US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

hi

welcome, Pat!

pat

Grrr. I was just reading Marc torture defender Thiessen's column from the W. Post from a few days back on taxes, defense cuts and the debt. Below he talks about the Republican hostage taking strategy. I did not cut and paste the part where he suggests that irresponsible Obama defense cuts are paying for the failed stimulus. What an idiot. :

Yet Republicans are letting the Democrats use the tax issue to extract concessions. GOP leaders need to realize that they are the ones with the leverage in these negotiations. What are Democrats going to say if GOP leaders simply refuse to go along with their demand for tax hikes or give them defense cuts in exchange? “Sorry, Mr. Speaker, no deal — let the country default”? Of course not. President Obama does not have the luxury of letting the debt-limit talks fail and then blaming the GOP for a government default. If the dire predictions of his treasury secretary are to be believed, the consequences of a default would be so calamitous that Obama cannot allow it to happen. He must sign whatever debt-limit increase Republicans give him.

This means Republicans hold all the cards. So why on earth are they even thinking about giving Obama deep cuts in national defense in exchange for dropping his demand for tax increases that he knows he will never get? In November, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that even a 10 percent cut from the Pentagon budget, roughly $55 billion, would be “catastrophic” to the U.S. military. Obama has already cut more than $400 billion in defense programs since taking office, and he has proposed an additional $400 billion in defense cuts over the next 10 years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-no-defense-cuts-or-tax-increases-in-debt-deal/2011/06/27/AG5buWnH_story.html

Any defense cuts so far have been miniscule. What is he talking about?

The $400 billion in security budget reductions between FY 2012 and FY 2023 announced by President Obama on Wednesday turn out to be even easier than one thinks. As the New York Times reports this morning, these aren't really cuts. Using research we did at the Stimson Center, the Times notes that simply holding DOD's budget growth to inflation over those years yields $401.7 billion in savings from the current OMB budget projections. The President's goal is reached and the defense budget is actually not cut; the Pentagon keeps all its purchasing power by rising with inflation.

http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/gordon-adams/2213/its-still-easy-obamas-400-billion-defense-not-cut

Oh wait, he's saying 400 + 400? nm, I dunno...

dear God, please let this be so. and also please supply the swinging door to hit Timmy on his ass as he exits

That is potentially great news. Please leave Geithner. Not that Obama will replace him with someone more interested in helping the poeple rather than Wall Street (and someone that can get Congressional approval), but we can dream, right?

Typical Republican response on this:

Some Republicans are already urging Obama to select a replacement who comes from the business community.

“What would be smart is to bring a CEO on board,” Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said on Bloomberg Television. “Somebody who’s got business experience. Somebody who, again, understands the important connection between policies and jobs and the economy and the fiscal situation.”

letting CEOs keep their money and the workers pay their taxes in gratitude for the boss's prosperity

go bless america's distraction machine. instead of talking about something real, like how to finance a GI bill for our troops returning home from Middle East combat, we have retired republicans like alan simpson and pete domenici scolding the fuck ups in office

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-01/domenici-s-truth-squad-challenges-fellow-republicans-on-debt-cap-debate.html

Former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, who helped forge four major federal budget agreements, has formed a “truth squad” to caution fellow Republicans about the hazards of breaching the U.S. debt ceiling.

happy 4th

(from krugman this morning)

Last December, after Mr. Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts — a move that many people, myself included, viewed as in effect a concession to Republican blackmail — Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic asked why the deal hadn’t included a rise in the debt limit, so as to forestall another hostage situation (my words, not Mr. Ambinder’s).

The president’s response seemed clueless even then. He asserted that “nobody, Democrat or Republican, is willing to see the full faith and credit of the United States government collapse,” and that he was sure that John Boehner, as speaker of the House, would accept his “responsibilities to govern.”

so, so sad, on all levels

i sort of think he did that on purpose -- he'd be "forced" to concede to drastic republican spending cuts, then be able to boast during the election that he cut so much from the budget. he just underestimated how nihilist the tea party crew really is

Minnesota govt shuts down cuz GOP won't ... oh do I even have to say it

Amazing.

what the fucking shit.

Screenshot of drunk/angry/batshit tweeting by Fox News

the feed, still live & offensive as of this writing

they were hacked bro

gonna guess they were hacked

xp

or a hack, I guess, maybe? idk lol xp

can't believe aerosmith hacked the fox news twitter feed

sorry guys sometimes I just have to hack

They're gonna say Jon Stewart did it though. They're blaming him for a lot these days

Happy Independence Day.

From Obama and the NSA

Will Republicans bend in Minnesota or in the nation's capitol re taxes and deductions? Can Dems stand up to them?

next, on sick sad world

i hope rick santelli reads this and his head explodes just enough for him to die slowly/painfully

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/hud-to-give-away-1-billion-to-struggling-homeowners/2011/06/30/gHQAbbgtxH_story.html

The newly launched $1 billion Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program, or EHLP, is targeting homeowners who are among the most difficult to help: those who fell behind on their payments because of job loss or unexpected medical bills. For many of them, it might be the last chance to save their homes.

Attention Hackers: Put Max Headroom saying cryptic shit back on the airwaves. Best hack evar

Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program, or EHLP

so close. and yet

HAH! Yeah wtf.

lol

Homeowner's Assistance Loan Program

lol

so close. and yet

an excellent summary of the Obama Administration in toto.

also, excuse me please if this Frank Rich article has already been discussed elsewhere, but if not ...

I'd broaden the scope of Rich's gist and suggest Obama's undoing has been his failure to forcefully follow-up on just about everything.

I predict the youtube trail left behind from his imminent campaign will not be pleasant, especially if he opens himself up to being called on for his conspicuous concessions or lack of action on several fronts. The guy can't just blame the economy, because then all those admissions of a weak economy will in turn be used against him. "You're the president, do something!" may not be realistic, but it may be effective with the public.

david brooks (!) has a joseph welch moment regarding the gop ~

"That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. . . . The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. . . . The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. . . ."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/opinion/05brooks.html?_r=2

how long will this new david brooks view of the gop last? 1 day? 1 week? 1.5 weeks? what's his oped schedule again?

(he also commits a typo: "If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see. . . ." oh ny times)

maybe nu-brooks will last time the sunday talk shows?

david brooks has always had a hard-on for conservative scholars and intellectual authorities. he's a sort of Thomas Friedman of the GOP. i dunno if it's only now that Brooks has realized that the unschooled Teabaggers are steering the ship, and i've neither the time nor the stomach to peruse his back pages to find out.

I have a hard time seeing how Obama wont be blamed for this debt ceiling bullshit. The GOP narrative always seems to win out..

a historical lesson about what happens when rich fuckers insist on low taxes über alles for themselves.

Yep. Does anyone but Obama and his White House staff think the way to appeal to independents (and to everyone else) is to take what Obama perceives as a post-partisan centrist approach on everything, but gets viewed as watered-down and light by some and unexplainable by others because Obama and the Dems are not day in and day out spelling out the liberal argument in a way that would make it sensible and logical to most, or at least something to think about other than the Republican perspective.

Republicans and their pet economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin are as annoying on the subject of jobs as Tim Geithner (maybe even worse)

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/republicans-falsely-claim-obama-advisers-burying-data-proving-stimulus-is-hurting-economy.php?ref=fpa

Republicans are also citing the Weekly Standard article to revisit one of their oldest claims about the stimulus: that every job the Recovery Act saved or created cost taxpayers about $278,000. That's the number you get if you clumsily divide the cost of the stimulus by the number of jobs it's responsible for. The White House is aggressively pushing back on this argument by pointing out that the stimulus paid for more than jobs -- it paid for new infrastructure, materials and so on.

Zandi adds another layer to this critique: "[I]t is inappropriate to say that ARRA cost taxpayers $278k per job. The cost should be calculated based on the number of full-time equivalents," he said. Specifically, the stimulus' efficiency shouldn't be calculated based only on how many full-time jobs it was responsible for, but by how many part-time or seasonal jobs it created as well. "I'm not arguing that ARRA was as efficient as it could have been, although given the political constraints and the crisis environment it is a significant achievement."

Some things never change:

As lawmakers prepare to cut trillions of dollars from the budget as a condition to raising the nation's debt ceiling, the story of the Cates Landing project underscores the dilemma that faces many members of the Republican-run House and the freshmen class in particular. Federal spending is derided as nothing short of a threat to the country's future -- unless, of course, it happens to be directed at that congressman's home district.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/05/freshman-republicans-federal-spending_n_890518.html

Dean Baker vs. George Will

http://www.businessinsider.com/george-will-spreads-some-lies-about-the-economic-crisis-2011-7

George Will got lots of approving pats on the back this weekend after he asked the (admittedly terrible) group of liberal co-panelists, "Can Congress require the obese to sign up for weight reduction programs" as a public interest?

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/george-will-proves-himself-wrong-about-the-constitution/