Thursday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

So, reporters who use anonymous sources are "limp" and "impotent," former governor Palin (here)? Gee, it looks like you have the same thing on your mind that Rich Lowry had in the clip below; maybe you two should get together (don't tell Todd, though)...



...and this one goes out to Sister Sarah (tongue in cheek, of course - didn't get the hair thing quite right, but nothing a bottle of peroxide can't fix).

Wednesday Stuff

Maybe that idiot Alan Simpson should go out and talk to some real people on Social Security, as Sam Seder did here (h/t Daily Kos)...



...and on September 2nd, 1965 (getting ahead of myself a bit), The Doors recorded their first demo recordings at World Pacific Jazz Studios in Los Angeles, California, where they cut six Jim Morrison songs; this probably wasn't one of them since it showed up on a recording later, but here it is anyway.

Wednesday Mashup (9/1/10)

(Posting is questionable for tomorrow and Friday, by the way.)

I give you the very latest from Tucker Carlson’s crayon scribble page…

Well, I suppose it makes a bit of sense that you would go to this location to read both a story like that and editorial commentary from Joe Pitts.

Also, how about giving a hearty welcome to J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times, having just returned from vacation.

Did you check out President Obama’s speech on Iraq, J.D. (here)?

Gosh, J.D., what happened to your sense of journalistic curiosity (full disclosure: I didn’t see it either, but then again, I don’t make my living as a news professional).

I mean, I thought J.D. would want to take a look if, for no other reason, to find fault with the fact that our commander in chief is doing his best to put an end to the mess in Mesopotamia, one of many handed to him by his predecessor.

And speaking of Former President Nutball, this post recalls how Mullane positively gushed when 43 brought his little fear-and-smear show to Bucks County (J.D. didn’t have “better things to do” for this occasion)…

Bush spoke of the stakes for the world in the global war on Islamo-fascist terror.

He spoke of Afghanistan and how, for the first rime in its 5,000-year history, it had held democratic elections to choose a president, and the first voter was a 19-year-old woman.

"Freedom is on the march," Bush said. "The world is changing because of our deep belief in freedom. We believe everybody wants to be free. Freedom is not America's gift to the world. Freedom is the almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world."

The crowd went nuts - the loudest and longest ovation of the night. Bush's words weren't Lincolnesque, but his presence made up for it.

And as a note to the Patrick Murphy campaign, I should point out that the post above from May ’06 contains the following quote from Mikey Fitzpatrick: “If Bush had 50 percent or better job approval marks, Fitzpatrick estimated his victory spread in November would be as high as 10 points.”

So, to sum up as far as J.D. is concerned, right-wing triumphalist warmongering is good, but statesmanlike and reasonably intelligent leadership is bad.

Actually, with this in mind, I think Mullane should get more vacation time. If that’s one way to shut down his wretched blog, then that would be a triumph for adult discourse.

Next, it seems as if those zany teabaggers have now set their sights on Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Castle of Delaware, running for that state’s U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Joe Biden; they’re ready to mount yet another incumbent primary challenge, this time with Christine O’Donnell, who actually ran against Biden two years ago (here).

And, like all teabaggers, she apparently lives in an accountability-free world (here)…

- She has an almost $12,000 tax lien from the IRS from 2005
- She has a campaign debt of $24,000. She has raised $11,000 for this race so far.
- She has an unpaid settlement to her alma mater of Fairleigh Dickinson which dates back to 1994. Fairleigh Dickinson is withholding her degree. Is she reporting herself as a college graduate in her resume?
- She lives in a house owned by a campaign staffer. At least half of her rent is paid by her campaign donations.
- She had a well-known dispute with a previous employer, ISI. She sued them for gender discrimination and they accused her of running a for-profit PR business on the company’s time. That suit has been dropped by O’Donnell.
- A house she bought in Hockessin went into foreclosure. She owed $90,000 on the house. The house was about to be sold by auction when she sold it to Brent Vasher, her boyfriend at the time for $135,000.

And as noted here, Tea Party Express spokesman Levi Russell says that they plan to spend “six figures” in Delaware (and, ever classy, O’Donnell’s campaign manager called Castle a “70-year-old, bad heart Republican”).

So let’s all root for Christine O’Donnell anyway. We haven’t seen a brand new, utterly vacuous, clueless-on-the-issues teabagger candidate emerge for a few weeks or so now; I would say that her timing is perfect.

Update: More from kos here...

Continuing, MoDo of the Times (speaking of vacuous and clueless) brings us the latest imaginary Obama scandal (here, also reported here today by Sheryl Gay Stolberg)…

If we had wanted earth tones in the Oval Office, we would have elected Al Gore.

(Oh, yeah, we did.)

On the night we were reminded that George W. Bush ended up in the White House and heedlessly, needlessly started the war with Iraq, President Obama did his Mission Relinquished address from his redecorated man cave.

The Oval Office was done over by the chichi decorator Michael Smith, who was previously paid $800,000 for his part in refurnishing the lair of the former Merrill Lynch C.E.O. John Thain (a $1.2 million project featuring the notorious $35,000 antique cabinet, or commode).

…

The recession redo, paid for by the nonprofit White House Historical Association, was the latest tone-deaf move by a White House that was supposed to excel at connection and communication. Message: I care, but not enough to stop the fancy vacations and posh renovations.

Oh, please – am I supposed to point out for the umpteenth goddamn time that there are plenty of places on Martha’s Vineyard that aren’t “fancy” and “posh”?

And by the way, when it comes to “fancy” and “posh,” I hereby submit the following (here, concerning the Obama inaugural parties last year)…

The hottest party so far was held by Maureen Dowd, whose Georgetown house was like one big Washington keg party Sunday night as guests packed in like sardines to fete David Geffen. By the time Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa showed up around 8, the place was so crowded none of them could even get through the front door. “My party’s a total failure,” bemoaned the hostess. Actually, it wasn’t. Those who did make it inside included Larry David, George Lucas, Anderson Cooper, Rahm Emanuel, and Diane von Furstenberg. Also present was Alan Greenspan, who’s apparently just as ubiquitous on the party circuit as he was before his role in creating the subprime mortgage crisis was revealed. “Why shouldn’t he show up at parties?” said one partygoer. “This is Washington. There’s no shame in Washington.”

Is there anything wrong with Dowd hosting a swanky party? No, it’s her business.

Is there anything wrong with Obama redecorating the Oval Office with private funds? No, it’s his business.

So let’s do a deal, MoDo – you don’t carry on about this supposed misbehavior from Obama, and I won’t tirelessly point out that journalism, as opposed to the way you practice it, is supposed to be a craft devoted to comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, not one where you become one of the “comfortable” yourself.

In addition, we have this story from the New York Times today…

A reputed former top adviser to Osama bin Laden who stabbed a federal jail guard in the eye with a sharpened comb in 2000, leaving the guard with severe brain damage, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday.

The defendant, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, was a founding member of Al Qaeda and helped manage Mr. bin Laden’s businesses, prosecutors have said. He was arrested in Germany in 1998 after the bombings of two American embassies in East Africa, and extradited to the United States, where he was awaiting trial on broader terrorism charges at the time of the assault.

Mr. Salim has not been tried on the broader charges, which remain open. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to the stabbing of the correction officer, Louis Pepe, 52, and was sentenced to 32 years in prison. But a federal appeals panel overturned the sentence in 2008, agreeing with prosecutors that the judge had failed to apply a provision of sentencing guidelines related to terrorism that could have led to a longer term.

On Tuesday, the judge, Deborah A. Batts of Federal District Court in Manhattan, imposed the life sentence, calling Mr. Salim’s attack on Mr. Pepe “unusually cruel, brutal and a gratuitous infliction of injury.”

Mr. Salim participated in the proceeding through a video connection from the so-called Supermax prison in Colorado (where he is being held, according to the print version of the story).

I’m glad this animal got what was coming to him, and even though it’s small comfort to Mr. Pepe and his family, it’s good that Salim will be left to rot in a jail cell.

However, let’s take note of where Salim is being held for a minute, OK?

And that would be a “Supermax” prison in this country, the prospect of which terrified weak-kneed politicians on both sides while we were wondering what to do with the inmates at Guantanamo (including Harry Reid and Jim Inhofe, noted here).

One of these life forms would have to go a long way to do something worse than Salim did. And I don’t recall that there was any furor when he was first moved.

So, can we have a reasonable, mature debate the next time the issue of federal trials for terrorists resurfaces in our corporate media, seeing as how we already have one of the very worst taking up space on our continent already?

Finally, when it comes to Iraq, Senator “Country First” tells us the following about Number 44 (here)…

“When you succeed, you give credit to others, and when you fail, you take responsibility. The President, I guess, never got that lecture.”

Wonder if the President ever got the “lecture” about blaming people for events that aren’t their fault (here)?

Tuesday Stuff

Hey, congrats to Joke Line on this terrific career development (brought to us by the Onion News Network)...



...getting serious, I would also consider this to be a good ad from Jack Conway (h/t Daily Kos - more here)...



...and oh yeah, about that fraud running against Admiral Joe, check this out (more here)...



...and happy 65th birthday to Van Morrison (from "The Last Waltz," of course).

Tuesday Mashup Part Two (8/31/10)

(Part One is here.)

This is one of the nuttiest opinion columns I’ve seen in a long, long time; basically, the author, Anton Wahlman, says that Net Neutrality is “akin to socialism” (I guess a remark like that was inevitable).

And, doubling down, he actually invokes a comparison to “Cambodia's ‘Killing Fields’ and of every other socialist utopia attempted over the last 100 years or so.”

Wow, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski as Pol Pot?

Is this guy out of his freaking mind (Wahlman, I mean)?

And just for the record, Wahlman says here that "Medicare and Medicaid in particular, are hugely inefficient and unnecessarily bureaucratic ways to induce people to over-consume health care services"...says you, but if Obama were to cut anything, as they're thinking about with Avastin here (second item), then the "death panels" outcry would begin in force anew.

Meanwhile, for the reality point of view, I attempted to bring us all up to date on what is happening with Net Neutrality and the latest Google/Verizon antics here.

Next, I give you Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times today (here)…

The president also said he and his team were “hard at work in identifying additional measures,” including extending tax cuts for the middle class that are scheduled to expire this year, increasing government investment in clean energy and rebuilding more infrastructure.

None of those steps, however, will come close to the $787 billion stimulus measure that Democrats passed at the outset of the Obama presidency. With voters angry about government spending, and economists divided about just what approach is the correct one, such aggressive steps are by now out of the question.

Really? As noted here…

The actual views of the American people are at odds with the corporate media’s portrayal of a nation of deficit hawks. According to a June 11-13 USA Today/Gallup Poll, 60 percent of Americans favor "additional government spending to create jobs and stimulate the economy." Only 38 percent of the respondents opposed the proposal, while 2 percent had no opinion.

Yep, those “bond vigilantes” sure are saddling up, making ready to enslave us all in debt forever unless we bow down before the “catfood commission” and privatize Social Security.

Memo to Stolberg – next time, try reporting.

And sticking with the Times, I came across this great letter on Sunday…

I always find it amusing that politicians who seem to be the most vociferous in their complaints about high taxes and wastefulness in the federal government so very often represent states that, like Alaska, take back significantly more in federal dollars than they provide to the Treasury.

I might actually find some of these politicians credible in their statements if they weren’t so often at the front of the pack feeding at the federal trough.

How about it, fiscal conservatives — why don’t you begin balancing our federal budget by accepting only the same amount in federal dollars that your state sends to the Treasury?

Any takers? Didn’t think so.

Kevin Beauchamp
New York, Aug. 22, 2010

And with that in mind, Ezra Klein tells us here about the states that get the largest proportion of federal dollars and which ones don’t (he compares the map of largesse versus the map of the last election, and there are some eerie similarities).

It should also be noted that this lends itself to some rather humorous story lines, including this one.

Finally, it looks like The Orange One made a funny (here)…

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hours before President Barack Obama marked a symbolically important US draw-down in Iraq on Tuesday, his Republican foes acidly noted he had opposed the "surge" strategy that helped make it possible.

House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner charged that Obama and other senior Democrats who opposed that military escalation, announced in January 2007, are now trying to "claim credit" for the results.

"Today we mark not the defeat those voices anticipated -- but progress," Boehner said in a speech to be delivered to the American Legion veterans group ahead of Obama's own remarks on the matter from the White House.

"Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results," said the lawmaker, who underlined that credit for a more stable Iraq "belongs to our troops."

Obama initially sharply assailed former president George W. Bush's "surge" approach, warning it would fail to stabilize Iraq and could even make things worse, before ultimately saying it had succeeded beyond anyone's expectations.

I’m not going to dignify Boehner’s idiotic remark about the men and women of our military who served bravely when told to execute the war of choice in Mesopotamia upon the orders of Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History.

Instead, I’ll merely point out that, in addition to then-Senator Obama, the surge was opposed by fellow Repug Senators Richard Lugar, John Warner and “Errrr, Errrr” Voinovich, who of course do not merit a mention from Boehner (here).

(Seriously, people, this guy could be House Majority Leader. And why that prospect doesn’t motivate anyone into action is something I utterly cannot fathom.)

Monday Stuff

Earlier, I said that we need to support the Dems - well, along with just about all of the "Bush Dogs," I don't give a fig about what happens to Dame Blanche Lincoln.

Remember the "senior White House official" who said that "organized labor flushed $10 mil down the toilet" supporting Bill Halter, Lincoln's primary challenger here? Well, take a look at this (with Lincoln trailing 2-1).

Looks like "the left" got it right again while the DC politicos badly misread Lincoln's supposed electability.

Oh, and don't strain to hear the supposed geniuses in charge of our party admit that we were right and they were wrong...



...and glad to see the Dems are still reminding everyone how we got into this mess to begin with...



...with most of the same motley bunch ready to do it again, along with some new faces singing the same sorry tune (and how the #@!$ is Ron Johnson even within shouting distance of Russ Feingold?)...



Update 8/31/10: And they're such good sports too, aren't they?

...and is it my imagination, or does Roger Moore appear on that screen?

Monday Mashup (8/30/10) (updates)

(I also posted here.)

The new Public Editor introduced himself over at the New York Times yesterday (here)…

(Executive Editor Bill) Keller also said reporters are encouraged to respond to readers, except in cases of vitriolic attacks and organized campaigns.

But is this enough in the age of Maximum Personal Expression, when readers and other critics chisel away daily at The Times’s credibility with such a potent arsenal of communication tools?

Ok, time out.

If the point of this blog or any other online endeavor of mine all this time had been Maximum Personal Expression or something like it, then I would have to say that I’ve been doing a pretty lousy job. There are a hell of a lot more things I could do, had I the inclination, time, or facility, to publicize myself personally at the expense of generating the best content that I can, and you can take that statement anyway you want.

It’s basically a good thing that the Times has someone serving in this role, but this person does his or her readers a disservice by automatically trying to dismiss anyone who voices a contrary opinion by implying that the only goal of such a person is to draw attention to him or herself. Also, similar comments from Arthur Brisbane about “nitpickers,” “wounded lovers” and “armed antagonists” attempt to trivialize would-be critics of the paper also.

Speaking for myself, I just want to read the story written and reported straight with no spin. And if the paper cares to know this, I should point out that, when I don’t say anything about their coverage and am devoting blogging real estate to the usual right-wing culprits instead, then the Times is doing a good job.

In addition, is it too much trouble for the Times to take on someone for this role who has some kind of an actual familiarity with social media and emerging forms of communication? I kind of get the impression from Brisbane that he has never been to Daily Kos, Think Progress, Huffington Post, or even some right-wing sites (that’s kind of given away in his opening column by his generally dismissive tone towards these entities).

I guess it is too much to ask. Oh well.

Next, we have the following “Foto Funny” from Mark Halperin…

Somehow I don’t think everyone is gong to get the “boomer” references to Richie Rich and late actor Jim Backus as tycoon Thurston Howell III on “Gilligan’s Island,” Mark.

And Obama gave an economic “soliloquy”? Is Halperin kidding us? Did he expect Obama to pose holding a human skull saying “Alas, poor Yorick – I knew him, Horatio”?

Well, with that in mind, then, I would guess, if Number 44 were a true thespian, it would sound something like this…

To be or not to be, president – that is the question
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The intransigent obstruction of Republicans and cowering Democrats
Or revolt against financially compromised courtiers Geithner and Summers
And by opposing, end them. To die, to put fall Republican hopes to sleep
And by asleep, I say denying House and Senate majorities
By revealing their plans for inquiries of my office, killing our initiatives
To sleep – perchance to dream that they may yet win!
So I thus say that we need more stimulus, Rasmussen and Quinnipiac be damned!
Especially with historically low rates on treasury notes
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time
With a stalled recovery amidst one active war?
Yea, it would be the Senate and House Minority Leaders
With their insolence of office, I may yet approach them
With a bare bodkin, telling them to approve Elizabeth Warren for the CFPA
And if Chris Dodd, he of Countrywide, continues to oppose
I will dispatch him to The Undiscovered Country, where he will not be a FOA
But nay, shall I tolerate them all into the midterms
Be they elected as I, while others grunt and sweat unto a weary life
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is discolored by the daily TV diatribe from Fox News
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action, depending on my approval numbers.

Yeah, actually I’m starting to think the whole “Hamlet” thing could work. I’d go for a production where Darrell Issa gets the part of Polonius, and ends up standing behind a curtain while Obama makes ready with his sword.

(Only a joke…).

And with the arrival of a new week, we receive pretty much the same as last week (stale propaganda, I mean) from Pancake Joe Pitts (here)…

…in an address this week, the Vice President praised the government weatherization program that has been broadly criticized as a terrible example of government waste. The rules for the program were delayed for months as government bureaucrats had to account for numerous wage requirements written into the bill.

Now that the program is up and running, things have been messy. According to the Associated Press, no home in Alaska has participated in the program yet. In Texas, the contractor receiving the most money in the state did shoddy work on the majority of homes it weatherized. In Biden’s home state of Delaware, the program has been shut down since May after auditors discovered fraud.

I honestly can’t think of a word to note how laughable it is that Pitts has taken it upon himself to offer this critique of the weatherization plan across the country without even telling us its progress in his own district. As noted here, Lancaster has received about $18 million in stimulus funds for low-income households, green energy projects, and local governments and non-profit entities, among other uses.

We know what Pitts is, and I know it gets a little repetitive to keep pointing it out, so I’ll just provide this link to the site of Lois Herr, his Dem opponent for his PA-16 seat, and only add further that, to paraphrase the song, I guess you have to be a weatherization man to know which way the wind blows:-).

Finally, there are a couple of other items I intend to get to at some point, but not this moment, because I want to point out something else. Previously, I commented on Halperin’s note about Obama’s economic “soliloquy,” – well, according to this, it didn’t go well (h/t Atrios).

Yet again, we experienced a moment of vacillation from the White House (including more avoidance from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs) because they apparently don’t plan to go back to Congress for more stimulus. Once more, we witnessed the at-best-mixed signals from Ben Bernanke this weekend over the role of the Fed in trying to stimulate employment (here – with jobs being really the only issue that matters this fall; the war in Afghanistan should factor into it also, but we are where we are…and yes, I realize that Bernanke came from Buscho).

So now, are we all sufficiently bummed to the point where we feel like we should throw up our hands over Obama and the Democrats admittedly not getting it completely right on the “big ticket” items, such as the economy, the environment and our military commitments?

Good. Now hold onto those thoughts for a minute and read Paul Krugman’s column today (here).

Yes, I know the bunch in power doesn’t completely deserve all of our support; Obama is, at heart, a disciple of Milton Friedman more than John Maynard Keynes on the economy, which should be apparent by now to all but single-celled life forms, including those employed at Fix Noise – we needed a much more robust response than we got after he was inaugurated, cries of “socialism” be damned particularly since he would have heard those cries regardless of what he did.

But seriously people, have you considered the alternative (spelled out in horrifically accurate detail in Krugman’s column)?

Endless investigations. A new “revelation” every day about the First Family (get ready for the return of Bill Ayres, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and hearings into the alleged “New Black Panther Party” Philadelphia polling scandal on Election Day 2008, for starters). And no legislation (none of any good to us, anyway).

Privatizing Social Security. Defunding Health Care Reform. The return of Tax Cuts for the Rich which will “pay for themselves.” Bye Bye Cap And Trade. Endless investigations. Testimony of Cabinet members before Congress as to why they’re actually doing their jobs instead of rolling over for the institutions they’re supposed to regulate, as they did under Dubya.

So long Lilly Ledbetter Law. New restrictions on stem cell research. Legislation to enshrine the worst excesses of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. Reopening “K” Street for business. A bill to abolish Net Neutrality forever.

Oh, and did I mention Endless investigations? And don't think the "I" word is out of the question either, people.

Basically, we can sit around and mope and let the corporate media narratives define themselves, or we can become involved again as we once were to build the majorities we should be working to defend with all the energy and talent we can muster (I don’t know how many of you were paying attention to the Congressional politics of the ‘90s, but I definitely was, and I never want to see those days again).

If we choose the former path, destruction is imminent, and it will be irrevocable. And despite the ways those we’ve supported have fallen short, we really will only have ourselves to blame if they get turned out (well, maybe not Blanche Lincoln, who will lose anyway; let's work to get them back and then beat on them, so to speak, if they don't do what we want - imagine how silly we will feel while the “Tea Party” Repugs rule the roost and we’re still licking our wounds over the fact that the stimulus was only $787 billion instead of $1.2 trillion).

If we choose the latter path, we can stand the people working for news organizations with initials for names on their heads, as it were, as they search for their next narrative (and wouldn’t it be nice if it were “A Dem Resurgence Confounds The Republican Revival,” or something like it?).

We have work to do, people. All of us. And we’d better do it. Fast.

They can’t win unless we help them by our inaction.

And Dear God, we absolutely must not let that happen!

Update 1 8/31/10: I read stuff like this, and words fail, people, truly.

And I know it’s bad form to call out my “A” list “betters,” but I received this link from Atrios, whose attitude is “we should’ve ‘clapped louder’,” which of course is snark.

And Chris Bowers, someone else I respect, is circulating a petition over at Daily Kos to get the Senate to “reform” filibuster rules. And Jed Lewison, another person I respect, wrote a lengthy post yesterday about how Glenn Beck’s rally couldn’t possibly have drawn the attendance Beck claimed.

Which to me begs the question, why the #@$! are you people bothering with this stuff when our hard-earned Congressional majorities are in danger from our own distracted disinterest and the unending money fueling the Repug fear-and-smear machine?

Don’t bet that the people of this country will sober up on Election Day and vote for us without our strong prodding. Remember, we’re talking about a country that elected (more or less) George W. Bush twice (once after the worst foreign terrorist attack on our soil).

Unless, of course, you actually want to see all of this bad stuff happen.

And in that event, I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with you in any way whatsoever.

Update 2 8/31/10: I’ll tell you what – I’ll put this as simply as I can.

I’m tired of reading blog posts, news articles, opinion columns, etc. telling us how we’re all going to get hit with the metaphorical train on Election Day. Why don’t we all work harder to change the direction of the track instead?

Update 9/3/10: What this person sez here...

Update 9/11/10: A look at the horror that (potentially) awaits (here)...

Update 10/14/10: And I wasn't kidding about the "I" word either, as noted here.

Sunday Stuff

With all due respect to the lady near the end of this clip, she must have accidentally shown up at the wrong place at the wrong time (here - part of me wishes that we could just give these people another country and see how far they get spending their day venting over their crackpot conspiracy theories as opposed to trying to practice actual governance)...



...and yeah, I think this is appropriate for the occasion.

Saturday Stuff

Yes, I know he had his massive “White People Pity Party” today, on behalf of everyone still freaked out by our Kenyan Muslim pre-zee-dint (here)…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
I Have a Scheme
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

(and oh, those nutty teabaggers - more here; and if I were Rush Holt and Frank Pallone, I'd wear that shirt as a badge of honor)

Update 8/29/10: And why am I not surprised by this?

…and I just thought this was a neat little tune.

Friday Stuff

(I also posted some videos here.)

"Worst Persons" (Stupid criminal Preston Renninger of Allentown, Pa. drives the car that he stole right past the police, taking the report from the stolen car's owner - I think we have a "Darwin" candidate here, people; Rudy 9iu11ani can't even answer a question about a minor league baseball game without working in a reference to you-know-what; but Nick Turkal, M.D., the CEO of Aurora Healthcare of Wisconsin, gets the nod for billing Trevor Hill of Zion, IL 2 grand for saving a drowning victim...at times like this, where are the racists with the funny hats screaming about how only "socialized medzin'" from the "gumint" is evil)...



...and we lost SRV 20 years ago today - here is yet another memorable performance (check out playing the guitar behind his back at about 7:50 - unbelievable).

Thursday Stuff

It took Harry Reid long enough to come up with this, but kudos to him for doing it (kind of helps to have an opponent like Sharron Angle, though)...



...and no video, but I just like this new Petty song, so here it is.

Thursday Mashup (8/26/10)

Boy, did “Governor Bully” put his proverbial foot in it (here)…

It was, according to New Jersey’s governor, a $400 million mistake.

The state was drenched in recriminations on Wednesday as Gov. Chris Christie said a clerical error by a midlevel official had caused the state to lose out on $400 million in federal school reform money — an error that caused its Race to the Top grant application to fall short of the 10-member winner’s circle by just three points.

The mistake, reported Tuesday by The Star-Ledger of Newark, resulted from a failure to correctly read a straight-forward question worth not quite 5 of the competition’s 500 points. The application asked states vying for billions in federal funds to compare their 2008 and 2009 school budgets to illustrate their commitment to education financing. Instead, a New Jersey official, whom the governor would not identify, compared the state’s 2010 and 2011 financing, thus forfeiting the points.

Or, as Blue Jersey tells us here…

…there was once an application - negotiated by the Christie administration's Commissioner of Education Bret Shundler (sic) and the NJEA - that would have scored high enough to get the $400 million. That application also didn't have the error that cost us $400 million. But Christie threw a another hissy fit when he heard about it on the news instead of from Shundler, and tossed that application out.

Instead of just changing the parts he didn't like, Christie appears to have started from scratch as part of his hissy fit. As a result a question that was simply factual and had no bearing on the NJEA-Shundler negotiations was removed and replaced with the wrong information. And that led to the loss of $400 million during a massively problematic fiscal era.

…

…there are only two explanations I can see for this disaster. The first is that Christie intentionally tanked the application in an effort to continue hurting the public schools to the extent where vouchers appear to be the only solution. Or that Christie intentionally mis-wrote the answer to that question in order to hide funding cuts by the previous administration in some effort to improve his own standing or image. I find conspiracy theories like this not terribly realistic, in no small part because Christie's not that clever.

The more likely is that it was Christie's need to be in control, his hate of the NJEA and his inability to play well with others that lost this money. Essentially his pissy temperament - the same one that got him in trouble as a Freeholder and was so respected by the media as US Attorney - just cost every resident of the state of New Jersey $45. It's incompetence of the worst kind - willful and unnecessary.

Oh, and here is more on Christie’s reaction from the Times…

In a lengthy news conference on Wednesday, Governor Christie, a Republican, said he took ultimate responsibility for the error, which “believe me,” he said, “I am not thrilled about.” But he said no one would be fired over the matter, then he assumed his signature anti-Washington tone. The Obama administration, he said, should have called, or checked the state’s Web site, when it discovered the error, which was on just one page of a 1,000-page application.

“That’s the stuff that drives people nuts about government, and that’s what the Obama administration should answer for,” he said. “When the president comes back to New Jersey, he is going to have to explain to the people of the state of New Jersey why he is depriving them of $400 million that this application earned them, because one of his bureaucrats in Washington couldn’t pick up the phone and ask a question.”

Oh, so it’s Obama’s fault for not finding Christie’s error.

The Repugs like to preach about how the private sector supposedly trumps the public one at every turn. Name for me one business that would condone an episode like this without some type of disciplinary action.

Update 1 8/28/10: Oops, looks like Schundler is out after all (here, and nice job on the sprinkler matter noted here, Guv).

Update 2 8/28/10: And oh yeah, Think Progress makes a good point here about how the Repugs like to treat the unemployed as political punching bags, as TP more or less puts it, until one of their own needs to collect.

Update 9/1/10: I give you another truly deplorable chapter in the ongoing, utterly ruinous Christie governorship (here - my sympathies to the Katsnelsons).

Next, I came across this interesting bit of concern trolling from Joe Trippi at the Fix Noise site (here)…

Now come the questions: The first question is how well will Charlie Crist do with Democratic voters in November? Can he pull enough Democratic votes away from Meek to sneak past Republican Marco Rubio and win election to the Senate as an independent?

…

The White House would clearly prefer a Meek or Crist victory in November. A win by either man could give the president a boost in his re-election bid a little over two years from now.

For someone who is supposed to represent the Democratic Party, I would say that this is at best a tepid endorsement of Kendrick Meek, the winner of the Democratic primary for Florida’s U.S. Senate contest (I guess, though, that if Trippi did anything except write about the “horserace” and provide analysis with any actual depth or examination of the issues, Fix Noise would never publish him).

Oh, and one more thing – would it have been too much trouble to point out that Trippi was a paid adviser to Jeff Greene, the “Democrat” Meek defeated in the primary election?

Also, what would a day be like without more wankery from former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm (probably a lot more enjoyable – here)…

Having successfully shut down an estimated 23,000 American oil drilling jobs off the Gulf Coast, citing possible environmental concerns, the Obama administration is now moving on New England fishermen.

This is the same lie peddled by Smokey Joe Barton yesterday, and here is the same Media Matters link that I used to update yesterday’s post.

Continuing…

It's rained during much of Obama's latest vacation there. And now the Democratic president is scheduled to be confronted with a flotilla of protesters today off his private estate on the souvenir-laden island of Martha's Vineyard.

The immediate boating protest is about their claim the feds are using bad science to set extremely limited area fishing allotments, certain to wipe out many traditional private family businesses.

The fishermen -- possibly involving as many as two dozen vessels -- will be traveling from as far away as New Jersey and all along the Northeastern coastline. Wednesday the noon protest earned the support of the Greater Boston Tea Party.

Funny, but I cannot recall receiving weather forecasts when Dubya and his pals vacationed anywhere (including the times he “cleared brush” at his “ranch”…you remember, the one Number 43 sold as soon as his misbegotten presidency finally ended and he didn’t have to perpetuate that phony-baloney image of a “regular guy” anymore).

See, when legitimate journalists do sourcing for their material, they link to the AP, Reuters, McClatchy, etc., or particular individuals such as Dana Priest, Scott Shane, or other accomplished reporters. However, since we’re talking about Malcolm, he links instead to Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrissey and the like to tell us about what appears to be some kind of Obama protest flotilla that is scheduled to appear somewhere near the island (And am I the only one who can smell “astroturf” here, by the way?).

And as far as the gripes of the fishermen with the NOAA, the following should be noted from here (a Forbes story dated about three weeks ago)…

BOSTON -- The nation's top fishery managers met Tuesday with industry leaders from California to Maine to discuss ways to improve the troubled fishery law enforcement system amid findings of mismanagement, misspending and questionable fines.

The summit at a Washington hotel, broadcast on the Internet, followed months of revelations about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's law enforcement division that have fractured relations between the agency and fishermen and have prompted lawmakers to call for the resignation of NOAA head Jane Lubchenco.

Recent findings by U.S. Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser described the misspending of millions of dollars in fishing fines and showed heavier fines for Northeast fishermen, who have long complained of unfair treatment. Zinser also said the head of the law enforcement division, Dale Jones, wrongly ordered dozens of files shredded during his investigation.

Jones has since been replaced and NOAA has made various changes to better track fines and mend relations with the industry. NOAA hopes to have broader changes in place by October 2011.

So it looks to me like the culprit more than Lubchenco here is Jones, an 11-year veteran of NOAA who was replaced in April by Alan Risenhoover, who had been heading NOAA's Office of Sustainable Fisheries.

Also, the following should be noted from here…

By including the new NOAA administrator as part of his core science team, Obama gave a boost to NOAA scientists who have long lamented the agency's low stature in Washington -- and who had complained their findings were altered or suppressed during George W. Bush's presidency.

…

Lubchenco said she and (her boss, Commerce Secretary and) former Washington Gov. Gary Locke…are in sync on their priorities for NOAA. One shared concern is restoring the West Coast's salmon fishery. Their backgrounds and interests may signal a westward shift of focus in an agency best known for tangling with New England fishermen over the cod collapse and for tracking hurricanes.

I’m not going to argue that everything is hunky-dory here and Lubchenco and her agency don’t have work to do. Somehow, though, I have a feeling that New England fishermen have been butting heads with Washington bureaucrats for longer than Malcolm would have us believe.

For a change, though, it appears that Malcolm is actually in an element he knows well, and that would be “fish stories.”

Finally, Matt Bai tells us the following (here, in a column featuring Dem U.S. House Rep Earl Blumenauer of Oregon)…

President Obama’s bipartisan panel on the national debt won’t issue any recommendations for reshaping the budget until after the November elections, but that hasn’t stopped liberals from mobilizing to discredit the panel’s work. This month, more than 70 organizations, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and MoveOn.org, formed a group, Strengthen Social Security, to pre-emptively oppose the panel’s findings, starting with any reduction in Social Security benefits it might propose. And they are calling on Democrats in Congress to pledge the same.

…

The liberal groups that are already speaking out against the debt panel’s unfinished work have chosen to start with Social Security because it is likely to be at the center of any budget compromise. “If there’s a place where it looks like Republicans and Democrats can reach agreement, we’re afraid it’s Social Security,” says Frank Clemente, the director of Strengthen Social Security. (In other words, the two parties might actually work together on something. They must be stopped!)

You know, it really is shocking that the New York Times actually gives Bai a paycheck, particularly when he writes on this issue (and as an almost humorous counterpoint, the print edition of the paper featured a story on Alan Simpson’s recent outburst on this subject right next to Bai’s column – here and here are updates…and in yet another example of their tone-deafness, the Obama Administration is going to allow Simpson to continue to “serve”).

The real problem, though, as noted by Atrios and others, isn’t Simpson; the problem is the very existence of the commission itself. And with that in mind, I bring you the actual reporting on this subject that Bai, and the rest of his paper, fails to do (here).

As firedoglake tells us, this all started last year with a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” chaired by Pete Peterson, the hedge fund billionaire who made his money by not paying his fair share of taxes, and who has pursued a decades-long quest to destroy Social Security and has pledged $1 billion to achieve that goal (and Peterson is no small influence on Obama, who has said that overhauling Social Security would be “a central part” of his administration’s efforts to contain federal spending).

Well, fortunately, filthy unkempt blogger types such as yours truly raised a ruckus, and Peterson was “disinvited” from the summit.

However…

In January of 2010, a bill sponsored by committed Social Security slashers Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad which would have created an official Catfood Commission to make recommendations about the nation’s deficit was defeated by the Senate on a bipartisan vote — 22 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted no.

Undeterred, on February 18, President Obama issued an executive order creating a Catfood Commission anyway.

Unlike Bill Clinton’s Danforth Commission, which ended in deadlock, Obama set this commission up in such a way that it was stacked with deficit hawks who largely agreed on what needed to be done: 12 of the 18 members were to be appointed by Senate and House leaders in each party, and 6 would be appointed by the President. This virtually guaranteed that Social Security privatization fetishist Paul Ryan would be on the commission, as would Gregg and Conrad.

And who would be supplying “staffers” to this commission, top-heavy with “hawks” on “reforming” Social Security? Why, Pete Peterson, of course (and there’s a lot of other great reporting by fdl in their post, which to me is reminiscent of what they did on the “Scooter” Libby trial, another story basically ignored by our corporate media)…

The post concludes with this…

The Catfood commission is not legitimate. It was stacked with people who knew their job was to fulfill Pete Peterson’s dream of rolling back the New Deal and waging war on the social safety net. It is a committee of oligarchs designed to circumvent electoral repercussions for those who oppose the will of the vast majority of the American people, both Republicans and Democrats, who don’t want to see the federal budget balanced on the backs of the nation’s senior citizens.

We all know what Bai is and it really doesn’t make sense to belabor the point (receive dictation, type it up to conform to the prescribed narrative, submit it, collect paycheck, show up for happy hour), but it really is shocking that this administration can try to perpetrate this garbage and still wonder why progressives feel no inclination whatsoever to support it.

Update: Kudos to mcjoan for this - probably didn't see it because too much smoke was coming out of my ears.

Wednesday Stuff

I’m not sure about posting tomorrow, and Friday is even more questionable (should be OK with the videos, though).

By the way, I keep putting up Jon Stewart because he continues to deliver funny and insightful stuff (more here)…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Hurt Talker
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

…and I hope nobody gets freaked out by bright colors.

Wednesday Mashup (8/25/10)

I give you Smokey Joe Barton at The Hill (here)…

News leaked out this weekend that the Obama administration knew that the moratorium on oil production (in the Gulf) would cost 23,000 jobs, yet rushed ahead anyway and that could be on the low side. The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association predicts 46,200 jobs potentially lost due to the moratorium and a Global Insight analysis says that job losses could reach 120,000 in 2014 if the moratorium is extended beyond six months.

In fact, Louisiana State University economist Joseph Mason told the Corpus Christi Caller Times, “the moratorium could be more costly than the oil spill itself.”

I’ll cut Barton a bit of slack on Global Insight, but “The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association” is an oil industry trade group, so of course they’re going to come up with the most dire possible scenario on the job impact of the moratorium (and as a commenter noted here, LSU received over $1 million from ExxonMobil in 2008).

And as far as moratorium itself is concerned, the following should be noted (from here)…

… the administration's moratorium covers only new deepwater Gulf drilling; moreover, more than 5,000 Gulf oil wells that are already producing oil and gas reportedly can remain in operation.*

And as the Houston Chronicle tells us from Media Matters, “the administration's ban on approving new deep-water drilling permits for at least six months and the suspension of deepwater exploration do not affect the 4,515 shallow-water and the 591 deepwater Gulf wells now producing oil and gas.”

And by the way, can someone explain to me how a moratorium of six months (and believe me when I tell you it will not extend beyond that point) could affect job forecasts about four years into the future?

As noted here, though, Barton is perhaps Congress’ most notorious offender on the environment (hence his nickname); in 2008, he helped scuttle the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which was aimed at reducing smog and acid rain pollutants from power plants in the eastern half of the country, and he also took a leading role in killing the moratorium on offshore drilling.

And let’s not forget this charming moment from Smokey Joe also.

Update 8/26/10: Gosh, color me shocked - looks like Smokey Joe tried to "snooker" us on that "23,000 jobs" claim (here).

Also, I’ll bet you thought we were done with “death panels” in health care reform, didn’t you? Well, Armstrong Williams isn’t (here)…

The initial stages of ObamaCare death panels have begun by targeting the 40,000 American women killed by breast cancer annually. The FDA has recommended rescinding government approval of Avastin, a treatment for later-stage breast cancer, due to its high cost. Avastin can cost as much as $88,000 annually, but can have significant results in expanding the life of those suffering.

The federal government needs to stay away from the personal health decisions of Americans. Yes, there are some who wouldn’t care to live longer after suffering from breast cancer. However, there are many women suffering from the illness who would like to spend every extra day possible with their families. Our government doesn’t have the right to withhold that from them.

Oh, cute.

As noted here, though…

The debate over Avastin, prescribed to about 17,500 women with breast cancer a year, has become entangled in the politically explosive struggle over medical spending and effectiveness that flared during the battle over health-care reform: How should the government balance protecting patients and controlling costs without restricting access to cutting-edge, and often costly, treatments?

The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the recommendation of influential scientific advisers to revoke authorization of the drug to treat metastatic breast cancer. Contrary to initial research, new studies indicate that the benefits of the drug, which costs $8,000 a month, do not outweigh its risks, the advisory panel concluded.

Citing a dearth of evidence of the drug's effectiveness, its potential toxic side effects, and its high cost, many cancer experts, patient advocates and others are welcoming the prospect that Avastin's authorization for breast cancer might be repealed. But the possibility is alarming other cancer specialists, women taking the drug, some members of Congress and advocates for giving patients as much access to as many treatments as possible.

Yes, this is a tough call, but it’s one that must be made after a careful review of clinic evidence (and without injecting the rancorous partisan BS that raged over this issue about a year ago).

And as we know, only the government makes life-or-death decisions about patient treatment partly based on cost.

Right.

Next, we have this bit of philosophical tut-tutting from Beltway know-it-all Kathleen Parker (here)…

Given the leadership vacuum, responsibility falls where it must -- to the transformative power of the individual. Enough of us retain a memory of what it means to be American, and it has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, religious belief or the date of one's citizenship. It has to do with a batch of exceptional ideas and a few simple rules of conduct.

A primer on the latter: Be considerate; tend your garden; mind your own business; lend a hand; keep your clothes on and your hands to yourself; honor your family and your country; don't air your dirty laundry or vocabulary in public. And for God's sake, don't talk about religion. Oh, and resist spectacle.

That last line is particularly funny when you consider that the author also concocted this based on a certain YouTube video (yes, we all know what John Edwards did to his personal and professional life, but that to me doesn’t absolve Parker in any way whatsoever from failing to “resist spectacle”).

What exactly was that Pulitzer for again?

Finally, I give you the following from National Journal (here)…

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has some advice for Republicans going into the midterms: Offer more specifics.

McDonnell told Hotline On Call on Wednesday that he hasn't seen the level of detail in national proposals as he campaigned on in '09.

"I haven't heard as much as I would like," McDonnell said when asked about specifics in the GOP platform.

How about “specifics” such as reversing legal protections for gays and lesbians, Bob? Or “specifics” such as appointing Fred Malek to chair a 31-person advisory committee on reforming state government (Malek served under Nixon and, at Nixon’s request, compiled a list of employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics with “Jewish-sounding names,” since Nixon thought he was being undermined by a “Jewish cabal” – everything in this paragraph can be verified here).

Oh, and how about “specifics” such as “slamming gays, unwed mothers, and no-fault divorce” as McDonnell did in his college thesis (here)? And let’s not forget “specifics” such as McDonnell’s “Confederate History Month” proclamation that omitted any reference to slavery (here).

Even though McDonnell is a highly imperfect example for any politician to emulate (something I hope I’ve made clear), I will grudgingly acknowledge that he’s right to call for honesty and transparency in political campaigns.

And if his fellow Repugs were to follow suit the way they should, it would become easily apparent that they seek only to perpetuate the comfort of the “pay no price, bear no burden” investor class and leave the rest of us to cope with an ever-shrinking economy and eroding prospects for the future that our children and families should be entitled to through our hard work and sacrifice (and offering only pointless squabbles over a never-ending parade of “wedge issues” instead).

Tuesday Stuff

Yep, it's time for Jon Stewart again (lurching uncontrollably towards the truth, and why am I not surprised - more here)...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

....and as noted here, composer George David Weiss recently passed away; this is one of his most famous works.

Tuesday Mashup Part Two (8/24/10)

(Part One is here.)

In case anyone missed it, yesterday was a really bad day in the “war on brains” (noted here – here is the story from the New York Times)…

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge on Monday blocked President Obama’s 2009 executive order that expanded embryonic stem cell research, saying it violated a ban on federal money being used to destroy embryos.

The ruling came as a shock to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and at universities across the country, which had viewed the Obama administration’s new policy and the grants provided under it as settled law. Scientists scrambled Monday evening to assess the ruling’s immediate impact on their work.

…

The lawsuit at issue was brought last year on behalf of the adoption agency; two stem cell scientists, Dr. James L. Sherley and Dr. Theresa Deisher; embryos; and others. The judge dismissed the suit last year, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing, meaning they were not materially affected by the rule change.

But the Court of Appeals reversed that ruling last year, saying the two researchers could be harmed by the new policy since they worked exclusively with adult stem cells and would face increased competition for federal financing under the new policy. After the appeals court ruling, all but Dr. Sherley and Dr. Deisher were dropped as plaintiffs to the suit.

Oh, and by the way, Drs. Sherley and Deisher were bankrolled by the uber-conservative Alliance Defense Fund; here is more on the players in this drama from Think Progress (and how con-vee-nient that the ADF was “dropped as plaintiffs” now that their legal gambit has worked and their money is no longer needed).

Continuing with the Times…

With the case back in his court, Judge Lamberth ruled that the administration’s policy violated the clear language of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, a law passed annually by Congress that bans federal financing for any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

In rules announced last year, the administration allowed financing of research into any embryonic stem cell lines that either were allowed by the Bush administration or had been created using embryos discarded after fertilization procedures and in which unpaid donors had given clear consent for the embryos to be used for research purposes.

The Obama administration said that its rules abided by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment because the federal money would be used only once the embryonic stem cells were created but would not finance the process by which embryos were destroyed. The judge disagreed, writing that embryonic stem cell research “necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.”

So basically, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled against the plaintiffs, then they filed with the DC Federal Appeals Court, and that court decided that they could sue (again, Think Progress has more on that bunch in the link above). So when they went back to Judge Lamberth, he had to come up with some kind of pretext for allowing the suit to continue.

One of the problems, though, is that Judge Lamberth’s temporary injunction…

…returned federal policy to the “status quo,” but few officials, scientists or lawyers in the case were sure Monday night what that meant.

(Dr. George Q. Daley, director of the stem cell transplantation program at Children’s Hospital Boston) was among those who said they believed that it meant that work financed under the new rules had to stop immediately; others said it meant that the health institutes had to use Bush administration rules for future grants.

And as the story tells us, Lamberth’s ruling could also extend even to the Bush-era guidelines, so we really could be returning to square one, as it were (as noted here, however, the Obama DOJ plans to appeal).

In response, I would say that this post, bad language and all, captures pretty accurately how I feel about this.

Also, I have to tell you that Joke Line pushed one of my buttons big time yesterday (here, on the supposedly fading electoral fortunes of the congressional Dems and, by extension, President Obama)…

The idea that these tumultuous anxieties would somehow be addressed if the President behaved more like Reagan is foolish. The idea, promoted by the Democratic Party's myopic left, that being more "progressive" might clarify things and restore the party's status is a fantasy.

Let’s begin by stating point blank that I never, for a moment, suggested that Obama should act like The Sainted Ronnie R. Also, I always understood the word “myopic” to mean, in this context, lacking foresight or demonstrating a “narrow view” of a particular topic.

So, then, was the left “myopic” when advocating for the public option in health care reform (here)?

Were we “myopic” when we said that the “stimulus” was too small last year (here)?

Were we “myopic” when we said that the President should get the hell out of Afghanistan last year since the al Qaeda presence didn’t justify our troop strength (here)?

Were we “myopic” when we said that HAMP was an utter failure (here)?

And are we “myopic” for wondering why the hell Elizabeth Warren is not, at this moment, in charge of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection for which she has personally advocated (here)?

We know that “punching the DFHs” is something that Klein and his Beltway brethren do as a reflex to just about every story (and almost always in response to adoration of Repug orthodoxy), but when it comes to “myopia,” I would file this under the heading of “physician, stop being such a bloody wanker and heal thyself” (i.e., blame the right-wing noise machine for health care propaganda, but when it goes beyond them, don’t pretend it isn’t happening).

Update 9/2/10: And I'm sure Michael Scherer reads Joke Line also (here).

Finally, Repug U.S. House Rep Ed Royce tells us the following (here)…

If it wasn’t bad enough that we lost in the hockey finals to “Our Neighbor to the North” at the Winter Olympics earlier this year, we now trail Canada in a slightly more consequential indicator – economic freedom. Every year the Heritage Foundation issues the Index of Economic Freedom and for the first time in, well ever, we no longer represent the “freest” economy in North America.

…

(When it comes to our current economic difficulties) following the Canadian model would help us tremendously. In 1993, Canada faced a deficit of about 9% of its GDP and stagnate growth. Believing that severe cost cutting in the public sector was the only way to sort Canada's finances, the government cut back public spending and converted the deficit into a small surplus. During the following decade, the Canadian economy soared; growing 41 percent.

In response, I give you the following from Paul Krugman (here)…

Canada was able to offset the contractionary effects of fiscal austerity through increased exports to a booming US economy…

…

Yep, you can have fiscal austerity without contraction if you have a massive devaluation against your main trading partner. So we can have austerity without a new depression as long as all the world’s major economies devalue against … oh, wait.

And monetary policy, of course, wasn’t up against the zero lower bound, so the Bank of Canada could and did offset fiscal austerity with looser monetary policy (which partly explains the drop in the loonie.)

(By the way, the “loonie” is the Canadian dollar coin, not necessarily the nickname of last year’s NHL penalty minute leader, Zenon Konopka of the Tampa Bay Lightning :- ).

Also, as noted in the comments to Krugman’s post, Canada’s economy features (featured?) the following…

1) A federal Goods and Services tax VAT of 7% on nearly all sales levied in addition to provincial sales taxes.

2) A large trading partner with a booming economy (Dot com bubble anyone?)

3) A 1995 Federal budget (that) also increased numerous taxes, including on corporations and banks, and a 1.5 cents per litre increase in gas tax.

4) Budget cuts (including) agriculture subsidies, corporate welfare, and cuts to Defence (the spelling is a giveaway that we're talking about "The Great White North," of course).

Oh, and by the way, here is one more feature of the Canadian economy we would do well to emulate (and which was utilized by a moose-hunting former governor). What say you in response, Repugs?
…

(cue the sound of crickets…)

Monday Stuff

I'm sure it is thoroughly not surprising that Iraq remains a highly volatile country - maybe more of our corporate media should pay attention to that, particularly what is noted in the final minute and a half of Rachel Maddow's interview with Richard Engle including their lack of a power-sharing government between Sunnis and Shiites after all this freaking time (though I realize the "gatekeepers" of our discourse are preoccupied with the "ground zero mosque" and whether or not Obama is a Muslim, so they obviously have other priorities)...



...and oh yeah, I forgot that they're preoccupied with this stupidity also (as much of a dim bulb as Gohmert is, it's even scarier to consider that plenty of life forms in his district actually voted for him...and as far as Russell Pearce in Arizona is concerned - the clip ends before Maddow can explain - I would give this a look)...



...and look at the wonderful result of fearing people of a different culture and ethnicity, or someone presumed to be that way (more here - boy, would I like to know how much some Repug-simpatico astroturf group spent on this)...



...and I realize that this video is a complete "180" from the controversy noted above, but I just happened to find it (probably should have put it up about a month or two ago, but oh well).