From Business Insider, a chart that should make you kinda frightened. Regarding Social Security, the payouts are starting to exceed the payroll tax that is meant to pay for Social Security benifits for those who are currently receiving them:
These lines were not expected to cross for at least another five years. This is the cost of the protracted recession and the failure of the economy to generate new jobs. The 2008-2009 increase in benefits was at a nosebleed level of 9.5%. That level has collapsed to 3.9% in the 2009-2010 period. This is the result of a “0%” COLA increase for 2010. The flip side is that those receiving checks are getting squeezed as their costs rise and income is stable. In the real world COLA is a joke. As this evolves it will just be a drag on consumption and extend the weak economy.
Ugh. The sad thing is, this is all very accurate. On top of our down economy, SS is actually broke now. Its no longer a theory that SS was a horrible ponzi scheme. Its a reality.
Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of Tuesday, leaping nearly $60 billion since Friday, the previous day for which figures were released.
Thank you Democrats. You irresponsible assholes. In 16 months, you've added 2.5 Trillion to the debt. And that isn't even including the Health Care mess you have coming our way.
I read that a BP spokesperson had said this quote:
Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp
And something smelled, well, fishy to me about it.
It didn't help that when I googled the phrase, every lefty website in America had it. But when I restricted the hits to "News" websites, only commentary articles appeared from very left leaning organizations stating that it was 'reported' that he said the phrase above.
So I started digging. Newsweek reported it as 'fact', in an article about the spoofed twitter feed on BP's PR. So I kept digging, and followed Newsweek's link.
Newsweek used a blog as their source. Oooookay. This kinda explains why Newsweek is going out of business. So then I followed the blog, and found this article:
Five years after Katrina, the return of disaster capitalism?
Disaster capitalism? Pardon, but when you read a quote like that, it should give you pause. It did me. Anyway, if you find a real link to a real story where the PR spokesperson said that, please let me know.
Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration. We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.
Your government will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to stop this crisis
In the meantime, it is discovered that 'Bush' has received the most amount of cash from BP of any candidate in the previous election. The candidate recieving the 3rd most amount of cash is a 'Republican' senator from Louisiana. It is then revealed that president's administration did not inspect the oil rig as it was supposed to. AP, using a Freedom of Information act, discovers that part of the inspection report on the rig seems to be "whited out" without any explanation.
Under pressure from the press, 'Bush' takes questions regarding the oil spill. During his press conference, the president denounces the 'scandalous' relationship between the agencies that regulate the oil industry, and the people who drill for oil. In response to a question about how involved he is, he tells the press that he is "briefed every day" on the progress in the gulf. When he's asked why the government isn't more involved, he tells the press that the technology of BP is superior to what the government has.
As oil begins to wash ashore, the president goes on vacation. Right before the president leaves, he gets his photo taken with two different sports teams for photo ops. His announced vacation plans are cut short to include a 4 hour visit to the oil slicked coast. While there, he says that 'mistakes are possible...but a lack of urgency about plugging the leak and restoring the region is not'.
As a side note, the president will be skipping the tradition of the president laying a wreath in Arlington on memorial day, with two wars going on overseas.
The president I'm talking about - of course - is not president Bush. However, it begs the question: What would the reaction be of the left if the president were not named Obama? Why isn't the left really, really upset at the clear financial connection between the current president and BP? -And just as importantly, why isn't the left upset that the president is going on vacation during this crisis?
Which only makes sense, since they were the ones who pushed for more drilling. If Barack's name was Cheney, people would be marching down Michigan Avenue with his picture on it with his hands soaked in oil. From Nola.com:
More than month into the spill -- and with no end in sight -- this past weekend may mark the moment when anger and frustration about the spill overtopped BP and began to splash on the carpet in the Oval Office.
Outside of the really bad pun, Nola.com is very accurate. There finally is some blame being put on the administration for not 'doing enough'. Now I should start here by explaining that I'm not one of those people who blames an administration when anything goes wrong. Further, I literally don't think its the administration's problem. But since they (Barack, etc.) went around blaming Bush for that hurricane in New Orleans, its only fair to blame this administration for not responding to this disaster in a timely manner.
Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. That is the lowest level of approval yet measured for this president. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove of his performance.
There could be many reasons why his performance numbers continue to plummet, but this could be a big one: the president approved of more drilling just months before a major oil disaster happened in the gulf. Oooops. Oh, and it gets worse for Mr. Obama. It seems that he was the biggest recipient of BP cash before it happened. According to Open Secrets:
During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP -- a Center for Responsive Politics' "heavy hitter" -- contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.
You have to hand it to Open Secrets. They are normally associated with exposing financial connections between Republicans and corporations. But they were completely up front about who was taking in money They even give a complete break down here:
Those are the top five. Note that number one is Barack. Number 3 is the representative from the state where oil is coming up on their shore. Is it any wonder that Barack's numbers are declining? Some democratic regular voters are finally figuring Barack out. It took long enough.
Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.
At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.
There is no surer way to bankrupt a country then by spending more money on government benefits while personal income declines. Or, as an economist in the article points out:
The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.
Grimes is completely correct. As private income goes down, there is less money to fuel government programs. As government programs increase, it becomes harder to get rid of them. Once government programs swallow up more of the GDP, it simply becomes unsustainable.
"If the economy produces jobs over the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George W. Bush's presidency."
Something sounded strange about that... so I followed the link to the National Journal, where the article came from:
More jobs might be created this year than during George W. Bush's presidency.
It sounded suspicious to me. So I read the article looking for the magic words "census jobs". The article does not mention them. That made me curious as to what the job report (listed in the article above) actually said:
Job gains occurred in manufacturing, professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality. Federal government employment also rose, reflecting continued hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010.
Hmmm. Sounds like the Census is creating a lot of that job surge. Just as I thought. But I wasn't satisfied with that. Because my friend's friends tried to suggest that Census workers weren't included in the job numbers. The following is from a PDF that the commerce department sent out in February of 2010:
According to Census Bureau operational plans, the number of hires for temporary 2010 Census jobs is estimated to be about 800,000 during April and May of this year. For several techincal reasons, including the very short term tenure of these jobs, the number of 2010 Census hires will not be fully reflected in either the monthly levels or changes in non-farm employment reported by the BLS. Based on the experience in the 2000 census, the BLS figures may show the number of temporary census jobs peaking at a level closer to 635,000 in May.
Read that paragraph again. It suggest that a whole lot of jobs might be temporarily created in May. And then the level of jobs will go down again. Now I just happened to find out recently that the Census kind of, you know, over-hired this year. Which means that they are not only done hiring, but they are trying to figure out what to do with all of their staff. Which means that in the next two months, we might see another surge of unemployed folks out there. I presume then that the Huffington Post will notice the Census jobs.
REPORTER: Are you able to get an answer on Fred's question about the teabagger quote, if the President is aware that people are offended? GIBBS: Again, I have not seen the book. I can't imagine I'm going to ask the President that, but I will -- I will entertain it. I will check.
No word yet on if the reporter ever got his answer. I'm going with 'yeah... the president said it, all while denouncing the incivility of others'
Just so that we're clear on this: George Bush is no longer president.
KBR Inc. was selected for a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through 2011 for military support services in Iraq, the Army said.
So why is KBR getting the contract? Well, it could be one of two things: 1) KBR is the most qualified to do the job 2) The current administration, while criticizing the former one, is just as compromised.
In other headlines, Obama isn't really religious. From AP:
In his strongest language to date about the administration's 2-year-old rift with the Chicago pastor, Wright told a group raising money for African relief that his pleas to release frozen funds for use in earthquake-ravaged Haiti would likely be ignored.
Really? But... its for Haiti? Why would they ignore Wright's words? Oh yeah...
"I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!" he wrote. "Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!"
Yep. Of course, it took the president a while to understand that Wright was, you know... offensive. And even then, the president pleaded with us to 'understand' why Wright said the things that he did. But since then, the president has gotten religion. Well, no, not real religion. The kind of religion that reminds you that as a politician, you shouldn't touch racist preachers. Or be seen with them. Or call them your preacher.
Blumenthal is an asshat. So is everyone who didn't call him out on this earlier. Kudos to the New York Times for doing so. It seems that Blumenthal spoke many times about his non-existent service in Vietnam:
There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.
What an asshole. What a world class asshole. I can't believe that anyone would tell crowd after crowd of veterans about serving in Vietnam when he hadn't. What kind of asshole does that? Well, the democrat who is trying to take Chris Dodd's vacant seat. That kind of asshole.
Within hours, it was cranking out a sustained barrage across the broad spectrum of modern media — statements, reports, e-mails, tweets, photos and videos — all punctuated by a high-profile presidential visit to the Gulf followed by an incendiary speech at the White House and a video recap with exclusive behind-the-scenes views of Obama in "West Wing Week," the White House's new online program at www.whitehouse.gov.
When you produce videos, yourself, showing what your politician is doing.... you may very well be the most manufactured president alive. I wonder if Aaron Sorkin writes this one too?
Here's another article on the new video blog offered by the White House:
Organized chronologically, it's a mishmash of this and that -- the president inspecting factories and farms, talking with people in diners, meeting dignitaries in the Oval Office, making major policy speeches. The blog doesn't break any news. It also doesn't show the president as anything less than presidential in word and deed; each week's video highlights Obama's efforts to address another crisis or major policy issue, such as the government's response to the Gulf Coast oil disaster or his initiative to reform the financial sector.
ugh. At least the press is offering a little resistance?
News photographers have also been peeved by the White House's practice of barring photojournalists from events and offering its own pictures as a substitute, said Caren Bohan, a Reuters reporter and correspondents' association board member.
It literally pains me to see the press just kind of taking this type of propaganda, and not shouting out about it more often.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by AP, the agency has released copies of only three inspection reports — those conducted in January, February and April. According to the documents, inspectors spent two hours or less each time they visited the massive rig. Some information appeared to be "whited out," without explanation.
There are certain headlines that you can only get in the way, if you try to comment on them:
Press Freedom, Sure. But No Questions.
Kudos to Chip Reid of CBS for pointing it out. It seems that the White House was celebrating the Press Freedom's Act, which is a lot less interesting then it sounds. All it does is tell the State Department that when they issue their annual report on Human Rights, it should include a statement on the Freedom of the Press in that country.
Naturally, the press in this country wanted to use the opportunity to question our president about things like the disaster in the gulf. This isn't one of the president's bright spots. He doesn't know what the hell to say about it, since he was the biggest recipient of donations from BP. It makes him a little camera shy when it comes to the gulf spill.
It might also be why the WH is pushing back so hard every time the oil spill comes up, and why they want to blame "Republicans" for the spill. (Note: no matter how long the president is in office, whatever happens will always be the fault of Republicans.) But you won't see the president taking questions anytime soon.
There are an awful lot of people in the Obama administration that seem to have socialist tendencies. But when Obama nominated Elena Kagan, who would have guessed that she had written her thesis entitled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City 1900-1913", when she attended Princeton?
Doug Ross gives a great 'best of' highlight breakdown of her paper. It is true that there is nothing in her paper that says that socialism is awesome. However, I think that Doug's blog gives you a good idea of how her thesis makes it sound like she's a fan.
Left Coast Rebel does a good job of summarizing what she wrote in one paragraph.
I also love reading her actual editorials. You see, Kagan used to be an editor for her college newspaper. So you can get a feel for what she felt by reading her editorials from the time. Or you can actually read this editorial that she wrote:
The real contests for Congress and the state legislatures occurred in early September, when the Democratic primary was held. And the people who won those races and who then took the November elections with some 80 per cent of the vote were real Democrats — not the closet Republicans that one sees so often these days but men and women committed to liberal principles and motivated by the ideal of an affirmative and compassionate government.
Gag. Me. To her credit, she was a dumb college student at the time.
Just some background research on Elena Kagan, for people who are interested.
The Washington Post is keeping a running index on stories about Kagan, previous stories about her, and her writings. It includes the official, White House blog video interview with Kagan, that I'm including here in the interest of fair play and propaganda.
Its always nice for the WH to present an interview with their nominee that has been scripted instead of, you know, putting them out there for an actual interview.
Of course, it wasn't that long ago that Obama said that a judicial nominee that has no judicial experience should be subject to extreme scrutiny.
One last piece of interest: John Bonifaz is a little bit of a nut. He wrote a book called "The Case For The Impeachment Of George Bush", and started "After Downing Street"; the organization which believed that the Downing Street memos implicated the Bush administration. Anyway, Kagan donated cash to his campaign... which might give you some insight into how left leaning she is.
Harriet Miers, Bush’s next pick for the Supreme Court, is currently White House Counsel and once served as Bush’s personal lawyer. She has never been a judge.
Another criticism conservatives are throwing at Kagan is over the fact that she has never been a judge. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that she was "a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called her "the least qualified [nominee] in terms of judicial experience in 38 years." Of course, during the Bush administration, these same conservatives were saying that having experiences outside of the judicial monastery were a plus. "[R]ight now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives, or academicians," said Cornyn in 2005. "And what you see is a lack of grounding in reality and common sense that I think would be very beneficial." Kagan would be in good company. Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William Rehnquist, and others all served as justices without lower federal court experience. "Of the 111 justices who have served on the Supreme Court, 41 came in without judicial experience."
Hilarious. Now, not being a judge is not a big deal... and how dare Republicans bring it up when they were suggesting that nominees didn't need to be one years ago. (Neglecting to mention that Harriet Miers nomination was shot down.)
What did HuffPo say about Miers? Well, they hated her so very much, that they compared Sarah Palin to her!
As you all probably remember, in 2005, George W. Bush nominated his White House Counsel, Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court despite the fact that she had no judicial experience whatsoever and seemed completely wrong for the part in every other way but her gender.
Wow! That's pretty brutal. Oh wait. Uhmmm... Kagan has no judicial experience whatsoever too. I wonder what HuffPo says about that? Let's start with this interesting primer:
For decades, Republicans have been the party of coordinated talking points and overwhelming organization with respect to judicial nominations.
Really? Huh. Well, I'm glad that the left hadn't all talked about how Miers had no judicial experience then. Back to HuffPo:
As Darling and others sees it, the message discipline will come with time, mainly because the attacks on Kagan -- both for lacking adequate judicial experience and, more specifically, her decision as Dean of Harvard Law to bar military recruiters from the school's campus (in protest of the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy) -- are natural and effective. Whether one group or several drive them is of secondary importance, so long as they are driven.
Okay... so according to HuffPo, the 'attacks' are 'natural and effective'. Rather then, you know... true. Here's another HuffPo article that sidesteps the issue as a Republican attack tactic:
It won't be all about Obama. Kagan's resume has particular areas that Republicans view as vulnerable. Her refusal to allow military recruiters on Harvard's campus (in protest of Don't Ask Don't Tell) is one. The dearth of judicial experience is another.
Uh huh. By the way, that article suggests that opposition to Kagan is just because Republicans hate Obama.
A lot of blogs have used the White House talking point about there being 40 Supreme Court justices that have had no bench experience. In case you were wondering, this list gives the complete run down. You'll note that Renquist was the last one nominated without bench experience, and that it was Nixon who did it in 1972, in the same year that he nominated another man without experience to the bench. You won't find very many Democrats arguing that Obama is being Nixonian in his nomination.
Ms. Miers, 60, a longtime confidante of the president's, has never been a judge, and therefore lacks a long history of judicial rulings that could reveal ideological tendencies. Her positions on such ideologically charged issues as abortion and affirmative action are unclear.
Interesting. What did they say about Kagan? The Times starts her bio with all of her other credits:
In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, but the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience.
That lack of time on the bench may both help and hurt her confirmation prospects, allowing critics to question whether she is truly qualified while denying them a lengthy judicial paper trail filled with ammunition for attacks. As solicitor general, Ms. Kagan has represented the government before the Supreme Court for the past year, but her own views are to a large extent a matter of supposition.
To their credit, they at least mention that she was never a judge... but they say it might 'help' her nomination.
The economy got what it needed in April: A burst of hiring that added a net 290,000 jobs, the biggest monthly total in four years. It showed employers are gaining confidence as the recovery takes deeper root.
But people who had given up on finding jobs are gaining confidence, too, and are now looking for work. That's why the unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent to 9.9 percent and will likely go higher.
Now in the world can you report that unemployment is going up to 9.9%, and make it sound like things are getting better?
Its been a few days, and this story isn't getting any traction. That bothers me, because the story would seem to connect the president to the scandal with Blagojevich.
Yes, I understand that is exactly what Blago is trying to do. But what the article suggests is that Blago is not entirely wrong... that there were efforts made by the Obama administration to deal with Blago in his effort to sell a senate seat.
The GAO isn't exactly a radical organization. They are one of the few parts of government that I tend to trust, because their entire job is to keep an eye on the rest of government. They recently wrote this, with my emphasis in red:
The economic recession and the federal government’s unprecedented actions intended to stabilize the financial markets and to promote economic recovery have significantly affected the federal government’s financial condition. The resulting substantial investments and increases in liabilities, net operating cost, the unified budget deficit, and debt held by the public are reported in the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2009. Because the valuation of these assets and liabilities is based on assumptions and estimates that are inherently subject to substantial uncertainty arising from the uniqueness of certain transactions and the likelihood of future changes in general economic, regulatory, and market conditions, actual results may be materially different from the reported amounts. Further, the ultimate cost of these actions and their impact on the federal government’s financial condition will not be known for some time. More significantly, the federal government faces long-term challenges resulting from large and growing structural deficits that are driven primarily by rising health care costs and known demographic trends. This unsustainable path must be addressed soon by policymakers. The longer actions are delayed, the more difficult adjustments are likely to become.
Its really important that we listen to what they are saying. This is the treasury department sending up a flare. Please don't ignore it.
I'm just suggesting that maybe that volcano wasn't about to erupt on its own:
A New York Times/CBS News poll of backers of the emerging Tea Party movement shows that its supporters are more affluent and better educated than the general public.
What? Better educated? How'd that happen?
Tea Party members tend to be married more often, retired, and are conservative. They are more likely to vote and own guns. They prefer civil unions over gay marriage. A clear majority like Glenn Beck and GWB. They think that the economy is very bad and getting worse.
76% want congress to work on reducing the deficit. 85% do not believe that the government should require everyone to have health insurance. 88% disapprove of the job that Obama is doing. 91% disapprove of the way that he's handling the economy. 93% disapprove of how he's handling health care.
...and 92% of Tea Party members believe that we are headed towards socialism.
Have you ever been "proud" to pay your car payments? How about when your mortgage comes due? Do you feel "proud" then?
Say Hello to Gail Collins, who thinks that we need to be "proud" every time we pay taxes:
Paying a lot of taxes should be a badge of honor. It proves you made it into the league of big money-makers, not to mention the fact that you’re supporting the upkeep of the Grand Canyon. If the I.R.S. had been doing its marketing properly, little kids would dream of growing up to become really big taxpayers.
Gail is clearly the type of person who claps every time after signing a check and cheers "Yay!" Her entire column is about how we don't realize how little taxes we are paying, and how if we knew how little we were paying, we'd be happy.
Gail is in that rare, bold category of denial where she should be wearing a helmet. She believes that if she doesn't see the tax, then it doesn't exist or affect her. I'm sure Gail wonders, quietly, what all of those extra charges are on her cell phone bill. Or why she has to pay extra fees on her electric bill. I'm pretty sure she doesn't grasp how many invisible taxes we all pay.
Because if she did... she would be cheering and clapping constantly.
One of the more fascinating things to me was walking around and listening to what the press was asking Tea Party members. One lady was interviewing a couple when she tried to get them to 'admit' that race was a factor in the protests. She started out by asking them if they thought that race was a factor. They shook their head 'no' and looked confused. The reporter pointed to the crowd around them, and said "look around, you don't think that there is a racial aspect at work here?"
Sidenote: I took journalism classes in college. I know the difference between finding the story and creating one. Finding the story is when you ask the right questions and get to the heart of the matter. Creating a story is when you ask leading questions to get the answer you want, that will match your storyline. When you create a story, you'll use phrases like "Don't you think..." or "Wouldn't you agree..." Finding a story involves open ended questions like "What do you think?", or even "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?"
Anyway, with all of this in mind, I saw this story in Reason, and I had to link to it. Its about the Tea Party and race.
This time, it was former president Clinton trying to do it... making allusions that compared the Tea Party movement with Tim McVeigh:
"What we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or that we should reduce our passion for the positions we hold - but that the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike," he said.
"One of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have."
Clinton made the remarks at events sponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund on the upcoming anniversary of the bombing.
He mentioned the rancorous fight over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Passage of the law elicited threats against some lawmakers.
Words have meaning. Check. The more influence you have, the more responsibility you have. Check. Of course, you were the same guy who used a 22 year old intern to cheat on his wife when he was President of the United States. I still remember how you let your entire staff call her nutty and tell us that Monica was obsessed with you. That wasn't irresponsible of you in the slightest. But thanks for reminding us that "words have meaning", guy who the phrase "it all depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is". Because when you used that phrase, it felt to me like you were trying to make sure that words didn't mean anything.
I'm sure that you no longer cheat on your wife, and that you have given your daughter the best example of what kind of a husband she should be looking for.
Look, this is simple: you don't take responsibility lectures from a guy who basically defined irresponsible behavior in the 90s. There's a simple reason that the left is trying to paint the Tea Party movement as extremist: they are getting clobbered in the polls by the criticism that is hitting the mark.
When the LA Times headlines a story "Myth Busting Polls", and gives the following information:
The Tea Party adherents broke down 28% independent, 17% Democrat and only 57% Republican.
Then you are in trouble. That means that almost a fifth of your base is joining the tea party movement. That's huge. And its why Markos and the president are trying to discredit it.
In the running for asshat of the week, DailyKos founder and rabble rouser Markos Moulitsas. Markos was being interviewed by lord God king asshat and recent defender of everything government, Keith Olbermann, when he said this.
Just a week or two ago, Democrats said that it was Republicans who were throwing around the Hitler comparisons. But this week, there is no doubt that its Democrats who are accusing Republicans of being genocidal.
I guess that post-health-care-bill polling hit that they are taking is getting to them. The only way that democrats know how to react to being called an extremist is to say, "no, you're an extremist!"
I think when its done well, its one of the finest art forms around. No one in the world has done this better then the Protest Warriors. What they did was brilliant. They would go into left-wing protests with signs that would take their dumb ideas to the logical extreme to show how dumb they were.
Here is a sampling of their signs. The big thing about Protest Warriors that I loved was that it was always clear who they were. It was brilliant satire, and not at all subtle.
Compare that to Jason Levin. Jason is a media teacher at Conestoga Middle School in Beaverton. Big surprise there. Jason is the guy who started crashtheteaparty.org Now as I said, I'm big on counter protesting. But this is what he wanted to do, according to the Fox News story:
Levin has said he would seek to embarrass Tea Partiers by attending their rallies dressed as Adolf Hitler, carrying signs bearing racist, sexist and anti-gay epithets and acting as offensively as possible -- anything short of throwing punches.
Embarrass them how???
Jason, let's just see if I can follow your hypothetical Ralph Wiggum choo-choo train of thought here. You felt so strongly that the Tea Party was racist, sexist, and homophobe, that you wanted to be as offensive as possible to embarrass them...?
But... if they are racist and sexist... why would they be embarrassed? Wouldn't they just be, you know, happy to see a racist sign? Heck, if they were racist, would you have to bring signs that were racist? Would you have to bring your own signs? Couldn't you just borrow one of theirs? Its this type of 'logic' that drives me nuts about the left. In absence of racism, the left decided to bring racism along to... paint... the... Tea Party members... as... racist.
Uh huh. Jason, at any time did you stop to think about what you were doing? Did it ever occur to you that if you needed to bring racist signs, then maybe you were wrong about the Tea Party members? That maybe, possibly, bringing racist signs said more about you then about them?
Congratulations, Jason. You get my asshat award for the week.
You have to lean pretty far left in order to get this to happen. According to the LA Times , via CNN:
And a new CNN/Opinion Research Poll has just revealed that even today Americans like that other Democrat more and dislike that other Democrat less than they do the incumbent Democratic president.
Click here if you want to see the complete breakdown.
I'm writing this to make sure people get the story right. On the door of his office, Jack Cassell, a urologist, put this sign:
If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years.
The left has since gone nuts about this one doctor putting that sign on his door. So its important to note what the original article said about the doctor:
Cassell told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday he wasn't questioning patients or refusing care, because that would be unethical.
If you notice that a member of the left calls him names, and accuses him of violating his oath, please point that out to them.
According to CBS news, most Americans are still against the health care bill:
More Americans now disapprove of the legislation, and many expect their costs to rise and the quality of their care to worsen; few expect the reforms to help them.
I guess when you shove a bill through, it makes people skeptical.
Fifty-three percent of Americans say they disapprove of the new reforms, including 39 percent who say they disapprove strongly. In the days before the bill passed the House, 37 percent said they approved and 48 percent disapproved.
I think this is great. It means that people are paying attention. Now we need to get more people to pay attention. Most important to me about the poll:
Even though the president and Democratic leaders have repeatedly pointed out that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office called the reform package a deficit-reducer, six in 10 Americans still think the new health care reforms will increase the budget deficit. Just 13 percent think the reforms will decrease the deficit and another 15 percent expect no effect.
I believe that means that pretty much the only people who don't believe that the health care bill will add to the deficit are democrats. Which would explain this poll by Rasmussen:
Following the passage of the health care bill, 53% now say they trust Republicans on the issue of health care. Thirty-seven percent (37%) place their trust in Democrats.
Again... that just might have something to do with the democrats pushing the bill through so hard. It might also explain why in a generic poll, Republicans have gained considerably:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, up from 46% last week, while 38% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent, down a point from the previous survey.
The news gets even better. Gallup recently did a profile to find out who Tea Party members were. They found out that they were more likely to be male, and slightly less likely to be lower income. But then the real news comes out:
In several other respects, however -- their age, educational background, employment status, and race -- Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large.
Please go to the Gallup site for their breakdown. Its worth reading if you want to see who Tea Party members are. The most interesting fact for me is that while 40% of the general population has an unfavorable view of Tea Party members, 63% of liberals have an unfavorable opinion.
On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.
Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly feel closer to the Tea Party and most Democrats say that their views are more like Obama’s. Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 50% say they’re closer to the Tea Party while 38% side with the President.
This isn't the way that the president thought it would be, I'm certain.
You may remember Emanuel Cleaver. He's the representative who claimed that someone spit on him the day that the Democrats shoved the Health Care takeover through the house.
I don't know what is more frightening. When they deny it, or when they admit it. Howard Dean admits that the health care bill is about redistributing wealth.
Whenever democrats tell me that we 'narrowly' averted VP Palin, I remind them that we currently have VP Biden.
However, Democrats seem to love having incompetent gaffe-laden people on their side. So much so, that they sell t-shirts with their gaffes on them as fund raising devices.
I can't take credit for that statement. Its the theme of an article by Rick Neuman, in a brilliantly written article:
Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent. By this measure, the most profitable industry over the past year has been beverages, with a 25.9 percent profit margin. Right behind that were healthcare real-estate trusts (firms that are basically the landlords for hospitals and healthcare facilities) and application-software (think Windows). The worst performer was copper, with a profit margin of minus 56.6 percent.
What I love about it is that Rick lets the air out of the whole idea that heatlh insurance companies are robbing us blind compared to other companies. Unfortunately, this article (written in August of 2009) did not fall neatly into the narrative, so it was blithely ignored by the administration and the democrats following it.
I'm a huge fan of the game Dungeons and Dragons. I lived it from pretty much 15 years of my life. I also like porn. Really, no kidding.
Anyway, despite that, I still think that this is a bad idea. Getting porn stars to play D&D.
Forget for a second that D&D is only entertaining for those who are playing it. Watching it, is like watching golf on television. Its dull and pointless.
What this idea is missing is the reason why we watch porn stars. -And it isn't because we think that they are fascinating people. Having said that, I'd still love to meet Sasha some day.
On Wednesday morning at Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility in Washington, DC, President Obama will announce that his administration will allow the lease sale to go forward for oil and gas exploration 50 miles off of the Virginia coast -- the first new sales of offshore oil and gas in the Atlantic in more than two decades.
Scott Brown tries to remind the Democrats, gently, how he got elected:
Everywhere I go, people ask me what can be done about this now — after the president has signed it into law, and Nancy Pelosi and others are taking their victory laps.
I don't think he's lying about that. I know that there are a bunch of Republicans in my life who are trying to figure out ways to dodge this craptastic bill. Its what happens when people who hate business try to take over businesses.
2. Bending the Cost Curve in the Wrong Direction. The provisions of the legislation aimed at reducing health care spending are reactionary, addressing the symptoms rather than the root causes of growth in spending.[3] Instead of reducing spending in health care, the bill will increase overall health spending in the U.S. by $222 billion between now and 2019.[4]
Read the full thing. Its full of some common sense.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government's role in health care too far, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, underscoring an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats.
Apparently, math scores in the US are better then what I thought.
Because, apparently, he thinks that he hasn't been confrontational enough. According to the Wall Street Journal:
President Barack Obama, after a year of fitfully searching for compromise, is taking a more aggressive tack with his Republican adversaries, hoping to energize Democratic voters and possibly muscle in some Republican support in Congress.
He tried searching for compromise. Does anyone remember any point where Obama suggested a middle point that he could meet the Republicans on? Just saying that you want to compromise isn't the same as compromising.
The White House has long argued that pilot projects and demonstration programs stuffed into the legislation will produce far more in long-term savings than anyone can promise today. The Congressional Budget Office can't prove much of those savings will materialize, so it doesn't count them in its balance sheets.
TPM is one of those groups who thinks that the only reason why Obamacare has a bad rap is because they aren't pushing the message right. They say:
Last summer, members were caught unprepared and were faced with angry voters, loud protests and televised meetings that portrayed them in many cases as fumbling and unsure of how to talk about a bill that didn't actually exist yet.
Its kind of a blunt assessment from a blog that before blamed the chaos on Tea Party members yelling. Now they admit that congress critters didn't know what they were saying.
The Democrats actually put out a whole set of Talking Points for their lemmings... er.. congresspeople, to mimic. If you want to ask them a question, be prepared to hear a pre-recorded message.
Never let it be said that I won't publish the same crap the Democrats are pushing. Let's take one talking point, from 'four key points':
Is fully paid for – costs $940 billion over a decade. (Americans spend nearly $2.5 trillion each year on health care now and nearly two-thirds of the bill is paid for by reducing health care costs).
It is not fully paid for. The only way it could possibly be paid for is if they reduce medicare by $500 billion over ten years. Who believes that they would do that? They also pay for it by taxing anyone who doesn't get health care insurance.
There are a lot of clueless journalists out there. A lot of columnists who never get out of their home offices enough to talk to real people and find out what real people think.
But when those particular asshats work for the New York Times, they seem to take on a whole new dimension of asshattedness.
Frank Rich believes that the opposition that the president and congress has run into over the past week has nothing to do with health care. Frank wrote:
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.
Let's put aside the fact that Tea Party members do not liken Obama to Hitler. As most of us know, there were LaRouche protesters who showed up at Tea Party rallies with [insert current president here] being compared to Hitler. They used to do it with Bush. Now they do it with Obama. Let's also forget for a moment that it was the left who came up with the term BushHitler.
The question is: how fucking offensive can you get in comparing 4 broken windows across a country of 300 million with the destruction of 7500 Jewish businesses, during a period where 200 synagogues were damaged or destroyed? The only thing missing from Frank Rich's comparison, outside of it being approximately 7496 windows short, is the fact that the Jewish people were being attacked for being Jewish. Whereas the democrats were apparently targeted for voting for a bill that was unpopular with the majority of the country.
Rich moves on:
No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause
This just shows how clueless Rich is, that we 'shouldn't' be angry that our health care is being taken over by the government which should result in higher premiums and health care of a lower quality. Not to mention the loss of liberty: for the first time in the history of the US, the US government is requiring us to buy a private product. If losing my liberty isn't a good reason to be upset... what is?
Now let me make this clear, in case anyone is a little fuzzy on this. I believe in non-violent protest. There is no place for vandalism. But freaking out over the 4 broken windows in the entire US and making it sound like all hell is breaking loose is obscene. Frank didn't stop there:
If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play.
Frank is old. I'm not saying that to make light of his age. I'm saying that to point out that he's old enough to remember Bill Clinton pushing his health care bill. Back then, people like Frank Rich blamed opposition to the bill on Hillary Clinton's involvement. Not much has changed since then. They are still blaming opposition on everything except the bill itself.
Its like he literally can't figure out why anyone would be opposed to it. His brain can't handle the idea of people taking care of their own health insurance. He doesn't know why anyone would be opposed to more government intervention in our lives. That's how much of a democrat he is. Its what makes him almost dangerously dumb. And for the record, when I say that he's dangerously dumb, it doesn't mean that I want to shoot him or slash his tires. I do, however, hope that the New York Times continues its slow and eventual decline into bankruptcy.
Investor's .com came up with a list of 20 ways that the health care bill will take away our freedom. My 'favorite';
6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care. You're a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You're a woman who can't have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You're a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director, explains the faulty math in the CBO's 'costs' of health care in the NY Times:
Gimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and backloads spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10 years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.
Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office’s tabulation.
The worst part about it is that in Douglas' opinion, the CBO should have been more critical of the spending.
Speaking of spending, Social Security finally hit the point of no return... where outlays are more then revenue. We are now also running a Social Security deficit:
This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
But we need to spend more on social programs. Right.
Ending one of the fiercest lobbying fights in Washington, Congress voted Thursday to force commercial banks out of the federal student loan market, cutting off billions of dollars in profits in a sweeping restructuring of financial-aid programs and redirecting most of the money to new education initiatives.
This is like taking the car keys away from the guy who is stumbling drunk and giving them to the guy who is passed out, and telling him, "Here... you look responsible!"
A week after the health care takeover was passed, Rasmussen did a poll. They found out the following:
One week after the House of Representatives passed the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, 54% of the nation's likely voters still favor repealing the new law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% oppose repeal.
The only people who didn't see that coming were hard core democrats.
As soon as I heard about Organizing For America, it reminded me of the old soviet groups that were formed to make sure that everyone in the communist party was on the same page. We can't have people, you know, thinking too much on their own. You need just the right amount of government pez-disepensed propaganda out there.
The online tool presents users with a radio show discussing political topics, to which supporters can listen live, and the phone number for that station, for when health care comes up. It also offers tips for callers and talking points on the issue.
On the plus side, it doesn't implant a chip directly into their brain. It just, uh, tells them, uh, what to say, and how to say it right. Uh huh.
Someone told me the other day that tort reform was in the health care bill, which literally made me say "What the fuck?", since I hadn't heard a damn thing about it.
So I researched it. And guess what... it never happened. From Politifact:
So, Democrats have not included medical malpractice limits in either the House or Senate version of the bills. Instead, the administration has said it will give some states $3 million grants to test new approaches for limiting lawsuits.
Where is the left getting their info from? Its like these factoids just spontaneously show up, and they repeat them verbatim.
The other day, a very liberal friend of mine was suggesting that I was paranoid for not trusting my government. (I wanted to point out to him that a couple of years ago, he was the one who didn't trust his government... but nevermind.) CNN just did a poll, and found out the following:
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.
Are you paranoid if the majority of Americans agree with you? Or are we all just tightly wound?
Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform. CNN then goes on to point out that 'portions' of the bill are 'very popular'.
Its pretty simple. I like cheese. I love chocolate. I do not want cheese on my chocolate.
Similarly, the public likes some of the basic thoughts of the health care bill. But they really don't like what it all means as a package.
When I read this article by Thomas Friedman, it seemed pretty bizarre. He starts out by talking about how the government was charging for 911 phone calls, drags the Greatest Generation into his argument, and talks about how maybe Obama can't get health care passed because Republicans don't understand how he's trying to rebuild. He has the audacity to blame the current deficit on Republicans and suggests that the health care bill will REDUCE the deficit. He ends the commentary by suggesting that if "Obama fails" to pass his agenda, we all fail.
I thought it was a rambling and bizarre train of thought.
Then I read Eberts column a week later. At first, I zipped past him referencing Friendman, because he did it in one small aside. But his column is almost a repeat of exactly what Friedman said. I wonder if Ebert even knew he was doing it.
There's nothing that annoys me more then when something is pulled out of context to make it sound more inflammatory then what it already is. Particularly when someone says something controversial in the first place. Here's an example.
You probably found this quote somewhere recently:
"And I believe 2010 is it. All right? And we can do it with our vote. And we can get new faces in, whether it's my face or not, I pray to God that I see new faces. And if we don't see new faces, I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too."
"That's the beauty of this, folks. We can do it before it gets to guns," said Behney, in praise of the electoral process. "All right, our founders brought out the guns. When they showed up at Lexington and Concord, regular folks, farm boys, doctors, merchant men, and they said you ain't taking our stuff. They stood up to the most powerful army in the world, and they bought our freedom, literally with their blood. And we don't have to do that yet.
"I believe personally, we're at a crossroads. We have one last opportunity. And I believe 2010 is it. All right? And we can do it with our vote. And we can get new faces in, whether it's my face or not, I pray to God that I see new faces. And if we don't see new faces, I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too. But I know none of us want to go that far yet, and we can do it with our vote."
It reads a little differently that way, doesn't it? I mean, his whole focus is on the vote.
Look, I understand that its still a little inflammatory. But given that, why wasn't it quoted in full? Well, I think that the answer is obvious. The left has no interest in portraying Tea Party members accurately. Not when they've already drawn their cartoons.
"That's the beauty of this, folks. We can do it before it gets to guns," said Behney, in praise of the electoral process. "All right, our founders brought out the guns. When they showed up at Lexington and Concord, regular folks, farm boys, doctors, merchant men, and they said you ain't taking our stuff. They stood up to the most powerful army in the world, and they bought our freedom, literally with their blood. And we don't have to do that yet.
"I believe personally, we're at a crossroads. We have one last opportunity. And I believe 2010 is it. All right? And we can do it with our vote. And we can get new faces in, whether it's my face or not, I pray to God that I see new faces. And if we don't see new faces, I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too. But I know none of us want to go that far yet, and we can do it with our vote."
If you go to the White House, you'll find a link to both the Senate and House Republican plans.
Wait: I thought that they didn't have one? Huh. I guess that they not only do, but the Republicans had plans going back months into May and June. Weird how that happened to get ignored by the press, eh? Weirder still that the White House is linking to it today.
I took economics in college. I love my economics instructor, because he was not a capitalist by nature. However, he understood the capitalist system, and clearly illustrated the fundamentals of math behind economics.
With that in mind, I'm glad to see that the American public is becoming educated in Keynesian Economics, and even rejecting: Americans Reject Keynesian Economics
In fact, 59% think Keynes had it backwards and that increasing the deficit at this time would hurt the economy rather than help.
To help the economy, most Americans (56%) believe that cutting the deficit is the way to go.
But the laughter has been reduced by half in recent months: In the first six months of the Obama administration, briefings produced an average of 179 laughs per month. Over the past six months, the average has dropped down to 89.
The point of all of this? That the press may be getting tired of the same old excuses and 'aw shucks' 'did we do that?' attitude of the White House.
Gallup just recently gave congress a historic negative approval rating. According to this poll:
Congress' job approval rating from Americans fell six points in the past month, from 24% to 18% -- the lowest reading in more than a year. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) now disapprove.
I want to feel sorry for the guy. Its true what he says. He wasn't ready for the criticism that he recieved when it was revealed that he was one of the scientists at the center of a global warming scandal. It must have been hard to have all of those people criticize him just because they felt that he... ... wait a minute.
In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes.
"I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.
So Jones tries to discredit other scientists, and he thinks its part of his job.
When someone tries to discredit Jones, they are... they are what?
In my opinion, they are trying to reveal the truth?
How is it that Obama knows so many bigoted people.
Remember Wright, the racist mayor? Or Reid, who 'complimented' Obama on his lack of a negro dialect? Or his VP Biden, who said that he was a "clean, articulate black man"?
How about Rahm Emmanuel? He said that Democrats were retarded. Retarded. Neat. Well, at least he apologized for it. Not to Democrats. To the people who have mental conditions that are not politically related. According to Poitico:
The Special Olympics is disputing the White House claim that its chairman, Tim Shriver, accepted Rahm Emanuel's apology for calling liberals "retarded."
This is for anyone who thinks that Canada is the model to follow in health care. Honest?
From a reporter, in the article:
Then there is the fact that Williams is worth close to a quarter of a billion dollars, and can afford to buy the best care in the world.
The reaction here is very mixed. Many people said it shows a lack of confidence in the health care system. But that was before the explanation that the procedure can't be done here. An equal number say it is Williams' own business, and how he manages his health is none of our business. Many say if they had the cash, they would do the same thing.
Of course they would.
Look, I've been holding back, but I'm going to go full bore now. We're the fucking US of A. When Haiti fell to an earthquake, what was the big news? What made the Haitian people rejoice? When they found out that doctors from the US were coming. It makes sense. I mean, cool... so all of these other countries sent their doctors. But what made the Haitians feel as though they were about to receive the best health care in the world? Was it when the German doctors arrived? The French? Of course not. You heard it as well as I did. They were actually chanting USA in some parts.
Just like the premier of Canada. I'm positive he loves everything about his country. Its a beautiful place. But does he want to get health care there? No fucking way. He wants the best. So where did he go?
I know... its jingoism, right? When you believe that you are the best? But I have to say, that if everyone was coming to my particular store when they had the choice of every store on the block... then maybe my store is doing something correct. Wouldn't you say?
1) Joe Klein uses the term 'teabaggers' to describe Tea Party members 2) Joe argues that the stimulus package was needed to stave off an economic collapse. Are we there yet? 3) Joe argues that it isn't Obama's policies that we hate, but that, In that sense,
Barack Obama is the apotheosis of all they fear. He is a child of what used to be called miscegenation--a mixed marriage.
Apparently, I'd be cool with the stimulus plan of $787 Billion if Obama were white. Go figure, I never realized that. Moreover, I hate anyone who comes from a mixed marriage. Its 'what I fear', rather then a deficit that is ballooning up so quickly that everyone is looking for the boy who is reportedly hiding in it.
Joe Klein, you get my asshat award for 2009 for that column. And trust me, we had a lot of them in 2009.
God, I love this article. Kudos to the Hill for reporting this the day after the president repeated his promise about keeping lobbyists out:
The Hill on Thursday morning reported that lobbyists, as well as other stakeholders, were invited by the White House for policy discussions on a range of issues with senior administration officials.
