Bringing The Pain, Part 1

I’ve been debating with myself about whether or not I should do this, but I’m going to give it a try anyway.

I can assure you that, along with probably every other sentient being on this earth, I am utterly sick and tired of the ridiculous debt limit charade going on in Washington, D.C. (and I still truly cannot find the words to communicate my disgust with the fact that we are toying with such calamitous consequences in the process). Also, though it is vital that Rupert Murdoch and his empire of evil are flayed alive in the square of public opinion (to say nothing of subject to civil and/or criminal prosecution), I’m going to leave that to my “A” list betters to cover for now.

And just so you know, calling out the right-wing idiots at the usual places on the web doesn’t necessarily make my day either. However, I’ve always believed that you need to engage these people when you know that they’re peddling nothing but lying garbage. For now, though, I’m going to give that a pass too.

Basically, I read this story in the New York Times recently about the jobless and came to the highly unoriginal conclusion that our media isn’t paying anywhere near the attention that it should to the unemployed. And I suppose that includes this blog too. Well, I’m about to try and change that.

My plan is to look for stories/posts/whatever online content I can find pertinent to all 50 states and the U.S. territories and publicize it here. I’ll do my best to make it interesting (and this being a blog and all, please feel free to contribute anything you may wish).

Alabama

As noted here, the rate in this state was 9.6 percent as of last month...

"It's very tough," said Athens resident Mike Staton, one of thousands of Alabamians who lost their job in May. Staton had worked as a contract engineer at Marshall Space Flight Center for almost ten years before getting a pink slip right before Memorial Day weekend. "It's hard not just on me, but on my family. I'm hoping that somebody will look at my experience and take a chance on me."

Officials said the April tornadoes had some impact on the numbers, but opinions vary as to how dominant a role they actually played. North Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks (R) said the real problem wasn't the weather, but Washington policies.

"To a very large degree, our unemployment situation is caused by Washington policies that simply don't work," said Congressman Brooks. Brooks believes costs associated with the new federal health care law along with talk of raising the corporate tax rate on businesses is causing many employers to hit the pause button on hiring. Many businesses have stated their unwillingness to hire due to cost uncertainty over both factors.

On the subject of Obama supposedly raising corporate tax rates, I give you this (and this tells you more about the antics of Mo Brooks; as I keep saying, people out there voted for boneheads like this guy).

Also, here is a story about help for unemployed Alabama homeowners, who may qualify for as much as $15,000 in assistance.

Alaska

Good news, residents of that state (well, good comparatively speaking) – your unemployment rate was 7.4 percent in May (here).

As noted here, though…

By the first half of 2010, the unemployment rate for Alaska Natives jumped 6.3 percentage points to 21.3%—the highest regional unemployment rate for American Indians.

And this tells us more about how to tackle joblessness in rural Alaska

Of course, when it comes to Alaska and unemployment, you know I just have to include an item like this (notwithstanding this, of course).

American Samoa

The only items I could find here was a story about how a 2007 increase in the federal minimum wage provided an excuse for Starkist and Chicken of the Sea to close their tuna canning operations; however, as noted here from last October, Chicken of the Sea transferred its operations to a U.S.-based company that will reopen the cannery in the territory (President Obama signed a bill into law “delaying implementation of the wage hike in American Samoa this year and next”…yeah, there goes that business-hating Obama again doing what needs to be done in this case).

Arizona

As noted here, the seasonally adjusted rate was 9.1 percent last month, “at least in part because more people will be serving up burgers and fries.”

Oh, goody.

And as noted here from last month…

The Arizona Legislature adjourned a two-day special session Monday without voting on a proposal to keep 20 weeks of federally funded extended unemployment benefits flowing to thousands of jobless people.

Gov. Jan Brewer had tried to get lawmakers to change a formula in state law so jobless Arizonans could continue to receive the benefits. But several GOP and some Democratic lawmakers blamed the Republican governor for failing to line up votes to support the measure and calling lawmakers into special session shortly before the deadline for making the change expired.

The extended benefits arriving in the mail this week will be the last without a formula change. The state's unemployment has fallen enough to stop benefits after 79 weeks under the current formula. About 15,000 people are now receiving the additional 20 weeks of benefits. Arizona's benefits are second lowest in the nation, averaging $216 per person each week and maxing out at $240 a week.

And I thought PA was cheap (and it is) – continuing…

Carla Mannes, a Mesa resident who has been unemployed for about 68 weeks since losing her job in the funeral industry, said she is approaching the threshold for receiving the extended benefits. She's frustrated those who argue that extending benefits would encourage people not to look for jobs.

"I am not sure how that counts as fraudulent in trying to pay a mortgage, buy food and take care of your kids," Mannes said.

Oh, and this tells us of “unemployed” former GOP “big shot” Brett Mecum (interesting reading).

Arkansas

As noted here…

Nonfarm payroll jobs in Arkansas declined 300 in May to total 1,178,700. Three major industry sectors posted job losses, more than offsetting minor increases in six industries. Employment remained stable in two sectors. The greatest decrease occurred in professional and business services (-2,600). The administrative and support services subsector posted the largest drop (-1,400), attributed in large part to reported declines at employment agencies.

So even the people working at the unemployment office are getting laid off…

Jobs in educational and health services decreased (-1,200), as some educational facilities have closed for summer break. Leisure and hospitality added 1,400 jobs. Gains were mostly seasonal and spread evenly throughout the sector.

Here is a website that seems to provide job listings in Arkansas for older workers, and here is more about that state’s workforce services department.

California

What I’m really trying to find above all else are stories of the jobless, and they are plentiful at this site dedicated to those seeking work in the Golden State.

And as noted here from last October…

…Silicon Valley, the capital of American innovation has a new creation: revival meetings for the unemployed. On weekends, they come by the hundreds.

"60 Minutes" joined a gathering called "Job Connections," held inside a local church.

It's part how-to-find-a-job workshop, part networking opportunity with the feel of a 12-step program.

The people in the group are the faces of unemployment in Silicon Valley, people in their 40s, 50s and 60s who thought they had done everything right: earned a degree, stayed with their company, saved for retirement.

"I'm curious. How many PhDs in this room?" Pelley asked. "One, two, three, four… several. Now leave your hands up. How many master's degrees? Oh boy. And how many of you went to college. Everybody keep your hands up if you have a college degree, a master's degree or a PhD."

Many in the room had their hands up.

"How many of you expected to retire from the company where you were working?" he then asked.

"More than half the room," he noted.

And as of May, the state’s unemployment rate was 11.9 percent (here).

Aside from the terrible human toll of unemployment, the waste of intellectual capital going on right now is positively staggering.

Colorado

As noted here…

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Colorado, where unemployment topped the national average in three of the past five months, is looking to attract more technology jobs by helping employers access capital through a plan unveiled today by Governor John Hickenlooper.

"This is how we really are going to get this state going and get it back in gear," Hickenlooper said at a press conference in northern Denver at Taxi, a 20-acre complex where tech and biosciences startups replaced a storage yard for cabs and warehouses for freight.

The governor said he met yesterday with executives of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, to discuss why Colorado would be a good fit with its plans to hire thousands of workers nationwide.

Oh great, Bill Gates to the rescue – let’s all learn how to make crappy software and cut the throats of our competitors (though I know beggars can’t be choosers).

Continuing…

The state's jobless rate fell to 8.7 percent in May, compared with 9.1 percent nationwide, after exceeding the U.S. level from January to March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, as noted here…

Colorado’s unemployment benefits system is “overwhelmed” according to its new director, with some claimants waiting on hold for as long as 3 hours to get questions answered.

“It’s unacceptable and we take it very seriously,” said Ellen Golombek, executive director of Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment.

Golombek took over at Labor and Employment in January. She said the average wait time for claimants calling in for information on their unemployment claim now stands at 1 hour and 29 minutes. She thinks it should be 15 minutes or less.

“It’s overwhelming. The system is overwhelmed,” Golombek said several times during the on camera interview. “The problem persists because we are in a recession, people are laid off and are losing their jobs,” she said.

Golombek said there are now 137,000 Coloradans with active unemployment claims, compared to 2008 when about 30,000 were on unemployment. Callers now are so frayed and on edge, operators at the Labor Department undergo training to handle suicidal callers. Golombek acknowledged that 15 employees just went through “specialized training” to handle despondent claimants.

So good luck, all you Coloradans, along with the rest of us.

I’ll pick this up later but I’m not sure when – probably sometime next week.

Update 7/24/11: Here is a link to the story referenced in the comment, by the way - thanks.

Update 7/25/11: More here on a particularly repellent practice...

Wednesday Stuff

Yep, it's time for Jon Stewart to weigh in on the Murdoch-mania, if you will (here...God, that clip at the end of Stuart Varney is priceless - do a better job of brown-nosing and tell us what Rupert the Pirate had for lunch, why dontcha?)...

(OK, never mind, the video upload is hosed - just check it out from C&L instead.)

...and yes, there are a bunch of Dems out there who need to grow a spine (such as, shockingly, Dick Durbin in this "gang of six" nonsense, the latest Beltway kabuki), but this reminds us of the alternative...



...and RIP Jerry Ragovoy - here is one of his signature compositions...



...and I keep forgetting to wish former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn a happy 90th birthday, so I'd like to do so now and put up this somewhat appropriate selection (overdue for a strange '80s video - wonder if Bowie got a royalty from this guy for using his character?)

Wednesday Mashup (7/20/11)

I honestly have been trying to avoid the whole Rupert Murdoch hacking scandal since it’s being covered pretty responsibly elsewhere, but I simply must comment on this unintentionally hilarious (in a darkly humorous vein) Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal today by Holman Jenkins, Jr. Basically, Jenkins’ premise is that the scandal reveals a “British Watergate” (yep, I suppose it was inevitable that that would be invoked at some point) in the “Scotland Yard corruption” sense.

Oh, and did you know that, because of the scandal, “As Nixon did, the News of the World leaves the world a better place”?

Yep, we are truly through the looking glass here, people…

…Three names to keep in mind are Jonathan Rees, Steve Whittamore and Glenn Mulcaire, all private investigators long accused of having made a living selling illegally obtained information to the press.

Rees was the subject of a 1999 police investigation, described in a detailed 2002 Guardian newspaper report. An official police summary was quoted as saying the Rees network of informants' "thirst for knowledge is driven by profit to be accrued from the media."

Whittamore's files were seized in a 2003 raid by Britain's Information Commissioner, becoming the basis for his 2006 report on "The Unlawful Trade in Confidential Personal Information." So undeafening was the response, the commissioner followed up six months later by releasing a list of 31 publications "positively identified" as trafficking with Whittamore. Top of the list, 58 reporters or editors of the Daily Mail ordered up 952 information requests. News of the World, the now-closed tabloid owned by the Journal's parent, was fifth on the roster, with 19 employees in 152 transactions.

Finally, Mulcaire. A former British pro football player, he was jailed in 2007, along with a News of the World reporter, for hacking phones of the royal household. His files, 11,000 of them, have been in the possession of Scotland Yard since 2006. The top police resignations that rocked the British Isles last week stem directly from Scotland Yard's uninterest in acting on this evidence.

In response about Rees, this tells us that he was paid 150,000 pounds a year by the News of the World to dig up dirt as recently as 2008. Which begs the question, why was News of the World continuing this thoroughly odious practice if they actually cared about the illegality?

And in April 2005, the News of the World was identified in open court as a private customer of the private investigator Steven Whittamore when he pleaded guilty to paying a civilian police worker to illegally obtain confidential information from a police national computer (Jenkins cites the 2003 bust by Britain’s Information Commissioner, though the illegal activity here, as with Rees, continued unabated afterwards).

Next is Mulcaire, and even though he was jailed in 2007 for hacking, why did Murdoch keep paying him until recently (here)?

And here is an example of Mulcaire’s handiwork…

…with the help of its own full-time private investigator (Mulcaire), the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the (missing British schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s) own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.

But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the paper intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.

The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper's own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: "If Milly walked through the door, I don't think we'd be able to speak. We'd just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug."

The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue. It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.

Yes, the whole hacking scandal is making a lot of people look bad besides Murdoch, and they should face the proverbial music as well. But to imply that Murdoch was somehow responsible for exposing institutional police corruption and thus heroic in any way, shape, or form isn’t merely delusional, it is actually nauseating.

Returning to our shores, this bit of fluff at The Daily Tucker tells us the following…

It is not a partisan issue to support photo voter ID laws. Former President Jimmy Carter, the co-chair of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, has urged lawmakers to support voter ID laws “that make it easy to vote but tough to cheat.” In the Supreme Court decision that upheld Indiana’s photo voter ID statute, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “not only is the risk of voter fraud real but … it could affect the outcome of a close election.”

Melanie Sloan and CREW have, yet again, weighed into a partisan debate, adding their voices to that of the national Democratic Party apparatus. (The Republican National Lawyers Association, which supports voter ID laws of course) is a political organization — and so is CREW, which should not continue to enjoy its 501(c)(3) tax status. Sloan is a Democratic operative and CREW is nothing more than a puppet of the DNC masquerading as a non-partisan organization. The IRS should take notice.

Oh, and have you guessed that CREW quite rightly opposes voter ID (and I don’t think the Indiana ruling by Stevens was one of his finest moments by any means)? And with all due respect to President Carter, I think he’s trying to find a remedy in search of a problem, as they say, also (here).

When someone presents to me a case of a ballot falsified by an actual voter at a polling station that ended up being entered into a vote count that affected an outcome, then I’ll take this supposed issue seriously. However, I’m a lot more concerned about the integrity of votes after they’re cast than before (though I'm highly concerned about the Repugs and their "voter caging" schemes also...and here is more anti-CREW propaganda).

And if CREW is supposed to be doing the bidding of the Democratic Party, then please explain this.

Continuing, this story appeared in the New York Times today…

WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India’s control of much of Kashmir — including funneling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed Tuesday.

The allegations of a long-running plan to influence American elections and foreign policy come at a time of deep tensions between the United States and Pakistan — and in particular its spy agency — amid the fallout over the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound deep inside Pakistan on May 2.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation made the allegations in a 43-page affidavit filed in connection with the indictment of two United States citizens on charges that they failed to register with the Justice Department as agents of Pakistan, as required by law. One of the men, Zaheer Ahmad, is in Pakistan, but the other, Syed Fai, lives in Virginia and was arrested on Tuesday.

Mr. Fai is the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a Washington-based group that lobbies for and holds conferences and media events to promote the cause of self-determination for Kashmir. According to the affidavit, the activities by the group, also called the Kashmiri Center, are largely financed by Pakistan’s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, along with as much as $100,000 a year in related donations to political campaigns in the United States. Foreign governments are prohibited from making donations to American political candidates.

“Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose — to hide Pakistan’s involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government’s position on Kashmir,” Neil MacBride, the United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, said. “His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.”

And do you want to know who one of the beneficiaries was of the allegedly funneled funds?

Why, none other than Pancake Joe Pitts himself (as well as Dan “Let’s Shoot The Vince Foster Pumpkin” Burton – here, #7).

Oh, but not to worry; the story tells us that Pitts donated the $4 grand he received “to local charities in Pennsylvania on Tuesday” (good luck finding those charities or any mention of this story at Pitts’ web site).

And it should be noted that, if Syed Fai had had the wherewithal to donate through the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce instead, no one would have known a thing.

Finally, this story tells the following…

Before he was named on Tuesday to lead the prominent but troubled Archdiocese of Philadelphia (taking over for Justin Cardinal Rigali), Archbishop Charles J. Chaput spent the last 14 years in Denver establishing himself as one of the nation’s most prominent advocates of a politically engaged and conservative Catholicism.

Yep, and here are the two “takeaways” for me from this story…

He is among a minority of Roman Catholic bishops who have spoken in favor of denying communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. He helped defeat legislation that would have legalized civil unions for gay couples in Colorado. And he condemned the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, for granting President Obama an honorary degree in 2009 because of his stance on abortion.

And…

Advocates for sexual abuse victims, however, bristle at the characterization of Archbishop Chaput as a reformer. They point out that he fought hard against legislation in Colorado that would have extended the statute of limitations for people who say they were sexually abused to sue the church.

And I suppose it’s OK to be “politically engaged” in the Catholic Church of Pope Benny as long as your name isn’t, say, Robert Drinan.

Seriously, though, could we have expected anything different from Rome than someone like Chaput?

In the meantime, I’ll watch to see if those pews start filling up a little more on Sundays.

Update 7/29/11: Good question for Rigali and Chaput here...

Tuesday Stuff

Here's the daily dose of the Rupert Murdoch business with K.O. and John Dean (more here, and the postmortem on the death of Sean Hoare, the former News of the World show business reporter who was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, ruled that Hoare's death was "not suspicious" - hmmm)...



...and here's a little mid-week summer funk.

Tuesday Mashup (7/19/11)

Not a lot today, so I might as well get to it…

To begin, I give you former New Hampshire Senator John E. Sununu here in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer…

Consider Shaun Donovan at Housing and Urban Development, Steven Chu at Energy, Ray LaHood at Transportation, and Gary Locke, who just left Commerce. They have spent almost every day of their adult lives as academics, government staffers, or elected officials.

That doesn't make them bad people, but it means they have no firsthand experience with how their policies might affect businesses' investment and economic growth. There is no substitute for the private-sector demands of hiring and firing, managing cash flow, and putting capital to work. By comparison, this experience has been abundant in previous administrations.

I suppose I could point out yet again the supposed business “cred” of the Bushco gang, including Dubya himself who ruined every private enterprise he ever touched, or “Deadeye Dick” Cheney, who, while running Halliburton, contributed to the poisoning of its workforce with asbestosis as noted here, as well as installing faulty wiring in showers that ended up electrocuting members of our military here.

Instead, though, I’ll merely link here to more information on Sununu and point out that he “earned both an S.B. and S.M. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 and an Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard University in 1991. After graduating, he worked in the high-tech industry, at one time for the company of Dean Kamen and as a management consultant for PRTM.”

And that was before he was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1996. And that’s commendable, but guess what?

It shows that he doesn’t have experience with “hiring and firing, managing cash flow, and putting capital to work” either.

Next, in a thoroughly predictable development, it looks like the Repug chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, is threatening to “(withhold funds) to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is responsible for the welfare and education of 4.8 million Palestinian refugees, and the underfunding of U.N. peacekeeping operations,” as noted here.

Which is exactly the type of move that earned the U.S. the designation of “deadbeat donor” from former Secretary General Ban Ki Moon here, with the requisite pouting and foot-stomping in response from Ros-Lehtinen. And feel free to criticize our Kenyan Marxist pre-zee-dint and that supposedly nasty 111th Congress for making sure we paid our debts.

Continuing, it looks like Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn haz a sad here…

I’m saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems — that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration. And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America. You bet. And until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it’s not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. . .

Do you know what this is really all about people?

Wynn and his fellow business barracudas like Sheldon Adelson got their poor widdle feelins hurt when Obama made a critical remark here about Vegas and corporate junkets, and Obama also had the temerity to suggest here that families might wants to prioritize college education for their kids over Vegas vacations.

And they’ve been pouting ever since.

What was that phrase from the last election? Man up, I believe…

And that’s about as good of a transition to the following item about Mikey the Beloved as I can imagine.

As noted from Mikey’s Media Center on his congressional web page here, he wrote a letter to Harry Reid, head of the “Democrat-controlled” (nice) U.S. Senate on July 8th, “demanding” Senate action on passing a budget, saying, among other things, that the Senate had “800 days” to do it but had not delivered.

Well, as noted here (from April, for God’s sake)…

WASHINGTON -- The Senate passed a bill on Thursday to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, putting an end to months of uncertainty over 2011 government funding.

The upper chamber approved the bill 81 to 19. It passed through the House of Representatives a few hours earlier by a vote of 260 to 167.

Fitzpatrick continues to be nothing but an utter embarrassment; a pox on those who voted for him, as well as his actual P.R. service that pretends to be an actual newspaper.

Monday Stuff

Let’s keep up the drum beat in Wisconsin (here)…



…and happy 70th birthday to Martha Reeves (of Martha and the Vandellas, of course).

Monday Mashup (7/18/11)

This story tells us the following…

It is relentless, dangerous and gripping the country. A major heat wave this weekend has prompted officials in 17 states to issue heat warnings and advisories.

On a temperature map of the nation Sunday, you'll find several large areas in the 90s and a patch that had highs above 100 degrees.

At least two hot weather-related deaths have been reported, and forecasters say the high heat is expected to spread over the next few days.

CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports that it's been so hot for so long in Oklahoma, the governor called for a statewide day of prayer in hope of some divine intervention.

"I think if we have a lot of people praying, it moves the heart of God," Gov. Mary Fallin says.

Gee, I didn’t know Fallin was a member of a ministry or served in some other official capacity with a religious organization.

I wonder if some spirit of divine intervention, by the way, moved her to “(kiss) and (have) inappropriate contact with (a) state employee,” an Oklahoma State Trooper who eventually resigned (here)?

Also noted in the old Wordpress post is the following:

- She aided and abetted the “teabaggers,” along with many others of her party (of course).

- She went nuts over the DHS report on extremist groups from Secretary Janet Napolitano (hitting a little too “close to home,” I guess), without noting that the report included left wing extremist groups also.

- Fallin responded to the notion of the dollar being replaced as the major reserve currency in the world by supporting a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would disallow a foreign currency replacing the dollar as legal tender in the USA (hat tip to the blog “Kids Prefer Cheese”); even though the “global currency” rumor is admittedly silly (as was Fallin’s response), there are countries, most notably China, who are looking to valuate against a “basket” of currencies as opposed to the dollar, as Nouriel Roubini has pointed out.

- Fallin was one of the House reps who changed her vote on the Wall Street bailout from “no” to “yes.”

- She voted against the “cramdown” legislation to help people restructure their mortgages, the “Pay for Performance Act” in the matter of executive compensation, the stimulus (of course), SCHIP, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act, relief for the Alternative Minimum Tax, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act, extension of unemployment insurance, the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, and on and on and on.

And let’s hope Fallin has better luck with her little “pray for rain” gambit than her fellow “Bible belt” governor, “Goodhair” Perry, had here.

And yes, it’s time once more to post about the debt limit. And yes, I can assure you that I am at least as thoroughly bored and disgusted with this issue as you are, dear reader. However, since we only have one national political party currently acting like adults in this country, I feel that I must do this.

To begin, Clark Judge, speechwriter and special assistant during the administration of The Sainted Ronnie R, tells us the following (here)…

Today, again, the GOP caucus is divided, but with a difference. The tea party freshmen are insisting on a strong negotiating stance. They want real spending cuts without tax increases. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has become their voice in the budget talks. Reflecting uncertainty about holding non-freshmen in line, both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner have signaled readiness to accept cosmetic compromises.

Mr. Boehner in particular is responding to House members desperately in search of cover from fallout over the president's threat to delay Social Security checks if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Many are terrified of Democratic attack ads painting them as would-be destroyers of Medicare. The GOP defeat this May in the special election in New York's 26th District shook them, which is a sign of how badly they've defended their positions.

After all, if Social Security tax receipts don't cover all the checks in any month, the Social Security Trust Fund can sell its government bonds, bills and notes, as Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C), recently suggested. The holdings are enormous, and sales, even at a discount, could cover the system's needs for years, much less the time to finish budget parlaying.

So, if the checks stop coming, it will be the president who decided to stop them. That's not a hard message to get across.

Funny, but that’s not how the vast majority of this country sees it – as noted here…

Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

And…

Even half of the Republican respondents (51 percent) voiced disapproval of how members of their own party in Congress are handling the talks. Far fewer Democrats expressed disapproval of their own party's handling (32 percent) or President Obama's (22 percent) of the urgent quest to raise the nation's debt limit ahead of a looming default on Aug. 2 if action isn't taken.

Also pertaining to the budget, I give you this from “Mad Thad” McCotter…

Amidst this debt ceiling debate, this president and his Democratic minions’ arguments have descended from “straw men” to “bogeymen” in their attempts to scare Americans.

Our seniors were told their hard-earned Social Security checks would be stopped. Our brave veterans were told the services our grateful nation provides them (never mind that there is much more we could do) could be stopped.

Our entire citizenry was told America could face an economic Armageddon.

I hate to break the news to our ol’ buddy Thad, but that, in part, is exactly what would happen (and if McCotter doesn’t want to believe Obama, maybe he’ll believe this guy).

So what is McCotter’s answer? Something called “Cut, Cap and Balance,” which I guess is the latest Repug catchphrase since he repeats it a few times for the easily-led who actually take Fix Noise seriously.

What McCotter doesn’t say, though (pointed out here), is that “Cut, Cap and Balance” doesn’t include cuts to Social Security, Medicare – more on that here – and something called the “Global War on Terror” (hmm, let me think about that one for a minute – kind of rings a bell…).

Wrongheaded as the cuts to the first two are, at least Obama is trying to meet these clowns while they’re busy moving the goalposts once again (to reiterate, every single thing Obama does these days, rightly or wrongly, is aimed right at those independent voters, many of whom might as well flip a coin before they open the curtain of the voting booth for all of the effort they put into learning about the candidates and the issues).

Oh, and don’t forget that McCotter is running for president.

Sure he is.

No really, I’m serious.

Update 7/18/11: And by the way, "cut, cap and balance" this, wingnuts.

Want more dumb debt ideas from the Repugs? How about some monstrosity called “Fair Tax,” which (as noted here) is basically a 23 percent national sales tax which (as noted here) would replace the federal income tax (trouble is that that pesky United States Constitution would have to be amended to basically hand over the authority to raise taxes to the states; let those zany hijinks ensue as our federal government collapses for good…and of course, Mike Huckabee and Repug presidential aspirant Herman Cain have signed off on it – as I said before, we only have one national party currently acting like adults in this country).

Also on the debt front, David Addington (of all people) chimed in at The Daily Tucker here…

The McConnell Plan would put America deeper into debt and achieve nothing toward the vitally important objective of getting federal overspending and overborrowing under control. All the McConnell Plan requires the president to do is submit a list of suggested spending cuts that exceeds the dollar amount of the requested hikes in the debt ceiling. The McConnell Plan does not give those spending cut ideas or any alternative ideas any legal effect or even specify an accelerated procedure for congressional consideration of such ideas — the McConnell Plan just requires the president to submit a piece of paper.

If the outcome of the current presidential-congressional negotiations over how to get spending under control is the McConnell Plan of just letting the president have the freedom to go on borrowing another $2 trillion, then Senator McConnell and every congressional Republican who votes for it will bear as much political responsibility for this action as President Obama and the Democrats.

Senator Jim DeMint was right to describe the McConnell Plan to the newspaper The Hill as “like leaving the jail door open and looking the other way, then saying it’s not our fault.” And Representative Jim Jordan was even more succinct with his view on the McConnell Plan on the website Politico.com: “I’d say, ‘No way.’”

Conservatives should follow their lead.

As I said before, short of asking for a declaration of war, I don’t see it written anywhere in the Constitution that the president should allow his powers to be decided for him by Congress (and I’ll be happy to use a female pronoun one day concerning our chief executive if it’s the right person). So basically, I believe Obama should tell McConnell that he’ll be back to request raising the debt ceiling when he believes that he has to do so, and the Senate Minority Leader can take his “plan” and go filibuster himself with it.

But for David Addington to pose as some sort of level-headed influence here is a grotesque joke.

As noted here, Addington once called former Bushco Secretary of State (and five-star general) Colin Powell “soft” and “easy to get around.” Also, if you favored observing precedents of international law, Addington was the first to call you “soft on terrorism.” And he was reportedly one of the Buscho lawyers who dismissed the Geneva Conventions as “obsolete,” “quaint,” and irrelevant to the war on terror.

The fact that an individual like Addington is treated seriously even at a propaganda outlet like The Daily Caller is about as damning a commentary on the utter pollution of our public discourse as you can imagine.

Finally, David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun recently decided to give his Obama-is-the-most-antagonistic-media-president-since-Nixon hobby horse a ride once more here (since Number 44 committed the allegedly horrible sin of calling out Fix Nose for exactly what it is).

In response, I would ask that you read through all of these slides from Tim Dickinson’s recent article in Rolling Stone about Roger Ailes, the life form in charge of that media monstrosity, to see how the Obama Administration is maligned, usually falsely, on a daily basis (actually, hourly basis is more like it). And name for me a president who has ever had to endure similar treatment.

Friday Stuff

Concerning the recall effort in Wisconsin, click here to support the latest ad (and let's not forget about this either, by the way)...



...and tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Harry Chapin; there are a lot of people I miss from the past, including Jim Croce, Stevie Ray Vaughan and, of course, Dr. Winston O. Boogie, but Harry is definitely on that list too.

Friday Mashup (7/15/11)

Gee, David Brooks is a barrel of laughs today in the New York Times (here)…

Years ago, people hoped that science could delay the onset of morbidity. We would live longer, healthier lives and then die quickly. This is not happening. Most of us will still suffer from chronic diseases for years near the end of life, and then die slowly.

S. Jay Olshansky, one of the leading experts on aging, argues that life expectancy is now leveling off. “We have arrived at a moment,” Callahan and Nuland conclude, “where we are making little headway in defeating various kinds of diseases. Instead, our main achievements today consist of devising ways to marginally extend the lives of the very sick.”

Others disagree with this pessimistic view of medical progress. But that phrase, “marginally extend the lives of the very sick,” should ring in the ears. Many of our budget problems spring from our quest to do that.

But not to worry – BoBo is not about to call for anyone stuffing Granny in a meat locker when she expires or taking dear old Dad out with the trash at the onset of rigor mortis.

However, I think our intrepid Times columnist also needs to point out the following (here, concerning the recent discussion of raising the mandatory retirement age for Social Security)…

While it might be achievable for someone who works in an office to work all through their 60’s not every job or even trade is sitting at a computer. Many of the jobs that allow non-college graduates to earn a good living and raise a family are physically demanding. Working in a hot factory, climbing electrical poles, driving buses, cleaning hotel rooms are all jobs that someone in their 60’s are not going to be as able to do. Take a look around at the people you know in their mid or late 60’s. They may be in great health but that does not mean most of them can spend the day in physically demanding labor, day after day after day.

It’s hard for me to “get my head around” the inherent cynicism of a mentality that actually discourages advancement in medical science to improve one’s quality of life while saying nothing (at least, nothing I’ve found from Brooks) decrying other economic “drags” on our economy that are at least comparable, including at least two wars and Bushco’s stinking, forever ruinous tax cuts.

After doing a little bit of digging, though, I found that this is a familiar theme for BoBo, as noted here…

In a recent column in the New York Times, Brooks talks about “geezers.” Wow. Isn’t that pretty “anti-pc?” Brooks quotes Freud and Shakespeare to somehow indicate that the elderly gradually withdraw from active life. While this is true in many cases, it is less and less true, and there are many contrary examples, like George Bernard Shaw, who could keep up with Brooks at way-plus-80, or Isaac Bashevis Singer who wrote for the New Yorker or Konrad Adenauer who ran Germany when both were well into their 80s.

Mark Twain, Robert Frost and Pablo Picasso all did some of their best work in their later years. Cezanne worked his whole life only to find success in the paintings he did after sixty. So what’s the point, David?

Brooks likes to take studies, especially those done by scholars at respected universities and explain and interpret them. But somehow the topic inevitably comes around to politics with a conservative bent. He says for example, after discussing how aging works and how the brain continues to be capable of all kinds of things in later years, that: “…the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children.”

Hmmm…Well, OK. But of course it would be less than that if the Republicans had their way. The SCHIPS program of health care subsidies for the children of poor working families and its renewal were voted down by almost every single Republican when they came to the House of Representatives. So, if the idea is to pit elderly against children, which side are the Neoconservative Republicans on?

I suppose that’s an eternal question that the Neocons, who are forever in pursuit of a “wedge issue” anywhere they can find one, will never answer.

Next, I give you the latest from Fix Noise (here)…

Congressional Republicans are rallying behind a long-shot bid for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. But they're divided over conservatives' efforts to demand its passage as their price for backing any increase in the government's borrowing limit.

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

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) took a look at the ramifications of adopting a Balanced Budget Amendment like the one Republicans propose. Here are some of the CBPP’s key findings:

- Veterans’ medical care, homeland security activities, border protection, the FBI, services for disadvantaged or abused children, services for frail elderly people, services for people with severe disabilities, would have to be cut by as much as 70% by 2021 relative to the already-reduced budget for 2011.

- Medicare cuts would have to be significantly deeper than under the Paul Ryan plan.

- Medicaid would have to be cut in half.

- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) would have to be cut in half.

- Supplemental Security Income would have to be cut in half.

- Pell Grants to help low-income students to afford college would have to be cut by as much as $86 billion over ten years.

- Farm programs would have to be cut by as much as $84 billion over 10 years.

And for proof of just how “out to lunch” today’s zany teabagger-run Repug party is on this issue, I give you this (as opposed to an actual issue like this – people keep electing clowns like DeMint, I tell myself).

And I suppose that’s an appropriate transition to last week’s Area Votes in Congress (here)…

House

2012 military budget. Voting 336-87, the House passed a $649 billion military appropriations bill for fiscal 2012, up $17 billion or 2.7 percent from 2011. The bill (HR 2219) sets a 1.6 percent military pay raise, provides $119 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, keeps the active-duty force around 1.4 million troops, and provides $32.3 billion for the military's TRICARE health program, up nearly 3 percent from 2011.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), John Carney (D., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Michael Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Pat Meehan (R., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), Jon Runyan (R., N.J.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Libya-mission funds cutoff. Voting 199-229, the House defeated an amendment to prohibit funding in HR 2219 (above) for U.S. participation in the NATO-led military action aimed at defeating the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and protecting Libyan rebels against his government.

A yes vote was to bar U.S. military spending in the Libyan theater.

Voting yes: Fitzpatrick, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, Meehan, Runyan, and Schwartz.

Gee, another vote where Mikey the Beloved can actually pretend to have a spine, knowing it would fail anyhow.

Contractors' political donations. Voting 256-170, the House prohibited spending in HR 2219 (above) for any requirement that corporations seeking federal contracts disclose their contributions to political candidates. President Obama has drafted, but not yet issued, an executive order requiring such disclosures in bids for federal work.

A yes vote was to block the planned executive order.

Voting yes: Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, and Schwartz.

In response to this vote from our PA-08 rep (and by extension, everyone in his party as well as “Democrat” Tim Holden), I thought this was a good letter that appeared in the Doylestown Intelligencer.

Senate

Taxes on millionaires. The Senate voted, 74-22, to begin debate on a nonbinding measure (S 1323) stating the sense of the Senate that any agreement to raise the national debt ceiling and curb deficit spending includes "a meaningful contribution" in revenue from those earning at least $1 million annually.

A yes vote was to advance the advisory bill.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Chris Coons (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

Voting no: Pat Toomey (R., Pa.).

Leave it to “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey to never forget who his true constituents really are.

This week, the House debated energy and water appropriations and an extension of National Flood Insurance, while the Senate resumed work on a nonbinding measure calling for higher taxes on millionaires as part of any deficit-reduction agreement reached this summer.

Finally, it looks like The Bucks County Courier Times, for some inexplicable reason, is in search of another conservative columnist, apparently thinking they don’t have enough as it is (this appeared in the paper this morning)…

In what amounted to a complete non-surprise, Pennsylvania was just ranked near the economic bottom of the nation. Forty-third, to be exact.

Why the dismal showing for what was once the major industrial powerhouse, not just of the country, but the world?

More than anything else, crushing taxes and a hostile business climate.

I wonder if the author is aware that, among other things, of all of the states and commonwealths residing atop the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania is the only one that doesn’t charge a drillers’ tax? And that is in spite of the $1 billion in education funding cut from our budget by Gov. Tom “Space Cadet” Corbett. If that isn’t “business friendly,” I don’t know what is.

Besides, as noted here, PA ranked number 25 in a 2011 survey from The Tax Foundation, which measures the “business tax climates” of all 50 states. Not too bad, I would say.

And as noted here…

The state Department of Labor and Industry reports that manufacturing added 4,200 jobs in 2011 alone. The innovative products being developed in Pennsylvania today will someday be manufactured for mass use and consumption in the future. This means continued economic growth and new jobs for Pennsylvanians.

We are already seeing tremendous job growth from Marcellus Shale development. The state Department of Labor and Industry reports that approximately 72,000 jobs have been created due to the growth of the natural gas industry in the state.

Pennsylvania is poised to be a national economic leader. But to be truly successful, we need to improve our tax climate. The Corbett administration is committed to improving Pennsylvania's business climate and has included a number of tax reductions and tax credits in the proposed state budget to reduce the tax burden on job creators.

The phaseout of the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax, which stalled the past few years, will finally resume and be completely eliminated by 2014. The administration's business-friendly interpretation of tax law regarding 100 percent bonus depreciation benefits and goal to reduce the corporate net income tax from 9.99 to 6.99 percent will send a strong message to the business community that Pennsylvania is serious about supporting job growth.

Please understand that I’m not necessarily saying I support these initiatives. I am merely pointing them out to refute the argument of Chris Friend, who, the Courier Times tells us, is an “independent” columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter (I’ll let you, dear reader, search out his site and read some of his content to find out how “independent” he is…in the way that Fix Noise is “fair and balanced,” as they say).

The theme of Friend’s piece is how bad PA is supposed to be as opposed to how great Texas is supposed to be, including the following…

When in Texas, there is an unbridled sense of pride, a feeling that the American pioneering spirit is thriving, and that nothing is unattainable.

Well then, if Friend thinks the land of the “yellow rose” is supposedly so wonderful and PA is so awful, then I have this bit of advice.

Move there, and stay there (and don’t file a medical disability claim or expect your premiums to decrease - here).

Thursday Stuff

No, Dana, the Iraq "WMD" was never found. No, Dana, the "smoking gun" didn't turn into a mushroom cloud. No, Dana, what Colin Powell held up at the U.N. that day in his very best "Ooga Booga Invade Iraq Cuz Saddam Is A Mean, Rotten Guy" impersonation was a vial of baking soda, not actual anthrax.

Yes, Dana, you are a goddamn bubblehead (here)...



...and just in case you thought I would let Eric Bolling off the hook...



...and Rachel Maddow quite properly skewers those teabaggers one more time, to say nothing of the "usual suspect" pundit class (here)...



...and "I remember when it used to be easy, I remember when it wasn't so hard" too.

Wednesday Stuff

Keith Olbermann has his own special remembrances of Rupert The Pirate in the wake of the phone hacking scandal - here is the first...



...and here is the second (Current has done a good job, but as you can see from the "face freeze," they still have a bug or two to work on)...



...and here's more on what initiated Arizona's "illegal to be brown" law, as well as copycat laws around the country (here and here also...and you just knew that the Koch Brothers were involved, didn't you?)...



...and this is a bit of a dark, psychological folky tune I guess.

Wednesday Mashup (7/13/11)

(Not sure about posting tomorrow, by the way…)

To this I have only to say – uh, yep…

The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to keep energy efficiency standards for light bulbs, which passed in 2007 and are set to phase in beginning next year.

So, do you have to stockpile those old-school, soft white incandescent bulbs now?

No. Congress hasn't banned them. All it has said is that, starting in 2012, light bulbs must use less power to create the same amount of light, saving the country electricity and Americans cash. Light bulb makers already have familiar-looking soft white incandescent bulbs for sale that meet the federal regulations, so you don't have to use extremely efficient compact fluorescent or LED bulbs if you don't want to. Continuing innovation, meanwhile, promises to make tougher rules easier to meet in later years.

The Natural Resources Defense Council calculates that these light bulb efficiency standards will eventually save Americans $12.5 billion a year in lower energy bills, reducing consumption by the equivalent of the output of 33 large power plants and slashing greenhouse and other pollution along the way. Newer bulbs are more expensive than the old clunkers, but often not by much, and they more than pay for themselves in decreased energy use.

And who exactly was trying to defeat the new light bulb energy standard, you may ask? None other than Repug U.S. House Rep “Smoky Joe” Barton of Texas, and (as noted here)…

…the proposal…reflects the catcalls of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann (that) is likely to land in the same dustbin now home to many other GOP energy proposals.

Also, when it comes to light bulbs, here is a quote from David Edison Sloane, grandson of you-know-who…

My great-grandfather would be calling us to put politics aside and get back to doing what Americans do best — create better mousetraps… and better light-bulbs.

To say nothing of job creation also (remember jobs, House Repugs?).

Update 7/15/11: Typically cowardly and stoo-pid (here)...

And I suppose it’s a logical progression to move from “dim bulbs” to Stu Bykofsky of the Philadelphia Daily News; he concocted the following today in a profile of actor Richard Dreyfuss, who apparently is now a conservative or something (though Dreyfuss is trying to promote civics education, which is commendable)…

There's no denying Dreyfuss' devotion to civics, a small word with a big meaning that he defined as understanding "how to run the country." He passionately proclaims his unabashed love of country - this country. The Far Left usually brays that even wearing a flag lapel pin is goose-stepping jingoism.

Really?

And when it comes to Democrats vs. Republicans in the matter of civics, I recently posted about this topic here (last bullet), but in addition, here is a story of federal funding cuts endangering civics instruction in Indiana, here is a similar story about Wyoming, and here is a similar story about cuts to AmeriCorps funding in California (and gee, last I checked, Orange Man and his pals were in charge of the House, not the Dems).

Oh, and for laughs, here once more is “Byko” and his comparison to a certain falafel-abusing Fix Noise pundit and K.O. (and by the way, “Byko,” I’m still waiting for an apology for this).

Continuing, James Taranto of the Murdoch Street Journal waxes indignant as follows (here)…

President Obama is pulling out the big guns and pointing them straight at your grandmother. "Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3" absent an agreement with Congress to raise the debt ceiling, CBS News reports:

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

At a press conference yesterday, Obama demanded that Republicans not only authorize trillions of dollars in new borrowing, which at this point seems unavoidable, but agree to what he called "massive, job-killing tax increases" effective in 2013--i.e., after what he expects will be his re-election.

For this he drew plaudits from what used to be called the mainstream media. "Obama Grasping Centrist Banner in Debt Impasse" read the New York Times headline. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza dubbed him "Dad-in-Chief," explaining: "Boil Obama's message down and you get this: Adults sometimes have to do things that they don't want to do. This is one of those times. So, let's get it done."

The kids are acting up, so he threatens to starve Granny to death. That's just how a strong father behaves.

Taranto imagines an Obama threat against an elderly family member – here is an actual one from “the loyal opposition”…

Finally, someone named Michael Goodwin kept up the Obama bashing here…

…Obama's default statist position remains unmolested by facts or last year's landslide that was a rebuke to his first two years. He continues to push bigger and bigger government, higher and higher taxes and more and more welfare programs.

I’ve already mentioned many, many times that, with the “stim,” Obama gave us the biggest middle class tax cut in history, but as for the “welfare” part, this tells us that welfare costs (as part of 2010 mandatory spending including unemployment) were $571 billion, with government spending in 2011 at not quite $500 billion here, including unemployment…so welfare actually went down under Obama.

As noted here, though, Goodwin has never been one to let the truth get in the way of propagating his talking points (and speaking of Media Matters, they have been under relentless fire from Rupert The Pirate and his minions, no doubt for helping to expose News Corp’s dark deeds when it comes to hacking phone conversations…a sample is shown in the clip from here).

Tuesday Stuff

I apologize for wasting more people's time over Sarah Palin, but I think Lawrence O'Donnell has every right for some good old fashioned indignation here; I honestly thought Tina Brown would do a better job than this with this publication...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

...and I guess this is keeping up with a bit of a folky vein I started last night - sounds good to me.

Tuesday Mashup (7/12/11)

Gee, I can hardly wait for the outrage from the racist-sign-and-funny-hat crowd when they hear about this…

Washington (CNN) -- Partisan warfare over the looming debt ceiling crisis escalated Tuesday as GOP leaders once again refused to consider any tax hikes and President Barack Obama warned that, absent a deal, he can't guarantee older Americans will continue receiving Social Security checks next month.

"There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Obama said, according to excerpts of a CBS News interview scheduled to air Tuesday night.

"We can't guarantee -- if there were a default -- any specific bill would be paid," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

Even Tom Donahue, president of the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce said the following (here)…

The business community is also upping the pressure on lawmakers, warning that a failure to increase the nation's borrowing limit could have an immediate impact on the economy recovery.

"An unprecedented default on the nation's bills would have dire consequences for our economy, our markets, and Main Street Americans," said (Donohue).

And let’s not forget that this is the same Tom Donahue who said “we’ll get rid of you” to Repugs opposing an increase in the debt limit (here).

The predictable teabagger response followed (here)…

I found Tom Donahue’s comments outrageous, tone-deaf, totally establishment, and doesn’t understand at all where we’re at right now (sic)…If Tom Donahue is more comfortable having Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year because he wants to get rid of all of us tea party, fiscally-conservative freshman who came here on a mission to save our kids from the debt we’re placing on their backs, then fine. He can have Nancy Pelosi as his Speaker.

The person who uttered those words was Repug U.S. House rep (and freshman) Joe "Welcome To The Club" Walsh of Illinois.

As Think Progress reminds us here, failing to raise the debt ceiling could have a bigger impact than the 2008 downturn that started our current misery…

To see just how much, imagine that this debt limit crisis happened last year. The budget deficit last August and September was $125 billion. If the government had been unable to finance that deficit, it would have been forced to cut $125 billion from its spending during those two months—which if translated into a decline of that magnitude in economic activity would have resulted in GDP dropping by 2.3 percent, in nominal terms, from the previous quarter.

To put that kind of drop in perspective, consider that the biggest quarter-to-quarter drop in nominal GDP since 1947, when official statistics began, was 2 percent from the third to fourth quarter of 2008—the middle of the Great Recession, when we lost nearly 2 million jobs.

And just as a reminder, here is a record of Republican votes on raising the debt ceiling when their party held the White House versus Democratic Party control (and this chart shows us that most of the debt is due to the wars and Dubya’s ruinous tax cuts…still astonishes and sickens me that our corporate media has so thoroughly seemed to “disappear” Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History on this and other matters).

Oh, and when it comes to our local politicians, this tells us that both Charlie Dent and Mikey The Beloved voted No to raising the debt limit (remember that when you don’t get your Social Security Checks on time, you zany teabaggers).

Also voting against raising the debt limit (as Think Progress tells us here) was Pat Toomey himself; as noted here, the Chamber spent $1.5 million against Admiral Joe Sestak, who ran against Toomey, in 2010…wonder if anyone will remember Toomey’s vote against Donahue and the Chamber in 2016 when “No Corporate Tax” Pat runs for re-election? Do I even need to ask (sigh)?

Finally on this subject (as noted here), “Orange Man” Boehner said, “excuse us for trying to lead” on this issue with Paul Ryan’s plan to eliminate Medicare and gut Medicaid (kind of hard to “lead” on this issue given that Obama had submitted his own budget weeks before Ryan did, as Steve Benen points out here).

(By the way, Yahoo messed with the link above and changed it to some story about McConnell saying Obama should have new powers on the debt limit, or something. Short of passing a declaration of war, since when does Congress tell a president what he can and cannot do? I hope Obama and his people tell McConnell where he can stick his “deal.”)

Update 7/13/11: Good job, Mr. President (here - happy to compliment you instead of snark over this issue).

Next, former Bushco flak Marc Thiessen reminds us how much he has utterly forgotten that this country abides by the rule of law, assuming he ever knew that to begin with (here)…

In an interview for my Washington Post column this week, I asked Tim Pawlenty about the recent testimony of Admiral William McRaven that the Obama administration has no clear plan for handling suspected terrorist leaders if they are caught alive—and that if captured terrorists cannot be tried in a U.S. court or transferred to the custody of an allied country, they are simply let go.

“I think that is preposterous,” Pawlenty told me, adding that he will end such a catch and release policy if he is elected president. Pawlenty also said he would keep Guantanamo open, and start bringing terrorists there, as well as other facilities, for interrogation again. He would restore enhanced interrogation “under certain and controlled and limited circumstances.”

Why Thiessen would think that Pawlenty of Nothing is an expert on anything except running a failed presidential campaign…oh, silly me – I just realized that the game here is for Thiessen to find some poor sap whose hopes for higher office are fading out of sight and use that individual to validate his right wing talking points, while the designated sap, meanwhile, can claim some kind of thoroughly undeserved foreign policy “cred” and risk no shot of getting called out in the process. Your basic win-win, I guess.

Well, to begin with the argument about bringing terrorists to “other facilities,” this tells us that...

The Obama administration approved the secret detention of a Somali terror suspect on board a US navy ship, where for two months he was subjected to military interrogation in the absence of a lawyer and without charge.

The capture and treatment of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame has rekindled the debate within the US about the appropriate handling of terror suspects. Republicans in Congress have objected to Warsame being brought to New York this week to be tried in a criminal court – an attempt by the Obama administration to avoid sending the prisoner to Guantánamo Bay, which it has promised to close.

…

Last week Admiral William McRaven, soon to become head of US Special Operations Command, told his confirmation hearing that militants captured outside Afghanistan were often “put on a naval vessel” to be held until they could be sent to a third country or a case was compiled against them for prosecution in the US courts.

Gosh, didn’t Thiessen just tell us that Admiral McRaven testified that Obama “has no clear plan for handling suspected terrorists”? Sounds like Number 44 and company have a “plan” of sorts that they’ve been executing already.

That said, I should also point out that I’m not sure how legal it is to keep these individuals on a ship for two months prior to charging them (and how exactly is this supposed to be an improvement over keeping them at a Bushco “black site”?). The standard I always use is how much we would object if foreign individuals subjected our people to the same treatment.

Besides, as noted here from 2008…

An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that (Mohammed) Akhtiar was one of dozens and perhaps hundreds of men whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments. . . .

From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there. . . .

I’ve often wondered how Thiessen would hold up under the methods of interrogation he so easily advocates for others. My guess is that he would be bawling his eyes out in a matter of seconds.

Finally, I missed this little item from Joke Line last Thursday; did you know that Head Start is a failure? Well…

…Head Start did work well in several pilot programs carefully run by professionals in the 1960s. And so it was "taken to scale," as the wonks say, as part of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

It is now 45 years later. We spend more than $7 billion providing Head Start to nearly 1 million children each year. And finally there is indisputable evidence about the program's effectiveness, provided by the Department of Health and Human Services: Head Start simply does not work.

According to the Head Start Impact Study, which was quite comprehensive, the positive effects of the program were minimal and vanished by the end of first grade. Head Start graduates performed about the same as students of similar income and social status who were not part of the program. These results were so shocking that the HHS team sat on them for several years, according to Russ Whitehurst of the Brookings Institution, who said, "I guess they were trying to rerun the data to see if they could come up with anything positive. They couldn't."

Call me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, but I thought the point of Head Start wasn’t to turn school-age kids trying to emerge from poverty into little Einsteins. It was to help them to achieve parity with their peers, and from that point, whether or not they failed or succeeded in school was up to them (and in the event of the former, why should Head Start necessarily be held accountable each time as the reason why?).

Besides, this tells us about the success of the Head Start program in Harlem, this provides a list of “Better Chance For School Success” programs courtesy of Arkansas Head Start, this tells us of Head Start success stories in greater Dallas, and this tells us how the local Head Start program of Georgia is “maintaining success.”

Klein ends his column with this…

"The argument that Head Start opponents make is that it is a jobs program," a senior Obama Administration official told me, "and sadly, there is something to that."

This is criminal, every bit as outrageous as tax breaks for oil companies — perhaps even more outrageous, since we are talking about the lives of children.

First of all, this “senior Obama Administration official” ought to have the guts to go on record with such a cowardly cave-in to a right-wing talking point (who cares if it’s a “jobs program” – as if that’s something to be ashamed of somehow – as long as the kids benefit from it?). Second, I see no way whatsoever to equate $7 billion in Head Start funding with $21 billion in tax breaks for oil companies.

This is typical of a soulless corporate media Beltway shill like Klein, though, who apparently only practices the actual craft of journalism during fleeting lucid moments (with items such as this sadly more representative of his type of “reporting”).

Monday Stuff

(Not so good of a posting day again today - I'll try again tomorrow.)

Gee, that Van Jones is a pretty bright guy. Why exactly did "President Hopey Changey" give him the boot again? Oh, some wingnuts got mad over some 9/11 "truther" stuff, or something - riiiight...

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...and RIP Facundo Cabral, a true champion of human rights in Latin America who was murdered for his beliefs; I don't know what he's saying in this tune, but it is a work of true beauty.