September 11, 2001.

Andrew contrasts the approaches of the previous and current administration,

Compare the two presidents. One unleashed a war in Afghanistan he then left to languish, and sparked an unjustified war in Iraq, that became a catastrophe of mass death and chaos. He both maximally antagonized the Arab and Muslim world and didn't even score a major victory against the enemy. In many ways, Bush gave al Qaeda an opening in Iraq where it never had one before, and allowed its key leadership to escape at Tora Bora. The torture program, meanwhile, fouled up our intelligence while destroying our moral standing in the world.

Obama has ended torture and pursued a real war, not an ideological spectacle. He has destroyed almost all of al Qaeda of 9/11 (if Zawahiri is taken out, no one is left), obliterated its ranks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, found and killed bin Laden, in a daring raid pushed relentlessly by the president alone, capturing alongside a trove of intelligence, procured as a consequence of courage and tenacity rather than cowardice and torture.

I know the next election will be about the economy. But what it should also be about is the revelation of the Republicans as fundamentally weak on national security. Caught up in their own ideology, they proved for eight years they'd rather posture and preen than do the intelligent, relentless, ethical intelligence work that is only now leading to victory.

Obama, in other words, is winning the war Bush kept losing. And since Cairo, we have witnessed the real flowering of democratic forces in the Middle East - unseen during the Bush-Cheney years. For all the tireless efforts of the Israelis to cripple US foreign policy against Jihadism, Obama has done the job. If he fails to make this case in the next election, he will, in my judgment, be blowing an important opportunity to reinforce a structural advantage against the GOP on national security.

I have been very critical of Obama's failed leadership on domestic issues, but I think Andrew gets this right. The so-called war on terror is not a war between sovereign state actors but against individuals and their networks that exist outside of governments. To defeat them, you have to relentlessly hunt them down, one by one, and kill them. While Bush and Cheney quixotically tilted at windmills and launching invasions of governments not involved, Obama has focused the power of the DoD and CIA like a laser on the individuals actually leading the terror war against not just the US, but the Western world. This by the way, is how Israel has been defending itself against terror since the 1972 Munich Olympics.

"So many are bigots,..."

2011-09-23T16:35:00.001-05:00

I did not watch the debate last night, but a question about DADT posed by Soldier Steven Hill, a soldier serving in Iraq, has generated a lot of heat today. Hill is gay and asked the Republican candidates if they intended to circumvent the repeal of DADT if elected to the presidency. Hill was met by resounding boos from the audience and scorn from Rick Sanatorium. No one, by the way, could be bothered to thank the soldier for his service.

In response to the audience boos and Santorum's "bizarre" answer that repealing DADT somehow gives gay soldiers permission for sexual misconduct that is not enjoyed by straight soldiers, Andrew Sullivan seems to have had an epiphany.

10.18 pm. Santorum claims bizarrely that repealing DADT means permission for sexual activity for gays in the military. This is a lie. The same rules of sexual misconduct apply to gays and straights alike. And a gay service member is booed by this foul crowd. Santorum keeps saying "sex is not an issue." But that's the current policy! This has nothing to do with sex, as Santorum surely knows. And again, the crowd reveals itself as hateful - even when it comes to those serving their country in uniform. This is one core reason why I cannot be a Republican. So many are bigots - and no one - no one - stands up against them. They're a bunch of bullies congratulating themselves on rooting out the queers..[Bold emphasis mine - italics is Andrew]

Andrew makes an important point -- No one inside the GOP will stand up to these bigots. No one on that stage last night could be bothered to thank this soldier for his service, much less to defend the US being the LAST NATO nation to allow gay people to serve openly. Hell, it's hard to find anyone to stand up to the racists in the party -- especially when they comes from the tea party.

How many friends do you have who are self-described Republicans who ever offer anything other than excuses for the bigotry that permeates the Republican party? Better yet, how many self-described Christian Republicans have you ever heard offer anything but excuses for the hatred that is endemic in the GOP?

At some point, if you're not willing to take a stand in opposition to hatred, don't we have the right to assume you share that hatred?

Don Ward: Job Creator

2011-09-23T12:30:00.002-05:00

Surprisingly, very few people seem interested in taking on the silly 'job creator' BS being peddled by the GOP. Dana Milbank is an exception.

When Republicans talk about the mythic 'job creator' they seem to confuse income, as in profits after all business expenses are paid, and gross revenues - -which no one pays taxes on.

Like Mibank, I too am a 'job creator' who will never create a single job. While I'm not a C-Corp (Milbank is), I am a partner in a law firm and my income comes from the profits of that law firm. But here is the obvious problem with this job creator BS being peddled by the GOP: After all the firms expenses are paid, rent, postage, supplies, computers/office equipment, etc. and most significantly, after all of the firms employees have been paid I get my portion of what is left, and this is what my income taxes are based upon. You could reduce my income tax to zero and neither I nor my law firm will hire a single additional employee. Likewise, you could double my income tax (please don't) and my law firm would not lay off a single employee. You see, pay for employees is an expense that comes off the top before there is any income. No one, no corporation, small business, no anything pays income taxes on revenues that are used to pay the expenses of the business, including personnel expenses be they employees or outside contractors -- they never have and no matter what happens -- they never will.

If any business - small or otherwise - chooses to add employees, the cost of these employees come out of their pre-tax revenue and NOT their income. Income is reduced by the cost employees and therefore not taxed -- ever.

Milbank takes a look at the Nation's job creators and discovers nearly all of them are like he and I,

According to Small Business Administration statistics, based on 2009 Census data, 21.1 million of the 27 million small businesses in the United States are “non-employer firms,” which have no workers other than the owner. Of those, 18.7 million are “sole proprietors,” 950,000 are partnerships and 1.4 million are corporations, like me.

When lawmakers talk about small businesses as the engine of growth, they bring to mind entrepreneurs building start-ups from their garages. But when officials talk about protecting the “job creators” from tax hikes, they are mostly protecting a bunch of doctors, lawyers, freelancers, contractors and the like.

So, next time someone tells you that raising the percentage of the top tax bracket will kill America's job creators, tell them to stop being a douche-bag.It's consumers who are the job creators.

Businesses aren't hiring right now because they don't have the demand for more of what they sell, whether it's goods are services. No matter how many regulations or taxes exist, if a market exists for more of the goods or services any business sells, they will hire all the necessary people to sell more product, because selling more product directly equates to higher profits. Anyone who suggests otherwise is either ignorant or intentionally being misleading.

The undeniable value of stimulus

2011-09-23T09:58:00.008-05:00

and why do smart Republicans always lie about this?

The New York Stock Exchange infamously crashed in October 1929, seven months after Republican President Herbert Hoover took office. Hoover was the former Secretary of Commerce. In the wake of the crash, banks began to fall like dominoes. There was no FDIC and millions of Americans lost all their savings when their banks failed -- which caused an obvious snowball effect ('I can't pay my employees because I lost all my money in the bank'. 'I can't pay my mortgage b/c I lost all my savings and my job'). My great grandfather who had been a prosperous painter lost his life savings and 3 houses. He never recovered financially and died in 1972 with $500 to his name.

The Hoover administration responded to the bank failures and subsequent recession with austerity -- they did nothing. Hoover believed unemployment payments would be addictive and discourage work. He did agree to deport all Mexicans from the United States on the belief they were taking "American" jobs, and he insisted on balanced budgets. Does all this sound familiar?

Hoover lost reelection in a landslide to FDR who took office in March 1933. FDR immediately began instituting The New Deal. Here is the effect of the New Deal on GDP:

(The Y-Axis is GDP expressed as a percentage increase over the lowest GDP in 1933. Note that in 1929, the GDP is nearly 40% ABOVE the 1933 low, and this was surpassed in 1936)

This graph comes from an article by Paul Abrams written in response to Republican criticisms to Obama's 2009 stimulus program.

Note the downturn in 1936 and 1937. As Abrams explains,

This is as close to a "scientific experiment" as there can be in macroeconomics: from '33 to '36 Roosevelt unleashed the New Deal and what passed at the time as massive spending. The GDP grew every year by double-digits.

Then, in a reversion to his true roots as a fiscal conservative, FDR decided that it was time to slash spending to balance the budget. The economy contracted. Then in '38, realizing the error of his ways, Roosevelt started spending again, and GDP grew every year thereafter.

The next time someone tells you the New Deal was a failure, ask them to explain this graph.

I am as concerned about systemic Federal deficits as anyone, and unlike all these Republican self-described 'fiscal conservatives' my concern didn't start on January 20th, 2009. But now is not the time to back off on Federal spending -- at least now when it comes to building projects. We have neglected our infrastructure for 30 years. With the rest of the world running to US debt to keep their money safe, the US can borrow money at a net rate of zero percent. Now is the time for a trillion dollar construction bill to rebuild highways, airports and to build out a modern high speed rail system to connect regional cities like Saint Louis and Chicago.

Unfortunately for the U.S., Republicans have dug in on opposing anything Obama wants and Obama has abdicated his leadership role for so long now that there is little hope his new found voice can save us from what appears to be the makings of a global depression.

It's the end of my youth as I knew it

2011-09-22T13:33:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, with no fanfare, REM made the following announcement on their homepage,

To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening. R.E.M.

It is, they insist, an amicable parting, and there is no reason to believe otherwise. REM has always been a very close-knit band. While on the 1995 Monster tour in Europe bassist Mike Mills suffered a ruptured appendix. Mills urged them to get a stand-in bassist to continue the tour but his bandmates refused to leave him behind. They postponed several shows and stayed with Mills in Germany until he was released from the hospital and able to travel.

I became an REM fan in college when they released their second album, Reckoning. The following year they released Fables of the Reconstruction and I was hooked. Of course my youth ended long ago but as long as REM was together recording and touring it didn't seem so far in the past. I'm honestly and little sad. Now, there's only U2 -- which I knew as an alternative college band when I was in college.

You younger folks smirking will understand how this feels when the band that wrote the soundtrack to your college years calls it quits.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned above that Michael Stipe -- as Air Force brat -- attended high school in Collinsville, Illinois while his dad was stationed at Scott (I think Michael's family moved his senior year and he graduated somewhere else). When REM was St Louis in 1995 Michael looked up his best friend from Collinsivlle High who by then had a young son. They were Michael's guest at the Riverport concert that night and Michael gave them a heart-felt shout-out during the show.

What I didn't know was that while Michael was living in Collinsville he was one of the Rocky Horror junkies that used to show up at the Varsity Theater in U-City every Saturday night.

Amazingly, Joe Williams of the StL Post-Dispatch found this video. Do you recognize the kid in drag dressed as Frankenfurter?

A Plague upon the house of Texas?

2011-09-21T10:23:00.004-05:00

Have you been following the pestilence that has stuck Texas? This summer Texas recorded the hottest summer that any state has ever endured in recorded history.

Coming with all this heat is the worst drought ever recorded in the United States. Above is a US Drought map that illustrates how extreme the drought has been, and there's no end in sight, even has the heat begins to subside. Lakes and rivers have completely dried up.

Has a fundamentalist Christian who spurns science and theories of global warming, looking at this map, how can you reach any other conclusion but that a vengeful God hates Texas and is literally burning Texas off the face of the earth?

God's eternal and unchanging word,

Nahum 1:3-5 (KJV)

3The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

4He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.

5The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein

If Rick Perry were to be elected president, would God's wrath follow him and engulf the entire country?

P.S. to Georgia -- looks like your next.

Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer

2011-09-15T16:47:00.004-05:00

Marine Dakota Meyer, pictured above having a beer with the President on the patio of the Oval Office, is an American hero of extraordinary courage. Disobeying orders, Marine Juan Rodriguez-Chavez (A Mexican immigrant to the United States) drove a Humvee 5 times through withering Taliban fire with Meyers manning the gun turret, to rescue fellow marines and Afghan soldiers pinned down in a Taliban ambush.

Rodriquez-Chavez and Marine Capt. Ademola Fabayo (An immigrant from Nigeria who thinks of himself as a New Yorker), who manned the gun turret on the fifth rescue attempt, received the Navy Cross for the extraordinary valor they showed that day. Rodriquez-Chavez and Ademola are pictured here the day they received the Navy Cross.

NPR tells the story very well,

Shortly after dawn on a September morning in 2009, American and Afghan troops set out on patrol along a rocky mile-long stretch in eastern Afghanistan. They were heading to a small village for a routine meeting with tribal elders.

Suddenly, everything went wrong.

Cpl. Dakota Meyer and Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, who had stayed behind with the vehicles, heard small arms fire in the distance and knew instantly it was an ambush. Rodriguez-Chavez then heard an officer yelling for help on the radio.

"He said, 'I have wounded here. I need to get them out of here. If I don't get [backup] fires, we're all going to die here,' " Rodriguez-Chavez recalled.

So the Marines had to act. Meyer, then age 21, kept asking for permission to help the stranded troops, but the officers said no.

"And then finally, I requested one last time," he said.

Again, the answer was no.

So Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez decided on the spot to disobey orders.

"He looks at me and says, 'Let's do it,' " Meyer said.

That decision was the start of a long day — a six-hour fight to save the trapped men.

Going Back, Again And Again

Rodriguez-Chavez hopped behind the wheel of a Humvee and drove straight into the ambush. Meyer climbed into the vehicle's gun turret and tried to pinpoint the elusive enemy.

But he said it was hard to identify the Taliban. "They look like normal people, and the next thing you know they're shooting at you," Meyer said.

The Taliban fired mortars, and then rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire as the two Marines got closer. There were explosions and ricochets. The Humvee's side mirror was ripped off by the fire. The noise was deafening.

"Imagine one of those real loud firecrackers blowing up next to your ear," Rodriguez-Chavez said.

Yet Meyer kept firing back, with the shell casings from his machine gun spilling into the Humvee.

"It's kind of crazy, because everything slows down. It seems like it was forever and ever," Meyer said. "And it starts running through your head: I'm never going to see my family again."

Finally, they found a group of Afghan soldiers, the first men who'd been cut off. The two Americans piled the Afghans into the Humvee, including some who had been wounded.

As they dropped off the Afghan soldiers in a safe place, the Afghans warned the Americans, "Don't go back, don't go back."

But the two Marines did go back — again and again.

Rodriguez-Chavez already has been awarded the Navy Cross, the second-highest award for valor.

Surrounded By Taliban

Both men thought they were probably going to die that day. They remember having this exchange.

"Hey man, we'll probably get stuck out here," Rodriguez-Chavez said.

"We'll just die with them, because I can tell you right now they're not going to get out of here without us," said Meyer.

They drove back and forth five times, and Meyer in particular took chances, exposing himself repeatedly to enemy fire. At one point, he was hit in the right arm.

On the final run, it got worse. Rodriguez-Chavez heard a report over the radio.

"Like, hey man, you're getting surrounded," he was told.

And they were. Taliban fighters swarmed toward them — firing AK-47s.

Meyer shot at the Taliban, hitting one in the head and others in the body, Rodriguez-Chavez said. "From the front of the Humvee, they were maybe two or three feet," he said.

The Marines drove on to try to rescue the final group of troops. Nothing had been heard from them for hours. Meyer hoped they'd just lost radio contact.

"What I thought was they had probably pushed up in to a house and lost [communications], and they were just waiting on us to get in there," Meyer said.

A Dozen Marines, Two Dozen Afghan Soldiers Saved

It turned out these American troops were dead. But that didn't stop Meyer, who ran to retrieve the bodies. Taliban gunfire kicked up dirt around him.

Eventually they brought the bodies back to base. Meyer helped place his dead comrades on a helicopter.

After six hours, it was over. Meyer kept thinking one thing.

"You feel like a failure. Why isn't that you being carried on that bird? Why are you standing here and they're not?" Meyer said.

Meyer was anything but a failure. His actions, say military officials, saved more than a dozen Marines and two dozen Afghan soldiers.

Meyer was promoted to sergeant before he left the Marines, and is now living in his native Kentucky, where he is a construction worker. Rodriguez-Chavez is now a gunnery sergeant stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where he teaches troops how to drive Humvees and trucks.

How to beat Terrorism? Refuse to be Terrorized

2011-09-12T11:19:00.002-05:00

Spencer Ackerman has a great September 11 piece up at Wired's Danger Room.

Trying to pick out a quote that sums up the essay doesn't do it justice so go read the whole thing. It's not especially long.

Spencer begins,

Ten years ago today, 2,996 people were murdered, unleashing a pair of destructive, mutually reinforcing trends. To prove their relevance, terrorists keep trying to attack the United States at home. And the media and politicians react to it with hysteria, running in fear of getting blamed for a successful attack and perpetuating the gigantic, expensive, counterproductive National Security State. As awful as the snuffing of so many souls on 9/11 was, the second trend has often proved more dangerous than the first.
In case you haven’t noticed, hysteria is what the terrorists want. In fact, it’s the only win a decapitated, weakened al-Qaida can get these days. The only hope that these eschatological conspiracy theorists possess for success lies in compelling the U.S. to spend its way into oblivion and pursue ill-conceived wars. That’s how Osama bin Laden transforms from a cave-dwelling psycho into a world-historical figure — not because of what he was, but because of how we reacted to him.

We have spent 6.6 TRILLION DOLLARS -- with a 'T'-- in response to the bombings of September 11th, with no end in sight. This spending is bankrupting the United States which is exactly Osama Bin Laden hoped we would do.

Read Spencer's essay and share it with others. We really need a new, rational, approach.

McCain and Graham keeping it classy

2011-08-21T22:32:00.003-05:00

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham released a joint statement on the fall of Gaddafi,

The end of the Qadaffi regime in Libya is a victory for the Libyan people and for the broader cause of freedom in the Middle East and throughout the world. This achievement was made possible first and foremost by the struggle and sacrifice of countless Libyans, whose courage and perseverance we applaud. We also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.

It's a sickening feeling

2011-08-19T11:05:00.002-05:00

Kevin Drum perfectly captures the feeling,

Watching the world slide slowly back into recession without a fight, even though we know perfectly well how to prevent it, is just depressing beyond words. Our descendents will view the grasping politicians and cowardly bankers responsible for this about as uncomprehendingly as we now view the world leaders who cavalierly allowed World War I to unfold even though they could have stopped it at any time.

The GOP is a party of fools and opportunist, like Romney who certainly knows better but is so obscenely ambitious that he would watch the world fall into a global depression if that is the price for him to be president.

And as Ezra Klein says so clearly writes, this is macroeconomics 101

What should hap pen next is not that hard: Con gress should pass leg is la tion great ly increas ing sup port for the econ o my now and reduc ing the deficit by about $4 tril lion over the next 10 years ($3 tril lion once you include the dis cre tionary cuts in the debt deal). It's not rock et sci ence, and it shouldn't be par ti san. Ask ex-Reagan advis er Mar tin Feld stein, or ex-Bush Trea sury Sec re tary Henry Paul son -- or read Jack ie Calmes ask ing them -- and you'll hear the same thing. This is just stan dard eco nom ic the o ry. But Repub li cans in Wash ing ton are not going to apply it.

And don't read this as a pardon for Obama. His multiple failures of leadership have led directly to our coming under the thumb of these fools and idiots.

David Frum takes stock in the post-Palin GOP

2011-08-18T13:39:00.002-05:00

David Frum has written Sarah Palin's political obituary, "Over the past three years, Palin has systematically laid waste to the basis for a presidential campaign. By her own words and actions, she has discredited herself and alienated her one-time supporters."

But before the GOP gives Palin the final kiss-off to political obscurity, Frum wants the GOP to "make an assessment and accounting" of what allowed them to have embarrassingly embraced such a dim-wit.

Frum lays out 3 lessons to be learned from the Palin debacle.

1. "More respect for brains as a qualification for the presidency"

Within days of the announcement of Palin as GOP running mate, it became obvious to everybody that she could not pronounce two coherent consecutive sentences on any aspect of national policy, foreign or domestic. A lot of effort went into arguing that this ignorance did not matter, or even that it represented a weird kind of plus factor.

Three years later, we no longer hear such excuses for Palin. But it remains true even now that Republicans do not take intelligence or expertise very seriously as qualifications for the presidency. Mitt Romney's smarts do him surprisingly little good; Rick Perry's non-smarts do him disturbingly little harm; and Michele Bachmann's out-beyond-the-Orion-belt substitutions for familiarity with life here on Earth only intensify the admiration of her fan base.

2. "Quit treating consumption patterns as substitutes for character"

....the choice of cowboy boots over loafers, enjoyment of hunting rather than bicycling, a preference for ketchup over mustard — these tell us precisely nothing about a candidate's character.

Yet it was precisely these kinds of irrelevant lifestyle choices that persuaded so many conservatives that Sarah Palin would be a fitting leader. She drops her "g"s! Her husband owns a fishing boat! She shoots moose! (Not really on that last point, but that's the story we were told at the time.)

3. "Involve more women as party decision-makers"

In the single month of October 2008, Sarah Palin's favorabilities among independent women dropped by more than 20 points. Within a year of Palin's appearance on the national scene, a plurality of female Republicans dismissed her as "unqualified" for the presidency....

In 2008, John McCain had a choice of three female Republican senators, two female Republican governors, and an array of Republican female CEOs, including Meg Whitman, who would gain the Republican nomination for governor of California in 2010....But there was one clear advantage that Palin did possess over her more traditionally plausible rivals: her looks....

What Ziegler said out loud, millions of American women discerned for themselves: Here was a woman candidate chosen by men who do not respect women. No surprise what happened next.

The first two points seem pretty obvious. I've wondered out-loud for years to Republican friends why the GOP is so often drawn to real dopes -- un-serious, incurious anti-intellectuals whose most obvious trait seems to be vanity. The answer, by the way, probably has something to do with the GOP best and brightest being too busy make real fortunes in business and needing someone in office dumb enough to be easily flattered into raping the environment and transferring as much government funds to the aforementioned business people as possible before the public sours on him and casts him off into obscurity. But I digress,...

But this last point is perhaps the most important. Republicans as a group are very hostile to women. Look at how they treated then first lady Hillary Clinton? It was a vindictiveness and hatefulness that was just obscene. And of all the Democratic foes for the GOP to point to these last 5 years, the most hateful and vitriolic treatment has been reserved for Nancy Pelosi. The choice of Sarah Palin was very telling of the GOP view of women.

Republican extremism ctd.

2011-08-18T12:54:00.001-05:00

Matt Eckel at Foreign Policy Watch attempts to make the empirical case that the GOP is demonstrably more extreme.

Matt concludes

There used to be Rockerfeller Republicans. There used to be Republicans who had grudgingly made their peace with the pillars of the American welfare state. There used to be Republicans who, on the most crucial domestic issue axis (the economy, and government’s regulatory and redistributive role therein) could be trusted to act with a modicum of responsibility. I don’t see those around anymore. I do see a political environment where people like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry dominate the conversation in a way Pat Robertson never managed to do. That really does represent a further shift toward the “extreme.” It’s not just something political consultants have made up.

Perry's [small] World View

2011-08-18T12:18:00.003-05:00

The Daily Beast's David Sessions reads Rick Perry's latest book (Perry's written two books) so you don't have to.

In reading the review it seems that Perry is pretty much what you imagined him to be; an ultra-Southern extremest anti-intellectual. "Perry tends to portray policy expertise as sham and pretension, mocking political arguments, legal reasoning and historical analysis that attempt to articulate context or nuance."

But as contemptuous and wasteful as Perry finds the Federal Government, like so many conservatives with masculinity issues, he has no problem with unchecked wasteful spending if it is for war,

War seems to be a love like no other for Perry—the one arena where he’s happy for the federal government to break all his rules. After bemoaning in chapter after chapter the federal government’s inherent, hopeless corruption and waste, he asserts that the U.S. seriously underspends on national defense and that the Pentagon’s sprawling bureaucracy is both indispensable and infallible. He even argues strenuously against cutting funding for the F-22, a fighter jet the outgoing defense secretary, Robert Gates, called a Cold War relic and a source of massive waste.

The F-22 is fantastically expensive, flown zero flights in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya (because there is no mission for it in those wars), and can't fly at all in the rain (literally) but it is built in Texas, so that is really all anyone needs to know.

I stand by my earlier comment that Perry will never be more popular than the day he announced his presidential bid. Even Republicans have had their fill of dim-witted Texas cowboys who are all hat and no cattle.

Rick Perry's Reverse Class Warfare

2011-08-17T16:59:00.000-05:00

Scott Galupo is blunt, in a way that more opinion writers should be,

Today I'm wondering where the Reagan Republicans are. The sweeping 1986 tax overhaul that Reagan signed into law broadened the tax base, closed loopholes, and lowered individual income tax rates. It also established the Earned Income Tax Credit program, or EITC, which eliminated millions of the working poor from the rolls altogether. Expanded by President Clinton in 1993, the antipoverty program has been a smashing bipartisan success.....

Now it's become commonplace among the right to question whether such programs are "fair."The idea that the middle class—or whoever Rick Perry means by "We"—is suffering because the lower classes aren't paying taxes; the idea that the rich would create more jobs if their share of national wealth was even more heavily concentrated; the idea that, if everyone had "skin in the game," the economy would somehow improve, even as the beneficiaries of programs like the EITC are bearing the brunt of the Great Recession—all this is, to put it bluntly, a load of crap.

It's a stupid, nonempirical, and corrosive mindset.

It's also not in the spirit of Christianity and Christ's message by people who use their Christianity as a sword to sit in judgement of all those with whom they disagree.

Has Southern white extremism taken over the GOP?

2011-08-17T12:36:00.003-05:00

On more than one occasion I've mentioned Chris Caldwell's 1998 Atlantic essay, The Southern Captivity of the GOP. Chris is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, so it's hard to charge liberal bias.

In 1995 Michael Lind (a Texan) wrote an article for The New Republic that called the 94 take over of the House as a Southern Coup. Lind tried to put the extreme politics of the Gingrich Congress in an historical perspective.

Lind has updated his 1995 article with a new article in Salon entitled, The Tea Party, the debt ceiling, and white Southern extremism. Lind makes the case that the so called Tea Party is just the latest incarnation of Southern minority extremism holding the country hostage to get what they want.

From the earliest years of the American republic, white Southern conservatives when they have lost elections and found themselves in the political minority have sought to extort concession from national majorities by paralyzing or threatening to destroy the United States....

The Republican Party's attempted government shutdown of 1995 marked the new domination of the Republican Party by Southerners like Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay. The impeachment of their fellow Southerner Bill Clinton was an attempted coup d'état by the Southern white minority in the United States, which, as in 1860, was frustrated because its candidate lost the presidential election.

The debt ceiling crisis is the latest case in which the radical right in the South has held America hostage until its demands are met. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln refused to appease the Southern fanatics. Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress chose not to follow their example and instead gave in. In doing so, they have encouraged the neo-Confederate minority in Congress to find yet another opportunity in the near future to extort concessions from America's majority by sabotaging America's government.

While you might not buy into all of Lind's thesis (I do), it's hard to argue that with the Gingrich Congress in 1994, that Southern extremist politics took over the GOP. Clearly, this is not the party of Goldwater, Nixon, or George H.W.

(HT The Dish)

This is becoming fascinating

2011-08-16T13:41:00.001-05:00

Watching the heavy hitters in the Conservative media pummel Rick Perry.

The latest is this headline from the WSJ Washington Wire:

Perry Points to 'Idiotic' U.S. Rule That Doesn't Exist

For a small-government conservative on the presidential campaign stump like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a new federal regulation forcing farmers to get commercial drivers licenses would make a perfect example of Barack Obama’s Washington run amok.

Unfortunately, there is no such regulation....

The GOP dilemma in one paragraph

2011-08-16T13:23:00.000-05:00

John Batchelor at The Daily Beast perfectly sums up the problem with the current GOP field,

So far, the GOP is not constructing a candidate who can prosper in the states in which the 2012 election will turn. And the two major candidates, Romney and Perry, fail to deliver outside their own narrow, predictable records. Romney’s governorship in deeply blue Massachusetts is a waste and provides no momentum in the heartland, especially given his role in leveraged buyouts that helped transfer America’s manufacturing jobs to Asia. Perry’s governorship in red Texas is equally a waste, as the GOP hardly needs a hog-calling country parson lite from West Texas to carry the Old South. How does Perry go North with the shopworn baggage of Johnny Reb superiority and an unapologetic evangelical paternalism?

I wish I could write so well.

Karl Rove is afraid of a Perry campaign

2011-08-16T12:48:00.000-05:00

Two things seem pretty obvious. 1, Karl Rove does not care for Rick Perry, and 2, Rove fears a Perry campaign.

From TPM,

"You don't accuse the chairman of the federal reserve of being a traitor to his country. Of being guilty of treason," Karl Rove told Fox News Tuesday. "And, suggesting that we treat him pretty ugly in Texas. You know, that is not, again a presidential statement."

In case you missed it, in response to a question before a crowd in Iowa yesterday, Perry said that for The Fed Chairman to initiate a third round of quantitative easing (increasing the cash supply by the Fed purchasing T Bill) would be "almost treasonous" and appeared to threaten the health and safty of the chairman should he visit Texas after having done so.

Perhaps the funniest thing about Rove's comments, is the fact that he was the first to criticize Perry on Fox News for his outrageous remarks and his doing so is actually controversial.

"Perhaps someone still off the field will step in and run"

2011-08-15T16:50:00.005-05:00

In an interesting editorial today, Murdoch's WSJ writes off Bachmann, Perry and Romney and pleads for a yet unknown figure to enter the race.

Murdoch's WSJ on Bachmann,

...winning a straw poll of activists is a long way from persuading voters she has the experience and judgment to sit in the Oval Office. (Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.) Mrs. Bachmann has a record of errant statements (see Battle of Lexington and Concord, history of) that are forgiven by Fox Nation but won't be if she makes them as a GOP standard-bearer.

More substantively, her attempt to position herself at all times as the anti-establishment outsider has made her seem on occasion less principled than opportunistic. She quickly distanced herself from Paul Ryan's Medicare reform when it came under liberal fire, even as she purports to be the scourge of uncontrolled spending. Her recent opposition to the debt-ceiling deal on grounds that GOP leaders should have insisted on first passing a balanced budget amendment, while holding only the House, was a political fantasy.

Murdoch's WSJ doesn't like Perry any better,

The questions about Mr. Perry concern how well his Lone Star swagger will sell in the suburbs of Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the election is likely to be decided. He can sound more Texas than Jerry Jones, George W. Bush and Sam Houston combined, and his muscular religiosity also may not play well at a time when the economy has eclipsed culture as the main voter concern.

And if you thought Murdoch's paper would come out for Romney, guess again,

The emergence of Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann is nonetheless more evidence that GOP voters continue to have doubts about their candidates. Mitt Romney is a weak front-runner who has money and campaign experience and looks Presidential. But he gives little evidence that he has convictions beyond faith in his own technocratic expertise. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is likewise running on his resume more than a philosophy of government. We would have thought that John McCain proved you can't beat Mr. Obama on biography.

So who does Murdoch's mouthpiece like? They haven't meet him or her yet,

Republicans and independents are desperate to find a candidate who can appeal across the party's disparate factions and offer a vision of how to constrain a runaway government and revive America's once-great private economy. If the current field isn't up to that, perhaps someone still off the field will step in and run. Now would be the time.

So does this mean the establishment GOP -- i.e. the guys with all the money -- will try and starve off Perry and Bachmann?

I don't think Romney needs their money. Romney's LDS base will keep him flush as long has he's running.

Perry and Bachmann are under attack

2011-08-15T16:34:00.000-05:00

....from their own party!

From 'The Hill GOP12',

First, the Wall Street Journal was spooked about the Michele Bachmann/Rick Perry surge, and just now, Karl Rove issued a similar warning.
"You don't want these candidates moving so Right in the Republican primary that it becomes impossible for them to win the general election, because it will become a self-defeating message in the primary.

People want to win. They don't want somebody who goes so far to the extremes of either party that they lack a chance to carry a victory off in November."
Earlier today, the WSJ wrote an op-ed that seemed to suggest that neither Michele Bachmann nor Rick Perry were particularly electable.

S&P Senior Director Lays Downgrade at Feet of Republicans.

2011-08-12T11:51:00.004-05:00

Politico quotes an S&P Senior Director involved in the downgrade decision.

A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans.

Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that “people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,” Mukherji said.

“That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable,” he added. “This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns.”

The United States remains the world's largest economy by a significant margin. As a practical matter, isn't it hard for the S&P to justify a downgrade of US debt while France, for instance, remains AAA? Or better still, the Isle of Man and Guernsey? The only reasonable explanation is as listed above, but even so, surely some of this downgrade has to be about S&P seeking some PR. Remember, S&P (along with Moodys) was giving AAA ratings ti all the toxic mortgage backed securities .

Here is the S&P list of Sovereign bond ratings.

(H/T to TPM)

Mitt Romney and the Luckiest People in the World

2011-08-12T10:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Mitt Romney informed a feisty crowd in Iowa that Corporations are people too.

This video was prepared to illustrate Romney's point for all you skeptics out there,

This is the first time in a very long time that I feel good about something the Democratic opposition has done.

Michele Bachmann's 'submission' to her husband

2011-08-12T10:25:00.001-05:00

Byron York, of all people, went there in last night's GOP debate,

YORK: In 2006, when you were running for Congress, you described a moment in your life when your husband said you should study for a degree in tax law. You said you hated the idea, and then you explained: “But the Lord said, be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husband.” As president, would you be submissive to your husband?

BACHMANN: What submission means to us, if that’s what your question is, it means respect. I respect my husband, he’s a wonderful, godly man and a great father. And he respects me as his wife. That’s how we operate our marriage. We respect each other, we love each other.

I think this is one of those 'only Nixon could go to China' moments.

And WaPo's Jennifer Rubin is right: it is a fair question about an accurate quote and Bachmann hit a home run with her answer.

Politico's Mike Allen has exclusive excerpt

2011-08-12T10:08:00.002-05:00

From Gov Rick Perry's POTUS announcement*speech,

The change we seek will never emanate out of Washington. It will come from the windswept prairies of middle America; the farms and factories across this great land; the hearts and minds of God-fearing Americans -- who will not accept a future that is less than our past, who will not be consigned a fate of LESS freedom in exchange for MORE government. We do not have to accept our current circumstances. We will change them. We’re Americans. That's what we do. WE roll up our sleeves, WE get to work, WE make things better.

Good prose.

My 2 cents, Perry is more of a threat to Romney than Obama (and then there is this). Perry sings the Evangelical song very well, and those people don't even think Romney is Christian.

As bad as things are, I can't see the country turning again to a dim witted Texas Cowboy who calls for national days of fasting and prayer to solve our problems.

But I'm wrong all the time.

* This link will expire today. There is no permanent link to Mike Allen's Political Play Book.

If you love this land of the free,

2011-08-05T19:55:00.001-05:00

Bring em' home, bring em' home....
To welcome our darling girls and boys
Bring 'em home, bring 'em home

Biden: 'I'm In Charge, Not Panetta'

2011-08-03T21:41:00.000-05:00

Josh Green has a scoop.

On Monday he was speaking with Rep Barney Frank who had just come from a caucus meeting where every one was pretty much freaking out about the debt ceiling deal. Frank spoke to VP Biden and OMB Director Jack Lew.

As Frank tells the story to Josh,

...today, Biden was at the caucus, and I said I was upset about Afghanistan and Iraq. So Jack Lew says, "Well, we're winding them down." I said, "What do you mean, you're winding them down? I read Panetta saying that he's begging the Iraqis to ask us to stay." At which point Biden asserted himself and said -- there's clearly been a dispute between them within the administration -- "Wait a minute, I'm in charge of that negotiation, not Panetta, and we have given the Iraqis a deadline to ask us, and it is tomorrow, and they can't possibly meet it because of all these things they would have to do. So we are definitely pulling out of Iraq at the end of the year." That was very good news for me. That's a big deal. I said, "Yeah, but what if they ask you for an extension?" He said, "We are getting out. Tomorrow, it's over."

I'm sure you all hope, as I do, that this is in fact the truth.

Obama's permanent damage to the Presidency and the Country

2011-08-02T20:12:00.000-05:00

Playing off of Kara Brandeisky's article explaining how Clinton refused to negotiate the debt ceiling with Gingrich in 1995, Matt Yglesias explains how Barack Obama may have done lasting damage to the Presidency and the Country.

It's not that Clinton ultimately did not make policy concessions, he simply refused to link any concessions to the debt ceiling increase.

As Matt observes,

This had important implications going forward. Implications like—future Presidents were not expected to make concessions linked to the debt ceiling. My initial guess was that President Obama could and should pursue the same strategy, and leave ugly confrontations with Congress to the annual appropriations process where they belong.

Instead we have Keith Hennessy not only excited about the terms of the debt ceiling deal but gushing that “it also establishes a pattern for when the debt limit expires in 2013.”

This seems to me like a disaster for the country. Teaching the lesson that intransigence on the specific question of the debt ceiling brings about policy concessions seems to me to signal to all members of congress that they ought to spend the winter of 2012-2013 positioning themselves as intransigent on the debt ceiling. Now that “resolving the debt ceiling with a last minute compromise after months of threatened default” has become normalized as a way of doing business, it seems to me that we’re certain to face a situation sooner or later where the country winds up unable to pay its bills. This is going to be a lingering threat to good governance in the United States.

Matt is exactly correct. Obama has lead us into a disaster. What a disappointment.

Obama got pawned

2011-08-01T22:41:00.013-05:00

No matter how you slice it, Obama got pawned in a very embarrassing way. And it started last December.

This is Tom Tomorrow's cartoon from last month (which Josh Green described at the time as prescient) that captures perfectly exactly how a naive POTUS got played in a way that really defies explanation.

Click on the image to enlarge
Paul Krugman reminded us this morning, that many people, including Marc Ambinder (the below questioner last December) saw this coming when Obama cut the December budget deal trading away the only leverage he had.

Q Mr. President, thank you. How do these negotiations affect negotiations or talks with Republicans about raising the debt limit? Because it would seem that they have a significant amount of leverage over the White House now, going in. Was there ever any attempt by the White House to include raising the debt limit as a part of this package?

THE PRESIDENT: When you say it would seem they’ll have a significant amount of leverage over the White House, what do you mean?

Q Just in the sense that they’ll say essentially we’re not going to raise the — we’re not going to agree to it unless the White House is able to or willing to agree to significant spending cuts across the board that probably go deeper and further than what you’re willing to do. I mean, what leverage would you have –

THE PRESIDENT: Look, here’s my expectation — and I’ll take John Boehner at his word — that nobody, Democrat or Republican, is willing to see the full faith and credit of the United States government collapse, that that would not be a good thing to happen. And so I think that there will be significant discussions about the debt limit vote. That’s something that nobody ever likes to vote on. But once John Boehner is sworn in as Speaker, then he’s going to have responsibilities to govern. You can’t just stand on the sidelines and be a bomb thrower.

And so my expectation is, is that we will have tough negotiations around the budget, but that ultimately we can arrive at a position that is keeping the government open, keeping Social Security check going out, keeping veterans services being provided, but at the same time is e-prudent when it comes to taxpayer dollars.

Like I said, P-A-W-N-E-D

There is nothing more fatal to a presidency than the appearance of weakness.

The Democratic and Republican Base

2011-08-01T14:55:00.001-05:00

and why Dems are constantly 'triangulating'.

Matt Yglesias puts up some solid polling data on how Americans self-identify as conservative, liberal, etc. Based upon this data, Matt concludes,

People who think of themselves as “conservative” are in a very real sense the “base” of the Republican Party. A politician who positions himself as to the right of Susan Collins but the left of Jim Jordan is doing what most self-identified Republicans want. But “very liberal” Democrats are a marginal block of people, and the median self-identified Democrat also self-identifies as a moderate. Liberals just aren’t the “base” of the Democratic Party in the same way that conservatives are the base of the GOP. Balanced news coverage is all well and good, but commitment to balance sometimes distracts people from the fact that the parties are very asymmetrical in their structure and composition.

I think this explains why Democrats are able to triangulate, but not why the do so.

The explanation of why Democrats are willing to triangulate is simple pragmatism. Democratic leaders actually care about good public policy and want to use government policy to effect changes that they believe are in the best interest of the groups they serve.

Republicans on the other hand really don't care at all about public policy and think 'good government policy' or 'good government' are oxymorons. To over-simplify only a little, with the exception of defense spending and tax reductions, Republicans don't care if any bill ever passes out of Congress and generally believe the fewer, the better. Maybe put another way, with the exception of transferring money from government to corporate America -- and in particular the military industrial complex-- or tax reductions, Republicans don't care about policy. And when they do get behind policy we end up with Medicare Part D which is nothing more than a transfer of money from the treasury to Big Pharma.

Given this environment, if Dems don't triangulate nothing positive will ever get done.

Our problem is not the 87 Freshmen in Congress

2011-08-01T13:35:00.001-05:00

I, and pretty much everyone who reads this, want to be rid of the 87 GOP freshman representatives because they are standing in the way of responding sensibly and effectively to the economic crisis of our lifetimes.

We dismiss them as know-nothing Tea Partiers but we are stuck with them until at least 2012 and it's likely that for most of them, many more years.

What I came away with after Boehner's follies last week was that these folks are very serious and need to be taken seriously.

First, the Freshmen sincerely believe that they have a mandate to rein in Federal spending that is seriously out of control. Most Americans, my self included, certainly think Federal spending has gotten seriously out of control.

Second, they believe the best way to rein in out of control spending is for a Constitutional amendment to forbid future deficit spending. Those of us who have had the benefit of a decent college level class or two in macroeconomics can see the problem with such an amendment, but we deny at our own peril the appeal this has to ordinary Americans fond of saying things like, "I can't spend more than I make, so why should the government?"

And most importantly, these Freshmen are sincere. They really want to bring down Federal spending in a large way. Of course the are misguided on where the spending actually is, much less where it should be cut, and they are equally misguided on revenues. Nevertheless, they deserve our respect for the sincerity of their beliefs.

But our real problem is not these 87 new congressmen. Jared Bernstein today identified our real problem,

If your conclusion is that Democrats got rolled because the President is a lousy negotiator, I disagree. Not on his negotiating skills…as someone said in comments, I wouldn’t want him in the auto showroom with me when I’m bargaining for a better price. I disagree that better negotiating skills would have made a big difference. The problem goes much deeper.

....If too many Americans don’t believe in or understand what government does to help them, to offset recessions, to protect their security in retirement and in hard times, to maintain the infrastructure, to provide educational opportunities and health care decent enough to offset the disadvantages so many are born with…if those functions are unknown, underfunded, and/or carried out poorly, why should they care about how much this deal or the next one cuts?

Those of us who do care about the above will not defeat those who strive to get rid of it all by becoming better tacticians. We will only find success when a majority of Americans agrees with us that government is something worth fighting for.

The Freshman do not understand the important roll government plays in the modern economy of a first world country and neither do many Americans. This is where our elected officials, chief among them being President Obama come in. They must educate the public on the important roll many of our spending programs play in the lives we all enjoy. And this has been my biggest disappointment with Obama to date. His failure to use the bully pulpit to educate, weather it's health care reform (how many times did we hear him say 'we can't afford to do nothing'? Zero by my count).

One example is Medicare. Medicare will not go away because it is the only way elderly Americans can obtain health care. There will never be a private market to insure the elderly because it would be a lousy way to make money. So we all must work together to bend the cost curve down on Medicare before it consumes us.

A second example is the military. Empire is bankrupting our country.

So when do we have this adult conversation?

Contrasts in House Leadership

2011-07-31T16:05:00.001-05:00

Ezra Klein Makes a very astute observation of the contrasts in leadership from Speaker Pelosi to Speaker Boehner,

When Nancy Pelosi served as Speaker of the House, her job was conditioning her members for disappointment. It was Pelosi who had to bring them around to a Senate-designed health-care law that lacked a public option, a cap-and-trade bill that gave away most of its permits, a stimulus that did too little, a bank bailout that endangered their careers. Pelosi had to do that because, well, that’s what the speaker of the House has to do. To govern is to compromise. And when you’re in charge, you have to govern.

But Boehner chose a different course.

He made his bill more conservative. He indulged his members in the fantasy that they wouldn’t have to make compromises. It’s as if Pelosi, facing criticism for dropping the public option, had tried to shore up her support by bringing a single-payer health-care bill to the floor. Even if that would have pleased her left wing, what good would it have done her? Her job was to prepare her members to take a vote that could lead to a successful outcome

It remains to be seen if Boehner's indulgence of the right-wing freshman was a mistake or not. Ezra's definition (and mine as well) of a successful outcome, and Boehner's are clearly two different outcomes.

So far, the Freshmen refusal to compromise much at all has gotten them what they want. The Democrats have capitulated to this point, seemingly getting only a debt increase that will last thru the 2012 election without making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

But, no compromise bill has passed through the House and I've seen nothing in the words or conduct of the Freshmen that suggests to me they have any intention compromising beyond the Bill passed Friday night.

I'm convinced the Freshmen welcome a default.

So, while all the nattering nabobs in the Village seem convinced that Boehner somehow "must" work with Democrats to get through this compromise Bill, Boehner certainly has said nothing -- or done nothing to this point -- to suggest he has any intention of doing so.

"It's my way or the highway" has worked so far, why would they change course now?

Attributing Acts of Terror to Religion

2011-07-29T11:58:00.000-05:00

Earlier I described the man accused in the Norway massacre as "Christian terrorist Anders Breivik". I did this not because I think Christianity was responsible for the action of this mad man, but to point out the absurdity of those on the right insisting that any terrorist who is also a Muslim be labeled a Muslim terrorist. I'm sure for many my intentions were not clear.

Anyway, The Daily Show takes on this issue this week very clearly making the point I failed to make.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

In the Name of the Fodder

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Daily Show Full Episodes

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Netflix Relief Fund

2011-07-28T16:24:00.000-05:00

It's time to be serious.

Netflix Relief Fund with Jason Alexander from Jason Alexander

Words I never thought I would type

2011-07-28T15:29:00.009-05:00

Michele Bachmann is right. Enough already! Leave her husband alone.

Of course it's crazy to think you can "cure" homosexuality through therapy, prayer or whatever. What did you expect? This is Michele Bachmann's husband, for Christ's sake! That one can be "cured" of homosexuality is a religious view that, unfortunately, many Americans share. The Bachmann's have the right to their own religious views just has tragically misguided religious self-loathing gay people have the right to seek a religious "cure".

Sure, Marcus Bachmann may very well be a major closet case, but who cares? Of course he reminds all of us of Cam on Modern Family. That is not the point.

The public certainly has the right to know when the spouse of a candidate for public office holds controversial views or who's profession might be controversial, but enough all ready. It's been reported and thoroughly covered, so move on.

I hate it when the media obsesses over a candidate's spouse or family members, seeking sensation over important and substantive coverage of the candidate's views and positions. The fact that this sort of character destruction is a favorite game of Republican strategists doesn't make it right. I hated it when it was Geraldine Ferraro's husband, First Lady Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama who was outrageously described by Fox News as "Obama's baby moma"(video here). None of them deserved the abuse they took and neither does Marcus Bachmann.

Michele Bachmann is a genuine wackadoodle lunatic with bat-shit crazy ideas and that needs to be the focus of press coverage. It goes without saying that anyone who married this kook has to be nuts himself. But focus on the candidate.

The summer of liberal discontent

2011-07-28T14:16:00.000-05:00

With all the focus on the GOP civil war, it's easy to forget that the Left is very unhappy too.

Politico's White House correspondent Glenn Thrush sums it up,

Democrats ... are increasingly restive as they balance loyalty to Obama and their own commitment to preserving entitlement programs and tax equity, core principles which they see as being chucked overboard in the interest of appeasing tea party Republicans. ... 'Every policy outcome for liberals is a loss at this point,' said a senior party operative ... A Washington Post survey released last week found that the percentage of self-described liberals who 'strongly' support the president's performance on jobs has fallen 22 points [since last year], from 53 percent to 31 percent now. The percentage of African-American Democrats ... who think he's doing a good job on the economy has plummeted from 77 percent last year to a little over 50 percent now. ... Most liberals have nonetheless always closed ranks around Obama, and he remains the most popular leader of their party in a generation. ... The White House, led by Stephanie Cutter, ... keeps in regular contact with progressive leaders. Shortly before Obama's Monday night speech to the nation Cutter checked in with the group, which pressed her politely on the Medicare proposal; Cutter reportedly assured them that the deal was off the table.

Yes, it is scary but what does it mean

2011-07-28T13:58:00.000-05:00

David Frum,

Early this morning, I had breakfast with a member of Congress—a person I like, respect, have donated to in the past, will donate to in the future, and know isn’t crazy. This man shares at least 90 percent of my views. He’s not a Tea Party Caucus member but is a stalwart in the conservative Republican Study Committee. He has a safe seat and, like me, sees some serious problems with the Boehner plan. That said, he made it clear that he’s not going to vote for the plan or anything much like it. I didn’t argue with him—he’s a man of conviction and believes in what he’s doing—but he’s exactly the sort of level-headed conservative who is going to be needed to get the plan (or anything realistic that raises the debt ceiling) across the finish line. Without his vote, we’re heading for default.

Does this mean he will not vote to raise the debt ceiling under any terms? Or, under what terms will he support an increase in the debt ceiling? David doesn't say.

I'm convinced that a very large number of House conservatives have no intention of raising the debt ceiling.

Rep Joe Walsh's Tea Party Glass House

2011-07-28T13:18:00.009-05:00

Jon Capehart in the WaPo today,

The new embodiment of “those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” is Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) He’s called President Obama a liar on the debt-ceiling issue. In that now infamous YouTube video, Walsh hectors the president. “I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” he said. Or should I say “he said rhetorically

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Walsh's ex-wife has been suing him for the last nine years for $117,437 in child support.

Walsh's lawyer does not deny that he owes back child support, but does dispute the amount. Having practiced family law in Illinois for a number of years, I can tell you that a claim for back child support means he's been under a court order to pay a sum certain every month and has obviously not been keeping up with those payments. It is usually an easy mathematical task to add up a child support arrearage. The obligation to pay an exact amount per month having already been decided, apparently 9 years ago. Illinois has generous pre and post judgment interests laws which may have put some water in this number.

I'm guessing this big-mouthed douche will be looking for work come next November. I just hope he stands for re-election for what should be an easy Democratic pick-up.

And don't forget to show @RepJoeWalsh some twitter love today.

UPDATE: Walsh's statement on the Sun-Times story. Walsh calls the story 'a hit piece' but does not deny any of the allegations.

High Praise in Foreign Policy

2011-07-28T12:59:00.002-05:00

What American couldn't use a little good news today? David Rothkopf offer's high praise of some work overseas that has been mostly unnoticed,

In this moment of national confusion and public despair with officials in Washington, variations on the following cry have often been heard, "Somewhere in the world there must be an American political leader with a vision of tomorrow, a focus on what is really important and an ability to translate rhetoric into success."

I'm pleased to report that there is. If it has escaped your attention it's because that politician has been on the other side of the world the past couple of weeks advancing American interests and the policies of the president with meaningful results and exceptional skill.

That politician is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is just completing an around-the-world mission that has taken her from the economic frontlines of the eurozone crisis to the markets of tomorrow in Asia. The trip, obscured in the noise around the debt ceiling debate, has been a real triumph for the Obama administration and has revealed that many of its policies over the past two years are now bearing significant fruit. It has also revealed the State Department's deftness and bench-depth in dealing with an Asia agenda that is vastly more important in every respect than virtually anything that has been discussed inside the beltway for months.

If you need a little boost, I would encourage to read the whole post. From opening up a new relationship with India while strengthen frayed ties with Pakistan (who would have thought both of these were even possible?)while simultaneously forging a deep relationship with China "but also systematically and often invisibly working to strengthen ties with many of the smaller countries in Asia."

There is no question that Asia is the future of the 21st century and having an administration that understands this is in and of itself, great news.

GOP -- Specials Victims Unit

2011-07-28T11:44:00.003-05:00

The Daily Show was on fire last night. It has to take hours to put together this video montages.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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GOP - Special Victims Unit

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Erick Erickson is the GOP Puppet Master?

2011-07-25T22:08:00.000-05:00

Erick Erickson wrote today at his RedState site,

In the past 48 hours I have had call after call after call from members of the United States Congress. They’ve read what I’ve written. They agree. But they feel the hour is short and the end is nigh.

So some are calling looking for alternatives. Some are calling looking for energy. Many are calling looking for absolution.

And so I address them and put it here so you can see my advice.

I can give no absolution for what you may be about to do. I can offer no alternatives.

For thirty years and seventeen debt commissions we have raised the national debt $13 trillion, seen taxes rise and fall and rise again, uncertainty come and go, and Washington remain unchanged. And now some of you want to seek cover by having yet another commission — but this time it will be different! Sure.

Seriously? Erick Erickson is calling the shots for the GOP and telling them to thrash the full faith and credit of the U.S.

Please tell me he is delusional.

Did Harry Reid call the GOP's bluff

2011-07-25T11:12:00.004-05:00

How the impotent Harry Reid could catch anyone off guard is a mystery to me, but it seems he has done just that. On Sunday, Harry Reid called the GOP's bluff by giving them exactly what they have been demanding: A plan that offsets a $2.7T increase in the debt ceiling with a corresponding $2.7T in cuts to spending and no new revenues.

Reid's plan evidently caught the GOP off guard and it took them some time to think about how they could reject it -- but reject it, they have. One reason for rejection, as outlined below, is to insist that only Paul Ryan can count money not spent in Iraq and Afghanistan as savings.

Matt Yglesias suggests that perhaps the GOP was never actually negotiating in good faith,

Republicans are rejecting this even though it nominally meets their demands. Why? Because it doesn’t achieve either of their two real objectives. In particular, the plan doesn’t cut Medicare, which means that Democratic party candidates for office in November 2012 and 2014 can accurately remind voters of the content of the Republican [Ryan] budget plan. In case you forgot, this plan repeals Medicare....It was only after voting for this plan that Republicans seem to have realized that repealing Medicare is unpopular. Since that time, they’ve been trying to entrap Democrats into reaching some kind of Medicare détente with them, which would immunize them from criticism [see for example here]. Reid’s plan doesn’t do that.

Second, while Reid’s plan doesn’t raise taxes, it also doesn’t take tax increases off the table. Currently, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2012. If Reid’s all-cuts plan passes, that still leaves the door open to significant revenue increases. Now that doesn’t mean this is brilliant 11-dimensional chess. The Reid Plan is consistent with substantial revenues coming online in 2012, but that will only happen if President Obama and Senate Democrats stand firm and play hardball on the tax issue. Back in December 2010, they utterly failed to do so.

In the spirit of fair and balanced reporting that is the hallmark of the non-partisan Ward Report, there are reports this morning that Obama might also be nixing Reid's deal.

GOP can't have it both ways on war spending

2011-07-25T10:47:00.002-05:00

Part of the savings in Harry Reid's proposed deficit savings comes from cost savings in winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans see this has a gimmick by counting as 'savings' money not spent. And they may be right, except that much of the 'savings' in the first 10 years of Paul Ryan's budget is the identical cost savings by winding down the wars. And the assumption of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continuing at the current level plus inflation are including in the CBO estimates used by Speaker Boehner.

Ezra Klein explains,

There’s some truth to this argument, as I’ll explain in a minute. But the GOP is trying to have it both ways. Boehner uses the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit estimates. He doesn’t subtract trillions because he doesn’t believe the agency’s war-spending estimates are faulty. Nor do I remember him calling the savings from Paul Ryan’s budget — which Boehner voted for — fake.But the Congressional Budget Office counts trillions in war spending in its budget baseline, and Ryan’s budget cut a trillion dollars from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In fact, cutting war spending was one of Ryan’s largest sources of savings over the first decade. The following table, which you can find in larger form in this document (pdf) at the House Budget Committee’s Web site, estimates them at $1.04 trillion against the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline.

The CBO in estimating future spending looks at current spending in Afghanistan and Iraq and assumes that spending grows by the rate of inflation. So CBO estimates of future spending do not take into account plans to wind down both wars. However, the estimates used by Paul Ryan and Harry Reid assume both wars will be wound down as planned and count the money not spent as savings.

Christian Terrorist Anders Breivik

2011-07-24T18:15:00.003-05:00

The Sunday NYT describes the terrorist believed responsible for the Friday massacre in Oslo,

As stunned Norwegians grappled with the deadliest attack in the country since World War II, a portrait began to emerge of the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, 32. The police identified him as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian, while acquaintances described him as a gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threats of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration.

“We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” a police official, Roger Andresen, said at a televised news conference. “What we know is that he is right wing and a Christian fundamentalist.”

In the 1,500-page manifesto, posted on the Web hours before the attacks, Mr. Breivik recorded a day-by-day diary of months of planning for the attacks, and claimed to be part of a small group that intended to “seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda.”
_____

The manifesto, entitled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” equates liberalism and multiculturalism with “cultural Marxism,” which the document says is destroying European Christian civilization.

It all sounds very familiar, doesn't it?

Recall the GOP outrage when the FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a report warning of the dangers or right-wing extremism?

Can we all assume the GOP will be lining up on Monday to apologize to the FBI and DHS?

Will Fox News accurately describe Anders Breivik as a Christian terrorist?

In the video below, pay particular attention to Joe Scarborough's laughing out loud and calling Janet Napolitano "nuts". Tweet @JoeNBC and ask Scarborough when he plans to apologize to Janet Napolitano and more importantly, the hard working analysts who actually wrote the report.

The Oslo Attacks

2011-07-23T12:46:00.003-05:00

MacLeon Cartoons

"They are anarchists"

2011-07-22T23:56:00.002-05:00

Andrew Sullivan calls out the GOP,

The Republican refusal to countenance any way to raise revenues to tackle the massive debt incurred largely on their watch and from a recession which started under Obama's predecessor makes one thing clear. They are not a political party in government; they are a radical faction that refuses to participate meaningfully in the give and take the Founders firmly believed should be at the center of American government. They are not conservatives in this sense. They are anarchists.

Their fiscal anarchism has now led to their threat to destabilize and possibly upend the American and global economy because they refuse to compromise an inch. They control only one part of the government, and yet they hold all of it hostage. I cannot believe they are prepared to allow the US to default rather than give an inch toward responsibility. Except I should believe it by now. Everything I have written about them leads inexorably to this moment.

I've written a couple times (here and here) that it appeared that the House Republicans/Cantor's tactic was to refuse any and all 'deals' until the President conceded to all their demands. That basically happened today and the GOP walked away from the table. They really are kooks.

NJ Gov Chris Christie is an Enourmous Jerk

2011-07-21T14:51:00.002-05:00

What is a thin-skinned jack ass like Christie doing in politics? And this is the guy thought to be the great hope for the future of the GOP.

What Is Up With Grover Norquist?

2011-07-21T12:56:00.006-05:00

David Kurtz has a smart piece up at TPM today trying to read the mixed signals Grover Norquist has been sending out.

Grover has spent the last 25+ years getting every Republican elected to the House and Senate to sign his "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" that forbids the signer to vote for a tax hike under any circumstances and defines any change in Federal law that results in increased Federal revenues as a tax hike unless it is offset by a tax cut.

As David points out, Grover is a very smart guy who doesn't misspeak. Grover's pledge is very clear cut and Grover has made it clear that even eliminating a loop-hole violates the pledge.

Except Grover has muddied the waters again, telling the Washington Post editorial board that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire wouldn't constitute a violation of the no-tax-increase pledge. Hard to figure how you can square that circle, but it suggests Grover is giving his pledgees an out -- even though Grover said this morning on TV that he wasn't giving anyone an out. I don't believe it.
_____

Grover answers to some very powerful people. His outfit, Americans For Tax Reform, has long taken in big bucks from corporate players and turned around and advocated for policies, including but not limited to tax policies, favored by those same business interests. That's his business model. The contributions don't have to be disclosed, but there's nothing illegal about the arrangement. It's one the national Chamber of Commerce has basically adopted to enormous political and financial effect.

That's why Grover doesn't misspeak. There's too much money on the line. It's why people pay attention to what Grover says. Not because he is some oracle. But because a lot of smart money flows through and around Grover. My hunch is the smart money wants a way out of the debt ceiling fiasco that avoids a U.S. sovereign default. They've got way too much on the line to see their financial interests exposed to the very real risks and uncertainties that a default would cause. It's only a hunch. But Grover doesn't do anything by accident.

My personal read is that Grover is really in a tough spot. As David suggests, the monied interests that fund Grover's operation want a way out except Grover's personal financial interests are in conflict. Once Republicans break The Pledge and the sky doesn't fall upon them, Grover becomes the emperor with no clothes. The gigs up and Grover is out of business.

Grover is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. This couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Megan McArdle gets specific

2011-07-20T17:06:00.002-05:00

Responding to Republicans who insist there's plenty of money for debt service, military payrolls, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments without raising the debt ceiling, Megan makes a list of what won't get paid,

You just cut the IRS and all the accountants at Treasury, which means that the actual revenue you have to spend is $0.
The nation's nuclear arsenal is no longer being watched or maintained
The doors of federal prisons have been thrown open, because none of the guards will work without being paid, and the vendors will not deliver food, medical supplies, electricity,etc.
The border control stations are entirely unmanned, so anyone who can buy a plane ticket, or stroll across the Mexican border, is entering the country. All the illegal immigrants currently in detention are released, since we don't have the money to put them on a plane, and we cannot actually simply leave them in a cell without electricity, sanitation, or food to see what happens.
All of our troops stationed abroad quickly run out of electricity or fuel. Many of them are sitting in a desert with billions worth of equipment, and no way to get themselves or their equipment back to the US.
Our embassies are no longer operating, which will make things difficult for foreign travelers
No federal emergency assistance, or help fighting things like wildfires or floods. Sorry, tornado people! Sorry, wildfire victims! Try to live in the northeast next time!
Housing projects shut down, and Section 8 vouchers are not paid[including Section 8 elderly payments]. Families [and grandma] hit the streets.
The money your local school district was expecting at the October 1 commencement of the 2012 fiscal year does not materialize, making it unclear who's going to be teaching your kids without a special property tax assessment.
The market for guaranteed student loans plunges into chaos. Hope your kid wasn't going to college this year!
The mortgage market evaporates. Hope you didn't need to buy or sell a house!
The FDIC and the PBGC suddenly don't have a government backstop for their funds, which has all sorts of interesting implications for your bank account.
The TSA shuts down. Yay! But don't worry about terrorist attacks, you TSA-lovers, because air traffic control shut down too. Hope you don't have a vacation planned in August, much less any work travel.
Unemployment money is no longer going to the states, which means that pretty soon, it won't be going to the unemployed people.

The Republican party is governed by fools who haven't the faintest idea how import or pervasive government is in the modern world.

A friend recently pointed out to me that many laws require a Federal inspection be done before certain products are allowed to ship overseas. With no inspectors, US shipments of good to foreign markets just stop. And what happens to those people who make the products that cannot be shipped?

You get frustrated with a Democratic controlled Congress that often seems feckless and too timid or divided to govern and then you meet the alternative. Morons. Literally morons. People so uninformed and illiterate that you wonder how they find their way to work each day.

Saint Ronald Reagan Weighs in on the Debt Ceiling

2011-07-20T16:58:00.001-05:00

This excerpt is from Ronald Reagan's radio address of September 26, 1987.

Sen Franken takes down Focus on the Family

2011-07-20T12:06:00.002-05:00

At a Senate hearing regarding the repeal of DOMA, Sen Al Franken(D-WI) takes down a Focus on the Family witness for mischaracterizing a study on "nuclear families".

Bachmann passes Romney in National Poll

2011-07-19T16:23:00.002-05:00

In the latest Public Policy Poll (pdf) Michele Bachmann's momentum continues to build with her taking the lead for the first time in a national presidential poll. 21% of Republican primary voters favor Bachmann to Romney's 20%.

It's a paper thin margin for sure, but there is no way this is not devasting news to Romney and the Republican Party.

How much longer can rational people continue to identify themselves as Republicans?

David Brooks may have left the party this morning.

Fox News "7 Myths About the Looming Debt-Ceiling 'Disaster"'

2011-07-17T12:07:00.003-05:00

Provides great insight into what Cantor et al are thinking. In particular, 'myth 1',

1) Not increasing the debt ceiling means the U.S. government will default on its debt. This is probably the biggest lie that almost all other claims arise from. Default occurs if the government stops paying interest on the money that it owes. Not increasing the debt ceiling only means that the government can't borrow more money and that spending is limited to the revenue the government brings in. And, with interest payments on the debt making up less than a ninth of revenue, there is no reason for any risk of insolvency.

This is true. The Federal Government does have income to pay our bills, just not all of them. First and foremost, Treasury will pay interest on the national debt, and after this obligation is satisfied the executive branch must decide and prioritize what other bills will be paid.

For Cantor and his fellow 'conservatives' this is a dream come true. They imagine that
Social Security and Medicare (both programs have their own income stream from separate payroll taxes) will be de-funded proving to the American people that those programs are not dependable and must be abandoned.

And our soldiers must be paid, and be supplied. Cantor et al know that this will take a lot of money and if there isn't enough, they presume that the voters will blame Obama.

And finally, what ever bills Obama chooses to pay and not pay will give the GOP plenty of ammunition going into the election. Obama is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't.

The debt ceiling quagmire is simply the natural extension of the GOP strategy since Obama took office. Simply vote 'no' on everything to stymie his government and destroy his presidency. The 2010 election was seen as an affirmation of this strategy, and certainly Obama didn't appear to do anything to make the GOP pay a price for this strategy.

Below I wrote that that Cantor et al were simply waiting for Obama to cave to all their demands, passing the debt ceiling upon Obama's unconditional surrender, but that might be naive. It may be that House conservatives have no intention of making a deal, any deal.

(h/t @STLWasker)

Applying Occam's Razor to the debt talks

2011-07-15T14:10:00.003-05:00

Occam's Razor (to over simplify) stands for the proposition that the most basic possible explanation is likely the correct explanation.

The simplest explanation to explain the behavior of Cantor et al is that his goal is to humiliate Obama by refusing to make any concessions on the assumption that on the deadline, Obama will cave in to his demands rather than risk a default. When Obama caves he can claim victory, rub Obama's nose in it publicly and become a folk hero to the lunatic fringe that controls the GOP. Obama will be the one to sign off on major Medicare and Social Security cuts, etc. Cantor could not care less about good public policy or even reducing the Federal deficient (In 8 years of Bush when was a balanced budget ever submitted?).

This is zero sum politics and Cantor believes that all he needs to do is refuse any and all compromises and Obama and the Democrats will have no choice but to cave to his demands.

And Cantor may be right.

'Never Take a Hostage You're Not Prepared to Shoot'

2011-07-13T07:11:00.006-05:00

The WSJ climbs on board the McConnell plan and begins the process of trying to rein in the kooks,

Republicans who say they can use the debt limit to force Democrats to agree to a balanced budget amendment are dreaming. Such an amendment won't get the two-thirds vote to pass the Senate, but it would give every Democrat running for re-election next year a chance to vote for it and claim to be a fiscal conservative.
_____

The tea party/talk-radio expectations for what Republicans can accomplish over the debt-limit showdown have always been unrealistic. As former Senator Phil Gramm once told us, never take a hostage you're not prepared to shoot. Republicans aren't prepared to stop a debt-limit increase because the political costs are unbearable. Republicans might have played this game better, but the truth is that Mr. Obama has more cards to play.

The entitlement state can't be reformed by one house of Congress in one year against a determined President and Senate held by the other party. It requires more than one election. The Obama Democrats have staged a spending blowout to 24% of GDP and rising, and now they want to find a way to finance it to make it permanent. Those are the real stakes of 2012.

In all my years as a political nerd, I've never seen anything like this. It's absolutely fascinating to watch.

Is the GOP leadership (as opposed to the rank and file) in full retreat?

McConnell's Bizarre 'Plan B'

2011-07-12T22:22:00.004-05:00

Further evidence of the GOP caucus shattering in the heat of the debt ceiling negotiations (see the post below), is what seems to me to be a truly bizarre 'plan B' proposed today my Mitch McConnell.

The WaPo outlines McConnell's fall back,

Under the proposal, Congress would change the rules surrounding the debt limit for the remainder of Obama’s first term.

That measure would create a new legal structure authorizing the president to raise the debt limit by as much as $2.5 trillion in three installments. The first, an increase of $700 billion, would come immediately. The next two, worth $900 billion each, would come this fall and sometime next summer.

On each occasion, Obama would be required to submit to Congress an explicit request for an increase, along with a menu of proposed spending cuts equal to the requested increase. The submission of the president’s first request would automatically raise the debt limit by $100 billion to give the Treasury Department breathing room while Congress considers the request.

Lawmakers would then have 15 days to pass a resolution of disapproval, giving them an opportunity to go on record against raising the debt ceiling. But Obama could veto the resolution, and the debt limit would then rise, providing that at least 34 Democratic senators stood firm in upholding his veto.

McConnell’s strategy makes no provision for spending cuts to be enacted. Aides said lawmakers could pick and choose from the president’s list when they put together appropriations bills in a separate process.

My friends at TPM see this proposal as McConnell blinking on the standoff with the White House.

Maybe so, but it seems more to me that this is just some partisan fantasy in which the GOP can completely abdicate any responsibility for leadership while boxing in the POTUS and skewering him for literally every increase in the debt ceiling (and at $100B cap, this will be about every 6 -8 weeks) and also skewering him for every proposed budget cut.

It's crazy, right? Obama has them on the run and a chance at real meaningful budget reforms. The Dems will never sign off on this, right?

I'm not that worried by Social Security cuts at the margins taking effect in 10 or 15 years because if the economy recovers those are easy to void. And you could completely scrap Medicare Part D as far as I'm concerned. Part D is nothing but a transfer of federal revenue to Big Pharma.

But if Obama and Congress really can strike a 'grand bargain' in the 3 to 4 Trillion dollar mark, this will have a dramatic effect on the stock market as well as the US and global economy. Recall the dramatic effect of Clinton's first budget that paved the way to surpluses.

Obama has the GOP on the run. Now is not the time for retreat -- now is the time to strike hard.

Given the conservative push back to McConnell proposal, I tweeted today that it would likely be dead within 24 hours. If I'm wrong (and I am all the time), we will really get the measure of Obama by his response.

UPDATE: Ezra has a thoughtful take on the McConnell plan.

Who's Running the House?

2011-07-12T22:17:00.002-05:00

The WaPo get's the inside story in today's meeting at the White House,

Since pulling the plug on the deal, Boehner has been largely silent in the meetings, leaving House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to present details of the House’s position. On Tuesday, people in both parties said, Obama tried to reestablish Boehner’s primacy.

Cantor, who is advocating a smaller deal, at one point demanded that Obama offer the details of his vision for a “grand bargain.”

“Where’s your paper?” he asked angrily.

Obama snapped back: “Frankly, your speaker has it. Am I dealing with him, or am I dealing with you?”

Is it just me or is the GOP House and Senate caucuses shattering under the pressure of the debt ceiling talks? They have drawn some very public and foolish lines in the sand (and the Dems are not innocent on this score)and it seems to be breaking them.

Does the 14th Amendment forbid a default?

2011-07-01T15:17:00.004-05:00

This is getting a lot of press. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment,

Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Passed during Reconstruction following the Civil War, Section 4 was inserted to prevent Southern states rejoining the Union from attempting to default on the debt incurred funding the Union war effort and to prevent Southern states from forcing the Treasury to assume the debt of the Confederacy.

Congress has authorized the budgets that spent the money as well as the bonds that funded that spending to this point and having authorized this debt, the Government cannot now default.

But, can the Treasury borrow money without new Congressional authority to fund current budgeted spending beyond interest payments on past debt? In other words, can the Treasury issue new debt to fund the already budgeted war in Afghanistan without a Congressional increase in the debt ceiling? Or does the 14th Amendment limit Treasury borrowing to simply honoring past obligations?

The GOP will say that the Treasury can't borrow anything without a Congressional increase in the debt ceiling. What would the current Supreme Court say? What kind of tortured word twisting would Scalia go through to find Section 4 has no modern meaning.

We may find out sooner rather than later. I don't care what the talking heads from the Village say, the GOP has no intention of increasing the debt ceiling on anything but their terms which means no new revenue.

The Michele Bachmann History Channel

2011-06-29T12:15:00.000-05:00

GOP dangerious game of chicken

2011-06-28T15:08:00.005-05:00

Several years ago blogger Duncan Black (aka Atrios) began calling Washington DC 'the Village'. By this, he meant that Right, Left, Democrat, Republican, journalist, consultant, pol, staffer whatever, all those that reveled in being a Washington insider belonged to the same big " clique and suffered from a kind of group think that insulates them from understanding how the rest of the country feels about the major issues and Washington itself. Fellow Villagers are often the sources for Village journalist perpetuating their misconceptions about much of what they write about and this is why the Washington insiders are always the last to see societal changes and are nearly always surprised by them. Case in point, Hillary will be the Democratic nominee and win the general in 2008 and only those who don't know any better believe [insert snicker here]Obama will be able to compete with the Clinton 'machine'.

We are seeing Village tunnel vision in the debt ceiling. Villagers reassure each other that in the end the GOP will make a deal because they have to make a deal and it is only rational that they make a deal, yada, yada, yada. It appears that on a daily basis the Villagers are reassuring each other that they are right on this one, as they are on all things -- Like President Hillary Clinton or that Bush would not invade Iraq if he didn't know the location of the WMD.

But listen to what Boehner and McConnell are actually saying. Since last Friday when Cantor walked out of debt talks, Boehner has told anyone who is listening that no revenue increases by either tax hikes or removing loopholes will pass the House. Boehner has drawn a hard line in the sand, that will make it very embarrassing for him to walk back and without appearing to have caved.

And Boehner's comments are mild compared to Mitch McConnell. McConnell is insisting on deep Medicare cuts (that get the GOP off the hook on gutting Medicare) and no new revenue. He could not be more clear.

The Villager assures themselves that it's all just negotiation posturing but no one points out where the wiggle room is in GOP comments to allow them to compromise on revenues without losing face.

It seems perfectly clear to me that the GOP plan is to literally refuse to move on the debt ceiling on the belief that the Democrats will capitulate to all their demands rather than risk a default. In other words, we can be Dr. Srangelove because the Democrats will save the day and in doing so appear weak an impotent by completely cave to GOP demands.

So what am I missing?

The Remarkable Story Gay Marriage in New York

2011-06-25T17:49:00.002-05:00

The NY Times has a great piece today telling the remarkable story of how Democratic Gov Andrew Cuomo won passage of a gay marriage bill in the GOP controlled NY Senate.

Cuomo knew to win enough Republican votes for passage he would have to follow the money.

In the 35th-floor conference room of a Manhattan high-rise, two of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s most trusted advisers held a secret meeting a few weeks ago with a group of super-rich Republican donors.

Over tuna and turkey sandwiches, the advisers explained that New York’s Democratic governor was determined to legalize same-sex marriage and would deliver every possible Senate vote from his own party.

Would the donors win over the deciding Senate Republicans? It sounded improbable: top Republican moneymen helping a Democratic rival with one of his biggest legislative goals.

But the donors in the room — the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by the hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb — had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure. And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views.

Within days, the wealthy Republicans sent back word: They were on board. Each of them cut six-figure checks to the lobbying campaign that eventually totaled more than $1 million.

The GOP's long term problem is that you cannot build a lasting majority with anger, bitterness and sometimes just outright hate. Americans have never gone for this, and that is even more important today with younger voters perhaps permanently alienated from the GOP and it's religious fundamentalism. Fortunately for Republicans the Democratic opposition is so often impotent and ineffective.

It is feats like this -- passing gay marriage through a GOP controlled senate -- that make politicians legendary.

N. Carolina Gov vetoed GOP Voter ID bill

2011-06-23T18:22:00.000-05:00

Gov Beverly Perdue (D) today vetoed North Carolina House Bill 351 requiring picture IDs for voting.

Her veto statement:

The right to choose our leaders is among the most precious freedoms we have – both as Americans and North Carolinians. North Carolinians who are eligible to vote have a constitutionally guaranteed right to cast their ballots, and no one should put up obstacles to citizens exercising that right.

We must always be vigilant in protecting the integrity of our elections. But requiring every voter to present a government-issued photo ID is not the way to do it. This bill, as written, will unnecessarily and unfairly disenfranchise many eligible and legitimate voters. The legislature should pass a less extreme bill that allows for other forms of identification, such as those permitted under federal law.

There was a time in North Carolina history when the right to vote was enjoyed only by some citizens rather than by all. That time is past, and we should not revisit it.

Therefore, I veto this bill.

Some in St Louis carry guns openly to affirm rights

2011-06-23T17:40:00.002-05:00

A picture really is worth a thousand words. From today's Post-Dispatch

Boehner still wants tax hikes off the table

2011-06-23T12:29:00.008-05:00

Eric Cantor has broken off talks with Biden apparently over taxes and called for Speaker Boehner to step in (take the fall?).

Asked about the apparent impasse at a presser today, the Speaker said,"I understand his frustration, I understand why he did what he did, but I think those talks could continue if they're willing to take the tax hikes off the table."

I realize this sound extreme or even a little flaky coming from me, and I don't say this lightly, but I honestly don't believe I could support Barack Obama's re-election if tax hikes were taken off the table. I rather just sit the election out than support any further dithering on tax hikes. At some point a hard stand has to be taken, and clearly that point is now. It's past time for leadership.

Could you?

Southwest Airline pilot rant uncensored

2011-06-23T09:39:00.005-05:00

This is the uncensored Southwest Pilot hate filled rant. Most revealing about Southwest Airlines Corporate culture is that this pilot is back on the job at full pay after a short suspension.

Had the rant been anti-Semitic or racist would this pilot still have a job? How about a tirade about Christianity?

Please call Southwest's communications department at (214) 792-4847 and ask them to provide a list of groups for which their employees can make on-the-job bigoted rants and a list of what groups are off limits.

Mitt Romney's Weirdness

2011-06-17T23:14:00.002-05:00

You would think a two term Governor who was running for President for the second time would have retail politics down cold, but apparently nothing could be further from the truth.

Romney is just an odd duck. The Atlantic's Josh Green was on the trial with Mitt when he told a group of unemployed Floridian's that he was also unemployed.

Having a guy worth between $190 million and $250 million (according to campaign disclosures) joke about his unemployment status with people who lack not only jobs but also Romney's means, seems rather cruel. But I'm certain Romney mean nothing by it, and I doubt he even realized what he'd done.

To spend time with Romney on the campaign trail (which I did earlier this week) is to be struck and the growing disparity between the formal candidate--the guy who debates and gives speeches, and who has noticeably improved in this regard since the last time he ran for president--and the informal one, whose awkwardness is a thing to behold.

Josh point's to Dana Milbank's "devastating (and accurate) column" on Romney's weirdness in the Tuesday WaPo, who provides a lot of other examples.

Josh sees the MSM starting to pick up on Romney's extreme awkwardness with everyday Americans and writing about it. Romney has a real chance of unseating Obama, but it will never happen if he becomes a running joke.

Gov Nixon vetoed Missouri's voter ID bill

2011-06-17T14:23:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to disenfranchise the poor, elderly and disabled, the Republican led Missouri legislature passed a bill requiring all voters present a government issued photo ID before being allowed to vote. In doing so, there was no evidence of significant vote fraud to justify the bill.

In a letter accompanying his veto (pdf) Gov Nixon said,

This new mandate would disproportionately impact senior citizens and persons with disabilities, among others, who are qualified to vote and have been lawfully voting since becoming elible to do so, but are less likely to have a driver's license or government-issued photo ID. Disenfranchising certain classes of persons is not acceptable.

The GOP has launched a nationwide campaign starting in the Bush years to require all voters to show state issued photo IDs before being able to vote. Under current law any evidence that a voter resides at the registration address, including the government issued voter card mailed to each voter prior to an election, a utility bill or bank statement is sufficient. The fact is that many poor voters, the elderly and disabled tend to vote for Democrats and this is intended to stop them from voting.

The Ohio voter ID law even goes after students attending Ohio's Universities by requiring they show a photo ID issued by the State of Ohio and an ID issued by state colleges does not count as presumably those are all fraudulent. It's outrageous and exists for the sole purpose of preventing a Democrat from winning Ohio.

Smokers need not apply

2011-06-17T13:04:00.003-05:00

SSM hospitals in St. Louis have announced that they are starting a tobacco free hiring policy effective July 1.

Citing a CDC study finding that smokers cost companies an additional $3400 annually in increased medical costs and lost productivity,

Job applicants at the seven SSM hospitals in the St. Louis area will be asked whether they have used tobacco in the last six months. Anyone who answers yes will be eliminated from the hiring process.

"As an organization that provides health care, we want to encourage our employees to take better care of themselves and set good examples for our patients," said SSM spokesman Chris Sutton.

Cost-cutting is a side benefit of the new policy, Sutton said, because "healthier employees does mean lower health care costs."

This reflects the dramatic social change that has occurred in the last 20 years on smoking.

This all started in 1988 when Ronald Reagan signed the Federal Aviation Act into law, with the Durban amendment banning smoking on all domestic flights of two hours or less. Smokers squealed like stuck pigs but just a year later a national survey showed that 98% of all non-smokers and a surprising 58% of smokers approved the ban. At this same time more and more work places were going smoke free and then entire states when California went smoke free in 1995.

How much longer can Missouri hold out? Missouri is only one of eleven states that currently do not have a smoking ban in some form. The others are Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, SC, Texas, West Virgina and Wyoming. Embarrassing company if you ask me.