Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who broke with his party to support President Obama's stimulus package last week, said before the final vote Friday that more of his colleagues would have joined were they not afraid of the political consequences.
"When I came back to the cloak room after coming to the agreement a week ago today," said Specter, "one of my colleagues said, 'Arlen, I'm proud of you.' My Republican colleague said, 'Arlen, I'm proud of you.' I said, 'Are you going to vote with me?' And he said, 'No, I might have a primary.' And I said, 'Well, you know very well I'm going to have a primary.'"
... read the rest after the click.
My comment: In our two party system of government, some people are able to put the country first. Others feel they have to put party before country. I wonder how that's going to play in Peoria.
... and then there's this by John Ridley:
The Republican Bipartisan Myth
Shangri-la and Brigadoon and Bipartisan. Three mythical places. One of which few Republicans have seemingly ever heard. Because if there is one thing we can take from the first weeks of the "New" Washington, it's that the (liberal) Democrats are incompetent (old news, really) and the Republicans are disingenuous when it comes to bipartisanship. Oh, sure, they talk up the swellness of President Obama every chance they get. And will continue to do so as long as his approval numbers are above fifty percent. But most GOPers tend to become like children who dance hysterically in a sandbox when it comes time to play with others.
Despite all the sit-downs Obama had with the Republicans -- apparently too many for Speaker Pelosi's tastes -- and despite the fact that the House version of the Stimulus Bill contained specific tax breaks for which the Republicans had asked -- though not to the degree they wished -- not a single GOPer would break ranks, step up and vote for the bill. A surprisingly "my way or the highway" attitude for the minority party whose eight years of good cogitating was a major factor in whipping America into the stellar fiscal shape we find ourselves.
... read the rest of this one after the click.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Still More "Why things are the way they are"
Imagine that ... !!! I can only wonder who prevailed ...
It takes a real sense of priorities to be in government.
I wonder if they're going to find any ...
Heck of a paint job, Brownie!
Who could have predicted that?
You now have choices ...
Good thing, too!!
Uh ... that narrows it down ...
Again, what a surprise ...
I would have guessed after 20, but what do I know?
[Tip o' the hat to Bob M. in Pennsylvania for passing this one along to share.]
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
There are consequences ...
... that follow from putting people in charge of government who believe government is the problem; who believe government doesn't work and who have a vested interest in proving that government doesn't work:
... read the rest on AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) after the click.
The president of the peanut company linked to a nationwide salmonella outbreak serves on an industry advisory board that helps the U.S. Department of Agriculture set quality standards for peanuts.
Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corp. of America, based in Lynchburg, Va., was first appointed to the USDA’s Peanut Standards Board in July 2005 and was reappointed in October for a second term that runs until June 2011, according to the USDA.
... read the rest on AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) after the click.
Republicans: Spare Me Your Newfound "Fiscal Responsibility"
from Joseph Palermo
At his press conference on Monday, President Barack Obama had to remind Mara Liasson of Fox News and NPR that it was the Republicans who doubled the national debt over the past eight years and it's a little strange to be hearing lectures from them now about how to be fiscally responsible. That interchange was my favorite part of the press conference. A savvy inside-the-Beltway reporter of Ms. Liasson's caliber shouldn't have to be reminded that George W. Bush and the Republican Congress were among the most fiscally reckless politicians in U.S. history.
The most inexcusable action the Republican Congress and the Bush administration took vis-à-vis the federal budget was to launch two wars and two open-ended occupations without raising one dime in revenues to pay for them. Never in the history of this country has an administration and Congress cut taxes while launching open-ended wars.
... read the rest on Huffington Post after the click.
My comment: A new found sense of fiscal responsibility; a new found desire for bipartisanship ... but the same old sense of social responsibility. Party first, nation second, but wave the flag and accuse everyone in sight of being unpatriotic. You can ignore the plight of the unemployed, and the recently homeless among us as long as you wear a flag pin. Conservative economists be damned! Who cares if they say tax cuts won't do the trick ... go for the tax cuts. After all, its bought votes in the past. No reason to think it won't work now.
At his press conference on Monday, President Barack Obama had to remind Mara Liasson of Fox News and NPR that it was the Republicans who doubled the national debt over the past eight years and it's a little strange to be hearing lectures from them now about how to be fiscally responsible. That interchange was my favorite part of the press conference. A savvy inside-the-Beltway reporter of Ms. Liasson's caliber shouldn't have to be reminded that George W. Bush and the Republican Congress were among the most fiscally reckless politicians in U.S. history.
The most inexcusable action the Republican Congress and the Bush administration took vis-à-vis the federal budget was to launch two wars and two open-ended occupations without raising one dime in revenues to pay for them. Never in the history of this country has an administration and Congress cut taxes while launching open-ended wars.
... read the rest on Huffington Post after the click.
My comment: A new found sense of fiscal responsibility; a new found desire for bipartisanship ... but the same old sense of social responsibility. Party first, nation second, but wave the flag and accuse everyone in sight of being unpatriotic. You can ignore the plight of the unemployed, and the recently homeless among us as long as you wear a flag pin. Conservative economists be damned! Who cares if they say tax cuts won't do the trick ... go for the tax cuts. After all, its bought votes in the past. No reason to think it won't work now.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
FDR didn't get us out of the Great Depression ...
Source: Measuring Worth.
All those public works projects like the WPA and the CCC which rebuilt our infrastructure, made all those walkways in the National Parks that you enjoy so much, that planted trees to fight the effects of the Dust Bowl ... no effect. All those Librul programs that put over 10 million unemployed people back to work (8 million in the WPA alone) ... didn't do anything positive. All that damned "spending"! What a silly thing to do!
The only thing that had an effect were the tax cuts he ceded to Conservatives in 1937 - 1938. Oh, wait, maybe the graph is up-side-down!
Yeah .. well ... it was WWII that got us out of the Great Depression. So, guess who the leader was through THAT?
Monday, February 09, 2009
Republicanism Explained
from Jude T. of First Draft
In the last few months, as the scavengers have picked at the carcass of the Republican party, I've heard a lot of people talk about what "conservatism" means. Most recently, the New York Times saw fit to address the issue in this waste of virtual space.
Well, I can't definitively say what "conservatism" means. I possess no advanced degrees, am not a philosopher, and have almost no knowledge of political science.
However.
I can tell you what Republicanism means, and that, I think, is a more germane issue. As I'm sure you've noticed, we don't have a "Conservative" party on our ballots. No. We have a "Republican" one. So figuring out what they stand for seems to be a much more useful endeavor than attempting to define "conservatism."
Well, I've done a lot of observing and thinking, and it seems to me that the Republican party stands for two things.
And that's pretty much it. All of the shit that the Republicans do flows from those two points.
... more from First Draft after the click.
In the last few months, as the scavengers have picked at the carcass of the Republican party, I've heard a lot of people talk about what "conservatism" means. Most recently, the New York Times saw fit to address the issue in this waste of virtual space.
Well, I can't definitively say what "conservatism" means. I possess no advanced degrees, am not a philosopher, and have almost no knowledge of political science.
However.
I can tell you what Republicanism means, and that, I think, is a more germane issue. As I'm sure you've noticed, we don't have a "Conservative" party on our ballots. No. We have a "Republican" one. So figuring out what they stand for seems to be a much more useful endeavor than attempting to define "conservatism."
Well, I've done a lot of observing and thinking, and it seems to me that the Republican party stands for two things.
- Tax cuts are the cure for everything, including the common cold.
- Fuck you.
And that's pretty much it. All of the shit that the Republicans do flows from those two points.
... more from First Draft after the click.
The Evil of Banality
from Joseph Palermo
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham's fulminations on the Senate floor last Friday were a sight to behold. He denounced President Barack Obama for being "A.W.O.L." on providing leadership for his economic stimulus bill and theatrically concluded: "This bill stinks. The process that's led to this bill stinks. If this is a new way of doing business, if this is the change we can all believe in, America's best days are behind her!" Graham then made his usual rounds on corporate media repeating his "it stinks" tag line. When I caught a snippet of Graham's dramatic soliloquy it led me to wonder to what constituency is he speaking? Could it be the people who live in those counties in South Carolina where unemployment is now 20 percent? Or was Graham just channeling the sentiments of the beleaguered white men of his state?
... read the rest of it after the click.
and then there's this ...
Sixty-seven percent of the American people approve of how President Obama's handling his efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill, as opposed to 48% for Democrats in Congress and 31% for congressional Republicans.
... more after the click.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham's fulminations on the Senate floor last Friday were a sight to behold. He denounced President Barack Obama for being "A.W.O.L." on providing leadership for his economic stimulus bill and theatrically concluded: "This bill stinks. The process that's led to this bill stinks. If this is a new way of doing business, if this is the change we can all believe in, America's best days are behind her!" Graham then made his usual rounds on corporate media repeating his "it stinks" tag line. When I caught a snippet of Graham's dramatic soliloquy it led me to wonder to what constituency is he speaking? Could it be the people who live in those counties in South Carolina where unemployment is now 20 percent? Or was Graham just channeling the sentiments of the beleaguered white men of his state?
... read the rest of it after the click.
and then there's this ...
Sixty-seven percent of the American people approve of how President Obama's handling his efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill, as opposed to 48% for Democrats in Congress and 31% for congressional Republicans.
... more after the click.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Crash Landings: Paul Krugman's Depression Economics
By Bernard Avishai
"We sometimes, for example, hear it said," writes John Stuart Mill in his Principles of Political Economy, "that governments ought to confine themselves to affording protection against force and fraud"; that people should otherwise be "free agents, able to take care of themselves." But why, he asks, considering all the "other evils" of a market society, should people not be more widely protected by government--that is, "by their own collective strength"? Much like Mill, Paul Krugman likes capitalism's innovations but not its crises and thinks that government has a duty to facilitate the former and protect us from the latter. He doubts that citizens will get much protection from moguls--or from most economists, for that matter--unless we trouble to grasp how the whole intricate game works, so that our legislators will form a consensus about how to regulate it.
... more in The Nation, with all that Liberal media bias (you can't find anywhere else) after the click.
"We sometimes, for example, hear it said," writes John Stuart Mill in his Principles of Political Economy, "that governments ought to confine themselves to affording protection against force and fraud"; that people should otherwise be "free agents, able to take care of themselves." But why, he asks, considering all the "other evils" of a market society, should people not be more widely protected by government--that is, "by their own collective strength"? Much like Mill, Paul Krugman likes capitalism's innovations but not its crises and thinks that government has a duty to facilitate the former and protect us from the latter. He doubts that citizens will get much protection from moguls--or from most economists, for that matter--unless we trouble to grasp how the whole intricate game works, so that our legislators will form a consensus about how to regulate it.
... more in The Nation, with all that Liberal media bias (you can't find anywhere else) after the click.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
The Quilter
"Now what?"
Candy measures the backing for a king size quilt.
I've named it the Orthodox Easter Egg Quilt.
Culture Wars?
Come senators, congressmenThe last time those words were heard in earnest, they came with a full blown social and political revolution. Just who won that revolution is debatable. It's focal point was the Viet Nam War and the revolution was instrumental in stopping that war and in changing the way we all look at everything. The back lash to that revolution started with Nixon, flowered with Reagan and saw it's zenith with Gingrich's "Contract with America" and the election of George W. Bush, where it withered and died over the course of the last eight years like air leaking overnight from a faulty air mattress - leaving only aches and pains at dawn.
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
Theres a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
-- Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a Changin'
Well, the dawning is here and we are in a revolution now. It's not a social / political revolution like the 60s. It's political and economic. This time around, the revolutionaries are not naive flower children bent on stopping a war by sticking flowers in the ends of loaded rifles and dancing half naked in the streets. This time around the revolutionaries are older and (we hope) wiser. They are middle class tax payers with children and mutual funds; with health insurance and monthly bills ... and they all fear that tomorrow will be a repeat of today only worse. More than three million of their friends and neighbors are standing in unemployment lines and their biggest worry is they'll be next.
They've been listening, perhaps not paying direct attention, but they've been listening for years. They've heard the debates and they've watched the artificial economic bubble of asset inflation sold as economic growth expand and then burst. They knew who did it and they know the rationale ... they know that they bought into a line of unworkable bu11$hit. They know who screwed 'em.
They share one bit of clear understanding: tax cuts aren't worth a pi$hole in the snow if you don't have a job or if the prospects for the one you have are lookin' mighty grim! Tax cuts to corporations are worth even less. They've watched companies move operations and jobs off shore in good times - downsizing and right-sizing here at home in the process. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to figure out that those tax cuts go directly to the bottom line in hard times and won't create any jobs if the company isn't selling anything - and, frankly, nobody is buying anything. They've heard about tax cuts for a generation and they're still waiting for the benefits.
They've watched their buying power shrink out of sight, waiting for the trickle down benefits they were promised - while, all the time, watching the rich get richer.
It often takes time to consciously work through the flaws in the logic. Many people don't take the time to think through the knee-jerk doctrinaire pronouncements - like capitalism always good, socialism always bad; like a rising tide lifts all boats; like the "invisible hand" of the market will right all wrongs. They may not ever think through the arguments. After all, those bumper sticker phrases sound pretty good. However, they most certainly recognize, often with a blinding flash, when things are not working for them.
We're at the beginning of a revolution and the "tax cutters" in Congress, basking in the glory of the bygone Reagan years, praying for the resurrection of a legendary leader who never was, close their eyes tightly and throw tantrums on CSPAN that effectively end with "Bring it on!" They look to Reagan as a tax cutter - conveniently forgetting that he raised taxes in virtually every year of his administration except the year that he moved to lower taxes on the most wealthy. They praise Reagan as a "Cold Warrior" prepared to take on the world, conveniently forgetting that in 1983 he did everything he could to back away from retaliating when Marines were killed in Lebanon. They live in a selective reality, not realizing that Reagan wasn't nearly as good as they remember him to be (nor nearly as bad as some of the rest of us see him).
There's good advice for them from Mr. Dylan:
"Don't stand in the doorwayFor the times they are a changin'!
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled"
... or watch the video on YouTube.
Friday, February 06, 2009
More Misdirection
... would lies be too strong a term? It's the Audacity of Nope!
Q: Does the stimulus bill include a $5.2 billion payoff for ACORN?
A: The bill does include funds for which ACORN would be eligible to compete - against hundreds of other groups. But most is for a housing rehabilitation program ACORN says it never applied for in the past and won't in the future.
... see FactCheck.org for the details.
Q: Does the stimulus bill include a $5.2 billion payoff for ACORN?
A: The bill does include funds for which ACORN would be eligible to compete - against hundreds of other groups. But most is for a housing rehabilitation program ACORN says it never applied for in the past and won't in the future.
... see FactCheck.org for the details.
What 3.6 Million Jobs Lost Over 13 Months Looks Like
For those who don't think the situation is serious; for those who think we have time to quibble over 1% of the current stimulus package proposal in Congress and hold up the other 99%; for Republicans who simply don't get that SPENDING = ECONOMIC STIMULUS and tax cuts don't ...
"This chart compares the job loss so far in this recession to job losses in the 1990-1991 recession and the 2001 recession – showing how dramatic and unprecedented the job loss over the last 13 months has been. Over the last 13 months, our economy has lost a total of 3.6 million jobs – and continuing job losses in the next few months are predicted."... read the rest on The Gavel after the click.
A big part of the current crisis is that no one is buying anything. There is supply but there is no demand. Tax cuts do not stimulate anyone to buy anything. They are aimed at people who tend to be well off and they can afford to salt the proceeds away ... that is, not spend them. Government spending on unemployment benefits, food stamps and other similar programs puts money in the hand of people who have no money. What do you imagine those people will do when they get a little cash? Hint: They'll spend it!
Depression 2.0
Fortune (Magazine)
There are a lot of unhappy lines in this recession, but this wasn't one of them. The people that snaked around Denny's restaurant in Avenel, N.J., may have been cold and wet, but no one was complaining as they stood in the snow, waiting for the restaurant chain to disprove the old myth that there's no such thing as a free lunch (or in this case, breakfast).
"A free meal in an economy like this? Heck yeah," said Joe Barrera, who waited in line with his wife Tuesday to take Denny's up on its offer of an on-the-house Grand Slam breakfast. The two go to Denny's a couple of times a year, but that may change. "I'd give them my loyalty if they did this every once in a while," he said.
By the time the couple got in line at 9:15 a.m., manager Sam Kaul estimated that almost 300 people already had been served. Normally he would have seen between 25 and 30 customers at that point in the morning.
... read the rest in Fortune after the click.
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