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Sep 20 2011
More Economic Insanity
In his speech Monday, President Barrack Obama actually started to sound like a president. His threat to veto any deficit cutting legislation that did not include revenue producing tax increases was praised by everyone left of Attila the Hun as “progressive”. It gave these critics some kind of new “hope” that Obama had finally drawn a line in the sand with the “my way or the highway” tea party Republicans.
Really? Were any of them listening to what he did say? What did most everyone from Michael Moore on Rachel Maddow’s show to Markos Moulitsas and Move-On.org miss? Anyone with half a functioning brain can see that what Obama offered was just more of the same insanity, piled higher and deeper that and was being covered with his new found veto power.
What should have caught their attention was what Jon Walker at FireDogLake pointed out:
In fact, in his only veto threat Obama made it clear he would accept Medicare benefit cuts if they were accompanied by new tax revenue from the rich by saying, “I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share.” That “but” is a very important clause that means there are scenarios in which Obama would sign a bill that significantly cuts Medicare benefits.
Hello? Did anyone besides a very few of us on the left not hear this?
Obama’s communications director, Dan Pfeiffer said, “we are entering a new phase.” And just what “phase” would that be? “Chief Negotiator” to “Chief Hostage Taker” to get his right wing Republican agenda past this extremist congress?
Obama is now using the social safety network that protects our most vulnerable citizens to con the electorate that he has changed and to reelect him.
What bilge.
Sep 20 2011
On This Day In History September 20
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
September 20 is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 102 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1973, in a highly publicized “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, top women’s player Billie Jean King, 29, beats Bobby Riggs, 55, a former No. 1 ranked men’s player. Riggs (1918-1995), a self-proclaimed male chauvinist, had boasted that women were inferior, that they couldn’t handle the pressure of the game and that even at his age he could beat any female player. The match was a huge media event, witnessed in person by over 30,000 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and by another 50 million TV viewers worldwide. King made a Cleopatra-style entrance on a gold litter carried by men dressed as ancient slaves, while Riggs arrived in a rickshaw pulled by female models. Legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell called the match, in which King beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. King’s achievement not only helped legitimize women’s professional tennis and female athletes, but it was seen as a victory for women’s rights in general.
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943 in Long Beach, California) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. She won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. King has been an advocate against sexism in sports and society. She is known for “The Battle of the Sexes” in 1973, in which she defeated Bobby Riggs, a former Wimbledon men’s singles champion.
King is the founder of the Women’s Tennis Association, the Women’s Sports Foundation, and World Team Tennis, which she founded with her former husband, Lawrence King.
Despite King’s achievements at the world’s biggest tennis tournaments, the U.S. public best remembers her for her win over Bobby Riggs in 1973.
Riggs had been a top men’s player in the 1930s and 1940s in both the amateur and professional ranks. He won the Wimbledon men’s singles title in 1939, and was considered the World No. 1 male tennis player for 1941, 1946, and 1947. He then became a self-described tennis “hustler” who played in promotional challenge matches. In 1973, he took on the role of male chauvinist. Claiming that the women’s game was so inferior to the men’s game that even a 55-year-old like himself could beat the current top female players, he challenged and defeated Margaret Court 6-2, 6-1. King, who previously had rejected challenges from Riggs, then accepted a lucrative financial offer to play him.
Sep 19 2011
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Bill Keller: Fill in the Blanks
Just a few winters ago my wife and I took our daughters to witness the inauguration of a man who had campaigned on hope and embodied possibility. We are pretty immune to political euphoria, but, circulating among the footsore pilgrims, we could imagine our country had embraced the idea that we were all in this together. When the newly sworn-in president congratulated us all on choosing unity of purpose over recriminations and worn-out dogmas, we wanted to believe that we had done exactly that.
Inaugurations, of course, are ceremonial ephemera. After the “Ask not” comes the Bay of Pigs. After the 60-plus approval rating comes the 9-plus unemployment rate. But it is worth pondering how we got from that day to this partisan clamor, how we lost that sense of common cause, and how it became a consensus of the commentariat that Barack Obama is in serious danger of being a one-term president.
The decline in Obama’s political fortunes, the Great Disappointment, can be attributed to four main factors: the intractable legacy bequeathed by George W. Bush; Republican resistance amounting to sabotage; the unrealistic expectations and inevitable disenchantment of some of the president’s supporters; and, to be sure, the man himself.
Robert Reich: The Election of 2012: Why the Most Important Issues May Be Off the Table (But Should Be On It)
We’re on the cusp of the 2012 election. What will it be about? It seems reasonably certain President Obama will be confronted by a putative Republican candidate who:
Believes corporations are people, wants to cut the top corporate rate to 25% (from the current 35%) and no longer require they pay tax on foreign income, who will eliminate capital gains and dividend taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year, raise the retirement age for Social Security and turn Medicaid into block grants to states, seek a balanced-budged amendment to the Constitution, require any regulatory agency issuing a new regulation repeal another regulation of equal cost (regardless of the benefits), and seek repeal of Obama’s healthcare plan.
Or one who:
Believes the Federal Reserve is treasonous when it expands the money supply, doubts human beings evolved from more primitive forms of life, seeks to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and shift most public services to the states, thinks Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, while governor took a meat axe to public education and presided over an economy that generated large numbers of near-minimum-wage jobs, and who will shut down most federal regulatory agencies, cut corporate taxes, and seek repeal of Obama’s healthcare plan.
President Obama will propose a millionaires’ tax as part of the deficit-reduction package to be unveiled Monday. This is a great idea, which has already been branded “class warfare” by the Republicans.
The problem is the rest of the expected speech, which entirely mixes Obama’s message to voters. Obama is widely expected to propose cutting $300 billion from Medicare over a decade, including a widely-leaked increase in the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.
That really is a kind of class warfare, directed against the vast majority of older Americans who cannot afford to buy decent health insurance in the private marketplace.
By contrast, the proposed tax on people who make over a million dollars a year is sensible, and smokes out Republicans as defenders of wrongheaded economics and the very rich.
John Nichols: Thousands Cheer Bernie Sanders’ Appeal to Obama, Super Committee: Make the Rich Pay for Deficits
Declaring that “Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history,” and decrying threats to Medicare and Medicaid that would punish Americans who did not cause the current economic crisis, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brought thousands of progressives from across the Midwest to the feet Saturday, as they cheered his message to President Obama and the congressional “Super Committee”:”We can deal with deficit reduction in a way that is fair and responsible.”
“Instead of balancing the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the most vulnerable,” Sanders said, “it is time to ask the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in this country to pay their fair share.”
Joshua Spivak: The Old Electoral College Switcheroo: The Devastating Consequences of Pennsylvania’s Proposal to Game the Electoral College
With a close 2012 presidential race approaching, Republican-dominated legislature is now looking to deliver a big blow to President Obama’s electoral strategy. The state is debating whether to switch its allocation of its Electoral College votes from the winner-take-all system used by nearly every other state to the congressional district-based system of dividing votes.
The result of such a switch could seriously damage Obama’s chances of reelection. He won 21 electoral votes in Pennsylvania in 2008. Under the district-based system, he would have only won 11. But the effect on 2012 is not the real problem with such a switch — instead it could cause a quadrennial havoc and serve as another body blow to any public confidence in the electoral system.
Eugene Robinson: Where Are All of the Compassionate Conservatives?
Washington – We heard plenty of contradictions, distortions and untruths at the Republican candidates’ tea party debate, but we heard shockingly little compassion — and almost no acknowledgement that political and economic policy choices have a moral dimension.
The lowest point of the evening — and perhaps of the political season — came when moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul a hypothetical question about a young man who elects not to purchase health insurance. The man has a medical crisis, goes into a coma and needs expensive care. “Who pays?” Blitzer asked.
“That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks,” Paul answered. “This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody … ”
Blitzer interrupted: “But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?”
Sep 19 2011
On This Day In History September 19
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
September 19 is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 103 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1796, President George Washington’s Farewell Address to the Nation is published.
George Washington’s Farewell Address was written to “The People of the United States” near the end of his second term as President of the United States and before his retirement to Mount Vernon.
Originally published in David Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796 under the title “The Address of General Washington To The People of The United States on his declining of the Presidency of the
United States,” the letter was almost immediately reprinted in newspapers across the country and later in a pamphlet form. The work was later named a “Farewell Address,” as it was Washington’s valedictory after 45 years of service to the new republic, first during the Revolution of the Continental Army and later as the nation’s first president.The letter was originally prepared in 1792 with the help of James Madison, as Washington prepared to retire following a single term in office. However, he set aside the letter and ran for a second term after his Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, and his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, convinced him that the growing divisions between the newly formed Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties, along with the current state of foreign affairs, would tear the country apart in the absence of his leadership.
Four years later, as his second term came to a close, Washington revisited the letter and with the help of Alexander Hamilton prepared a revision of the original draft to announce his intention to decline a third term in office; to reflect the emerging issues of the American political landscape in 1796; and to parting advice to his fellow Americans, express his support for the government eight years following the adoption of the Constitution; and to defend his administration’s record.
The letter was written by Washington after years of exhaustion due to his advanced age, years of service to his country, the duties of the presidency, and increased attacks by his political opponents. It was published almost two months before the Electoral College cast their votes in the 1796 presidential election.
Sep 18 2011
Class War on the Poor
Yes, the Republicans are partly correct in saying that the President’s newest proposal to increase revenues by adjusting the tax rates on top earners to make sure they pay their fair share is class warfare:
WASHINGTON – Republicans on Sunday decried the notion of a new minimum tax rate for millionaires as “class warfare,” saying the proposal by President Obama may be intended to portray Congressional Republicans who resist it as being callously indifferent to the hardships facing many Americans.
They just have the wrong class on whom that war has been declared:
WASHINGTON – President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.
With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.
Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.
Sure, Obama may look like he’s being more “confrontational” with Republicans but the reality is he is still selling out the most vulnerable of our citizens.
Sep 18 2011
Rant of the Week: Jon Stewart, Kristen Schaal
Warning! Even with blips the language is graphic and not work place friendly.
Uncensored – Big Mouth Billie Vagina
Kristen Schaal is torn on the HPV issue: on one hand, Rick Perry takes care of Texas vaginas, and on the other, Michele Bachmann argues for a woman’s right to choose cancer.
Sep 18 2011
On This Day In History Archive links
Sep 18 2011
On This Day In History September 18
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
September 18 is the 261st day of the year (262nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 104 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1793, George Washington lays the cornerstone to the United States Capitol building, the home of the legislative branch of American government.
The building would take nearly a century to complete, as architects came and went, the British set fire to it and it was called into use during the Civil War. Today, the Capitol building, with its famous cast-iron dome and important collection of American art, is part of the Capitol Complex, which includes six Congressional office buildings and three Library of Congress buildings, all developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.
As a young nation, the United States had no permanent capital, and Congress met in eight different cities, including Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, before 1791. In 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which gave President Washington the power to select a permanent home for the federal government. The following year, he chose what would become the District of Columbia from land provided by Maryland. Washington picked three commissioners to oversee the capital city’s development and they in turn chose French engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant to come up with the design. However, L’Enfant clashed with the commissioners and was fired in 1792. A design competition was then held, with a Scotsman named William Thornton submitting the winning entry for the Capitol building. In September 1793, Washington laid the Capitol’s cornerstone and the lengthy construction process, which would involve a line of project managers and architects, got under way.
Sep 18 2011
Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Before the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, former President Bill Clinton discusses the global jobs crisis. Plus, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the Middle East, and Google’s Eric Schmidt on jobs and innovation.
The roundtable with George Will, Cokie Roberts, ABC News senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl and presidential historian Michael Beschloss will discuss the recently released tapes of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: This Sunday’s Guests are former Vice President Dick Cheney and former President Bill Clinton.
The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent, Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor and Major Garrett, National Journal Congressional Correspondent, will discuss these questions:
Is Rick Perry Ronald Reagan? Is He The Underestimated Conservative Who Could Win?
The Jackie Kennedy Tapes — She Tells What JFK Could Not Tell
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Once again former President Bill Clinton discussing jobs and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-KY, The Human Hybrid Turtle) discussing how not to create jobs.
Joining the roundtable, Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI), Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, Senior political analyst for TIME Magazine, Mark Halperin and NY Times White House Correspondent Helene Cooper will discuss jobs or not.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Plus, former Congressional Budget Office directors Alice Rivlin and Douglas Holtz-Eakin discuss the impact, or not, of President Obama’s jobs plan.
Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Pres. Obama’s jobs czar Jeff Immelt on getting US back to work & a panel on the Middle East.
As the economy faces the risk of another recession, and the 2012 campaign looms, President Obama has been groping for a response to the biggest crisis of his career. All he has to do is listen to the voters.
The Times and CBS News released a new poll on Friday, and once again we were impressed that Americans are a lot smarter than Republican leaders think, more willing to sacrifice for the national good than Democratic leaders give them credit for, and more eager to see the president get tough than Mr. Obama and his conflict-averse team realize.
So long as the politicians keep reinforcing their misconceptions – and listening only to themselves – the country has little chance of getting what the voters want most: jobs and a growing economy.
Gail Collins: Rick Perry, Uber Texan
YOU think of Rick Perry, you think of Texas. And more Texas. Perry the cowboy coyote-killer, the lord of the Texas job-creation machine, the g-dropping glad-hander with a “howdy” for every stranger in the room. He barely exists in the national mind outside of the Texas connection.
A continuation of the TV series “Dallas” is due in 2012. How long will it take before we fixate on the fact that James Richard Perry is another J. R.?
Some of this is natural – the man is the governor, after all. But we didn’t obsess about the state this way when Governor Bush was the presidential candidate. (We obsessed about the Bushes.) We didn’t talk endlessly about Arkansas when we were evaluating Governor Clinton. (We obsessed about the Clintons.)
The difference is that Perry obsesses about Texas, too. On the campaign trail, he’s the ambassador from the Lone Star State, promoter of the Texas Miracle, filtering almost everything through a Texas prism. On his maiden voyage through the Iowa State Fair, some hecklers were giving him a hard time, the typical hazing for a new face on the national scene, and Perry’s response was instinctive.
Michelle Chen: [In Anti-Government Politics, “Time-Out” on Regulation versus Shortened Lives ]
Seizing upon a reliable “job creation” talking point, conservatives have stoked their war against “big government” by trying to freeze federal actions to protect the public.
The proposed “Regulatory Time-Out Act,” which would impose a one-year moratorium on “significant” new regulations, takes aim at regulations that keep industry from dumping poison in rivers or accidentally blowing up factory workers-in other words, policies that capitalists call “job killers.”
According to the champion of the bill, Sen. Susan Collins, “significant” rules are those “costing more than $100 million per year,” and those projected to “have an adverse impact on jobs, the economy, or our international competitiveness.” The guiding principle of this proposed regulatory kill-switch is a cold cost-benefit analysis that weighs profitability against people’s health and safety.
Jim Hightower: DuPont’s Herbicide Goes Rogue
The company’s landscaping weed-killer turned out to be a tree-killer.
In the corporate world’s tortured language, workers are no longer fired. They just experience an “employment adjustment.” But the most twisted euphemism I’ve heard in a long time comes from DuPont: “We are investigating the reports of these unfavorable tree symptoms,” the pesticide maker recently stated.
How unfavorable? Finito, flat-lined, the tree is dead. Not just one tree, but hundreds of thousands all across the country are suffering the final “symptom.”
The culprit turns out to be Imprelis, a DuPont weed-killer widely applied to lawns, golf courses, and – ironically – cemeteries.
Rather than just poisoning dandelions and other weeds, the herbicide also seems to be causing spruces, pines, willows, poplars, and other unintended victims to croak.
“It’s been devastating,” says a Michigan landscaper who applied Imprelis to about a thousand properties this spring and has already had more than a third of them suffer outbreaks of tree deaths. “It looks like someone took a flamethrower to them,” he says.
Sep 18 2011
The Abbreviated Evening Edition
Our erstwhile news editor, ek hornbeck, is once again on assignment that keeps him from his duties here at the Gazette. Tonight’s Evening Edition will be hosted by me, tada, and will be abbreviated but interesting.
Hundreds march in Georgia to oppose Troy Davis execution
By David Beasley
(Reuters) – More than 2,000 activists chanting and toting banners joined a march and rally on Friday to oppose the execution of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, convicted of the 1989 murder of a Savannah police officer.
Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles is slated to meet Monday to consider whether to stop Davis’ execution by lethal injection, which is scheduled for next Wednesday.
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