Tuesday Mashup (3/23/10)

1) So based on this story, it looks like PA Attorney General Tom Corbett is going to join that idiotic lawsuit brought by 10 Republican attorneys general against the health care reform law (more here).

I guess Corbett didn’t bother to read this post, which in part tells us the following…

…nearly 66 percent of state residents want universal healthcare. That's up from a similar poll in July 2008, when 64.4 percent of state residents said they wanted everyone to receive the healthcare they need.

Doesn’t sound to me like fighting HCR is a winner of an issue for a PA gubernatorial candidate, does it?

Also, in a Bucks County Courier Times story of Patrick Murphy and Allyson Schwartz rallying support for the health care vote earlier this week (which appeared atop the "story" on pg. 1 of "When is 'Langhorne' really Langhorne?" – I know I always ask that question….zzzzzzz), Mikey The Liar Fitzpatrick returned to spread the following garbage…

"The bill slashes health care for our seniors, increases premiums, raises taxes for working families and fails to cut health care costs," said Fitzpatrick.

I don’t know how Fitzpatrick arrived at those statements, but I do know that this tells us that the law signed today will be helpful to senior citizens; this tells us that the law is similar to that of Massachusetts, which has lowered costs; and this tells us that the bill will save $849 billion over this decade (and by the way, Mikey, Obama has cut taxes, as noted here).

Update: Some more reality-based commentary on HCR here...

2) Also, Fix Noise here is positively giddy, dancing on the metaphorical grave of ACORN here (I guess they have to find a consolation prize from somewhere).

I don’t think there has been nearly enough reporting on what it is that ACORN actually does, to say nothing of the fact that a U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn said the group was innocent of wrongdoing (here) and Congress acted illegally when cutting off its funds (here – nice job, Democrats). With that in mind, this recent New York Times story tells us the following:

In Prince George’s County, Md., the Rev. Gloria Swieringa said she owed her home to Acorn. Ms. Swieringa, 72, who is blind, said her mortgage payment was $1,100 per month, more than she could afford on her fixed income of about $1,500 a month, until Acorn stepped in.

After she tried unsuccessfully to persuade her mortgage company to lower her rate or readjust her loan, Acorn workers began writing letters, making calls and contacting the news media on her behalf. Last May, the company relented and lowered her monthly payments to $771 per month.

“That’s what I know Acorn for,” Ms. Swieringa said. “And that’s why it’s just awful for it to disappear.”

And to get an even better idea of what ACORN is actually about, read this terrific post from BooMan dated last September.

3) Finally, this tells us the following…

The U.S. lost 2.4 million jobs to China between 2001 and 2008, according to a new report issued Tuesday.

Texas and California were the hardest hit but every state has experienced job losses because of increased trade from China, according to the report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

The report blamed high job losses in computers, electronic equipment and parts industries, which are concentrated in those two states.

North Carolina was also hit hard according to the report. That state has seen textile, furniture and other small manufacturing industries shrink as companies faced competition from lower-priced Chinese goods.

While the report said low labor costs in China are a big reason for the trade deficit, it also blamed China’s currency manipulation.

China pegs its currency to the U.S. dollar so that it rises and falls with fluxuations in the dollar’s value. Critics say this means China’s currency is undervalued, and that it lowers the price of Chinese exports while making U.S. exports to China more expensive.

And as noted here, among its myriad other offenses, Bushco didn’t even bother to keep track of the jobs lost under its watch due to offshoring, and of course refused to curtail the tax breaks provided for companies engaged in this heinous practice.

So where does that leave us? Well, this recent New York Times story tells us the following (about the company Applied Materials, one of the first to bail and subsequently turn a handsome profit; the story tells us that the company is “the world’s biggest supplier of the equipment used to make semiconductors, solar panels and flat-panel displays”)…

When Xie Lina, a 26-year-old Applied Materials engineer (in XI’AN), was asked recently whether China would play a big role in clean energy in the future, she was surprised by the question.

“Most of the graduate students in China are chasing this area,” she said. “Of course, China will lead everything.”

Heckuva job, Dubya.