Thursday, April 21, 2011
Blame The Victim
Shameful.
*sigh*
What The Frack?
Only In Floriduh
I Won't Get My Hopes Up, But...
Remember 2008?
Only those possible contenders who regularly appear on television — or have made bids before — are well known enough to elicit significant views from their fellow Republicans. And of that group, only one, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, is viewed favorably by more than half of the Republican electorate.
The poll would seem to reflect the late start to the Republican primary season, with many of the major likely candidates seeking to hoard their money and avoid making any missteps that they might have to live with later, when voters go to polls or caucus rooms.
While it may not be unusual for voters’ attention to be focused elsewhere at this stage of a campaign, the survey at the very least provides a reality check for a race that has received frenetic coverage at times on cable news and the Internet even though nearly 60 percent of Republicans cannot point to a single candidate about whom they are enthusiastic, according to the Times/CBS poll.
In case anyone still has doubts about Obama's chances in 2012.
Indeed, John McCain may have picked precisely the wrong election to run in. He could easily have kept his "heir apparent" crown into this election cycle, and probably picked up the nomination with far less difficulty from the likes of Huckabee and Romney (who either would have been the defeated candidate in 2008 or exhausted their personal resources trying), and Sarah Palin (and by extension, Michele Bachmann) would have been kept off the radar completely. In my opinion, McCain would have been the only viable contender to unseat Obama, a la Reagan in 1980.
This is frankly an astounding poll, when you think about it: anger at Obama should be at an all-time high, what with the agenda he managed to pass (or shove down the throats of Teabaggers), and as we saw in 2008, that usually means at least one candidate gets the coalescence of that backlash.
Here, we see....nothing.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Things You Didn't Know About Taxes (But Should Have)
It's About Time
Interesting
You Just Knew It Was Coming
It's Hard To Believe
Attention Coloradans!
Just Remember...
Sisu, In All Its Forms
Capitalism Comes To Cuba
I'm Glad he Does, Cuz I Don't!
Democrats and Republicans agree that $4 trillion needs to be slashed over roughly a decade, Obama told a town hall-style event in Virginia. But the two parties disagree on what to cut to get there.
"The big question that is going to have to be resolved is: how do we do it?" Obama told students at a community college. "I don't want to lie to you, there is a big philosophical divide right now."
The president was promoting his plan for cutting the deficit a day after Standard & Poor's threatened to strip America of its prized triple-A credit rating. The Wall Street ratings agency cited concern that Washington's polarized politics would make it difficult to reach a debt deal before the 2012 presidential election.
Obama, who is traveling around the country this week to advocate his deficit proposals, did not show any greater flexibility over his demands that taxes go up for the wealthiest Americans.
Unless by common ground, he means that the two sides agree on the $4 trillion, I don't see how there's common ground here. Republicans are between Iraq and a hard place, needing to make their Teabagger constituency happy without cutting defense spending, Medicare entitlements or raising taxes.
Democrats have the luxury of standing around, tapping their watches and sighing imaptiently.
Lest you think this is another political kabuki, this year's budget is it. This is the whole enchilada for the progressive movement in this nation. If we allow the Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts, then we have no business being a movement.
Sure, there's some posturing involved: I don't think the Republicans can let this budget go without some attempt at face-saving for their centerpiece platform plank of lower taxes, which has proven over the past thirty years to neither create jobs nor improve the economy much. I think even they know it, and that they're shamelessly pandering to the corporatocracy and the orc minions who somehow believe if they're fervent enough, their overlords will shower gelt upon them.
Likewise, much of the "senior scarifying" that the Dems have been doing is a mask to the very real growth of Medicare and what that bodes for the future of the budget.
I'm not suggesting that we have to have entitlement cuts immediately (frankly, I haven't studied the problem enough to have an opinion) but what I am suggesting is, given the current anti-tax climate, it's going to be hard to justify the kinds of benefits we have to pay out in a few years. When does it become enough? At fifty percent of the budget? We're tracking perilously close to that, which means we're sopping up funds for other critical progressive programs like energy reform and infrastructure repair. I would like this not to have to come down to clean air for our children and grandchildren versus keeping me alive on a ventilator.
All that said, this is an urgently important budget coming upon us, because what grows out of it will impact the next decade's worth of budget proposals and likely the economic growth for the next century, and along with it, the income and well-being of every American.
As Ben Bradlee said during Watergate, "Nothing's riding on this except the [...] future of the country.
So if you've been holding onto someone's balls for a rainy day, well, the clouds have gathered.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Thanks For Pointing That Out, Captain Obvious (Redux)
Thanks For Pointing That Out, Captain Obvious!
What Are You Afraid Of, Judge Prosser?
Green News Ahead
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is heading to Boston to reveal more details Tuesday about the progress of what would be the nation's first offshore wind farm.Salazar will unveil a final operation and construction plan for the proposed 130-turbine Cape Wind project, an individual briefed on the announcement told The Associated Press.
Item - Google buys majority stake in huge wind farm
Google Inc. said on Monday it and two Japanese partners will pay General Electric Co. about $500 million for a majority equity stake in the world's largest wind farm, under construction in Oregon.
The $2-billion US Shepherds Flat project, near Arlington, Ore., is due to be completed next year. It will stretch over 77 square kilometres of north-central Oregon and generate enough energy for 235,000 U.S. homes. The site's developer is Caithness Energy.
First Rule Of Journalism
Y'know, He's Probably Right
Whistling Past The Graveyard
You know the conventional wisdom. It is that unemployment ticking down, plus the economy inching back, plus the power of the presidency to affect events, equals a likely Obama victory in 2012. Smart people, especially Republicans, believe this. But how about this for a thought: It's not true. It's all wrong. Barack Obama can be taken, and his adversaries haven't even noticed. In fact, he will likely lose in 2012.
Godspeed, Grete
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
- A. E. Housman "To an Athlete Dying Young"
Monday, April 18, 2011
On Broadway
Something resembling a plot doesn't arrive until late in Act I
OK, NOW, Panic!
Holy Shit!
Talk About Missing The Boat
I Sort Of Wondered When
[Rep. Paul ] Ryan (R-Wisonconsin, and is there some fucking hallucinogen in the cheese lately in that shithole state?????), however, on CBS' Face the Nation, told Bob Schieffer something very different. He said that Republican leaders had not told him, as Geithner said they had told the president, that they would not stand in the way of a debt limit increase. Then he said that any debt limit increase would have to come as part of a deal to limit future spending.
Finland's Tea Party
The Law Of Unintended Consequences
The Non-Story Story
Take His Advice, Mr. President
Which brings me to those calls for a bipartisan solution. Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.
This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.
So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.
As Krugman points out, the GOP last year ran on a platform that included a scare to seniors about Medicare and how healthcare reform would decimate that program, effectively making Medicare reform a shibboleth.
Their budget proposal cuts Medicare even deeper than the worst-case scenario they painted during the 2010 campaign. How is this meant to be a compromise? How is this meant to be civil? And yet, when President Obama correctly points out that distinction in this year's rhetoric ("New Teabager") versus "Teabagger Classic," he's accused of being hyperpartisan.
I presume had he been white, they would have claimed he declared class warfare, but even they aren't stupid enough to fall into that trap.
The Republican budget IS cruel nonsense because it ignores completely the other way of balancing a budget.
If you're running up your credit card bills, it makes sense to cut back your spending, and to keep a close eye across your budget. Yes, there are things you have to pay: mortgages, as an example, fixed outlays that are difficult to reduce (you can refinance, if you can find a bankster who's not too busy counting his record profits after coming to you hat in hand for a bailout last year), but the things you don't need to pay, like gasoline, you find ways to reduce. You drive less, you search for cheaper gas.
But you also, and no one can deny this, look for ways to increase your income, at least until you've got your feet squarely under you again. You take a second job, maybe, as a last resort, or you hold a garage sale or auction junk off on eBay.
You do this so you don't have to starve and eat the family cat, which is essentially what Repbulicans are insisting the American people, particularly the poor, do so that those bankers can sit and count their profits.
And they need to be called on it.