Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Addressing illegal immigration
This is a step in the right direction:
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano soon will direct federal agents to focus more on arresting and prosecuting American employers than the illegal laborers who sneak into the country to work for them
The only voices that matter
Forget the pundits, the bloggers, the radio clowns, and the TV crybabies. In a system such as ours, it's the will of the American people that counts. And while public opinion polls may not be perfect, they offer the best available method of gauging what the will of the people is at any given time.
The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll has the following nuggets:
The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll has the following nuggets:
The percentage of Americans in the new poll who said the country is on the right track still stands at just 42 percent, but that is the highest percentage saying so in five years and marks a sharp turnabout from last fall, when as many as nine in 10 said the country was heading in the wrong direction.So, let's keep the eye on the ball and ignore the kooks on the right.
Two-thirds of Americans approve of the way Obama is handling the country's top job, and six in 10 give him good marks on issue No. 1, the flagging economy.
Monday, March 30, 2009
I'm surprised...
... that the Republican party isn't pushing the idea to privatize social security.
Given their track report and current suggestions for how to recover the economy, this terrible suggestion would seem a natural for them.
Given their track report and current suggestions for how to recover the economy, this terrible suggestion would seem a natural for them.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Quiet Coup
If you want to get an excellent take on why the economy got to where it is, read this article by Simon Johnson. Here's an intro to his article:
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
All your base are belong to us
This may very well turn into the next big internet fad as people everywhere are playing with the basic diagram (and yes, in case you're wondering, this is the actual chart in the Republican party's lame attempt at providing a blue print for a federal budget):
Here's an example of what people are doing with this basic construct:
Here's an example of what people are doing with this basic construct:
Friday, March 27, 2009
Amen, Howard
Doctor Howard Dean:
Why fear a government run program that is simply another option to private insurers? Really, if government is so bad at running these types of programs, shouldn't private companies be able to run circles around that government program?
If Barack Obama's healthcare plan gets changed to exclude a public option like Medicare, then it is not healthcare reform. Legislation rises and falls on whether the American public is allowed to choose a universally available public option or not.If we leave the for-profit system entirely as it is now, I don't see how things will improve.
Why fear a government run program that is simply another option to private insurers? Really, if government is so bad at running these types of programs, shouldn't private companies be able to run circles around that government program?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Will this one stick?
Lacking ideas, conservatives have settled on insults to try and tarnish Barack Obama. So far they have had no success. Terms like "socialist," "communist," "terrorist sympathizer," etc. have not stuck. They are trying a new one: that Obama really isn't very articulate. Really. I'm not kidding:
I don't really get all this gabbing about Obama and his teleprompter. Does anyone really doubt Obama's ability to speak cogently and in detail without notes, after winning three presidential debates and slaying just about every press availability he gets? So he likes reading from a screen and not a piece of paper. But this whole line of attack, promoted widely by conservative blogs, sort of baffles me.You have to wonder: is Republicans learning?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Focus, bitches
Health Care. Energy. Education. Security.
You small-minded bitches on the right want to talk about birth certificates, teleprompters, and dresses... go ahead. Just prove your irrelevance.
Health Care. Energy. Education. Security... yeah!
You small-minded bitches on the right want to talk about birth certificates, teleprompters, and dresses... go ahead. Just prove your irrelevance.
Health Care. Energy. Education. Security... yeah!
Obama needs a new press secretary
This is a brilliant idea. Too bad it will never happen:
No - he doesn't need to replace Gibbs. He needs a new adjunct press secretary. This position can be titled Press Secretary for response to smear attacks, or maybe Press Secretary for issues that are too dumb to waste our time on. And every time someone complains about Obama using a teleprompter, the only person that will talk to them about their "issue" will be this Adjunct Press Secretary.Love it! Someone in the comments suggested John McEnroe for the position:
Still worried about Obama's birth certificate? Mad about an unwise comment that was apologized for a week ago already? Need to complain about the fashion choices of the first lady? This is your contact. All nit-picking, questions unrelated to policy, and all old, tired, refuted lies will be handled by the new Adjunct Press Secretary, with skin as thick as a elephant and no aversion to calling people stupid (in the most delicate way, of course).
If Obama did this, he would be guaranteed my vote for 2012, otherwise I might vote for Sarah Pa... er... never mind.Right winger: "When are we going to see concrete proof that Obama is an American citizen from birth? The orders he's giving the military right now could be invalid?"
Adjunct Press Secretary McEnroe: "YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS. GTFO."
A hazing
From the Politico (aka, Fox News light on the internet):
A hazing? No wonder he's bypassing you bozos.
At a time when his Washington honeymoon is turning into a hazing, President Barack Obama and his team are launched on a strategy to sail above the traditional White House press corps by reaching out to liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media.A hazing?! How so? His approval ratings are still in the 60s and the American people AIG for current financial problems.
A hazing? No wonder he's bypassing you bozos.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Poor Bobby Jindal
Remember him picking on allocating money to study volcano eruptions?
Poor Tim Geithner
He's a socialist and a corrupt capitalist:
As economic historian Brad DeLong noted over the weekend, the world is divided into "people who are strongly opposed to the Geithner plan because Tim Geithner is a socialist who wants to destroy American finance" and "people who are strongly opposed to the Geithner plan because Tim Geithner is a corrupt plutocrat who wants to give Americans' money to the princes of Wall Street."Um... come to think of it, I'm a little of both myself. But this stuff is too complicated for me to have an authoritative opinion. I just hope Tim's ideas work. By that I mean I hope they get my retirement accounts back up to a healthy level so I can cash them in and go live in a cave somewhere. A cave with electricity, running water, and access to the googles and stuff.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Yeah Paul, where the heck are you?
My beef with the AIG bailout
This is my main beef with Geithner and Obama as they deal with AIG:
The real problem behind the AIG public relations mess is not the tin ears of all the President's men, or their tone deaf commentary, or their ham-handed approach to decision-making. The real problem is that the AIG situation implies that they, the President's men, don't think like shareholders. They don't act as if their fiduciary duty is to the taxpayers whose money they spend.I understand about wanting to get credit flowing again and wanting to stop the bleeding, but this is a time when shareholders, directors, and executives need to lose just about everything -- they are all partners in the greed that led us to where we are.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Good question
Jed Lewison:
If the mainstream media had put 10% of the effort into investigating Bush Administration claims of WMD as they are into the claims that Tim Geithner and/or Chris Dodd facilitated the AIG bailout bonuses, what are the chances we would have gone to war in Iraq?Not that I think the media should stop going after Tim Geithner and Chris Dodd -- Democrats or not, their actions need to be scrutinized -- but it's a pity the media didn't have the same sense or responsibility when it mattered even more.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
15 down, 35 to go
Slowly but surely the United States, state by state, is joining the family of civilized nations that have banned the death penalty:
Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation Wednesday repealing New Mexico's death penalty, making it the second state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976... With Richardson signing the measure, New Mexico joins 14 other states that do not impose capital punishment.Something else for Glenn Beck to cry about.
The epitome of bad
How bad is it that AIG paid millions in bonuses to the employees who drove the company down the ravine? So bad that even Rush Limbaugh is defending those bonuses. That's like getting invited to the captain's table at the USS Satan.
Big Bust!
How big? Texas big:
Police in Houston, Texas, say they have busted a prostitution ring that may involve more than 1,500 clients, including professional athletes, doctors and lawyers... Investigators said the women met their clients in upscale hotels and charged about $350 an hour, the affiliate reported.All I can say is, Elliot Spitzer got screwed in more ways than one: he was paying ten times that much.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Pi Day
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The coming evangelical collapse
Michael Spencer is a writer and communicator living and working in a Christian community in Kentucky. He writes:
But it won't happen. There will always be a place for those who lack the sense of responsibility and would be drunks, cheaters, abusers, etc. if not for their reliance and fear by an omnipotent force. And there will always be leaders willing to take those people to the "promise land"... for donations, of course.
But I can see their decline, and with it, the current version of the Republican party. And that would be a good thing for everyone.
We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.Well, that would be nice. After all, a group that pretty much shuns the "turn the other cheek" and "I am my brother's keeper" mentality and instead embraces an anti-choice, anti-civil rights, and anti-tolerance, while married to a corrupt political party, deserves nothing but death.
But it won't happen. There will always be a place for those who lack the sense of responsibility and would be drunks, cheaters, abusers, etc. if not for their reliance and fear by an omnipotent force. And there will always be leaders willing to take those people to the "promise land"... for donations, of course.
But I can see their decline, and with it, the current version of the Republican party. And that would be a good thing for everyone.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Right wingers and the market
The stock market was way up today. The Dow Jones gained around 380 points. Conclusion: Barack Obama deserves all the credit.
If you agree with the above statement you must be a right wing idiot. The same type of idiot who blames Obama when the market drops.
If you agree with the above statement you must be a right wing idiot. The same type of idiot who blames Obama when the market drops.
It's the health care, stupid
Health care like Iraq war?
Health care is only a war if there are those bent on preventing what's in the best interests, and the will, of the American people. It is the Republican party that is choosing to make health care a war.
To use the Iraq war as an analogy for health care reform would only work if Saddam Hussein had been the one who invaded America.
In this op-ed in today's Washington Post, Jackson Diehl argues that there are strong similarities between Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and asserts that Obama's decision to pursue health care reform can be compared to Bush's to go to war in Iraq. Each, he suggests, is a "war of choice"...Karen Tumulty has this to say:
If we don't fix our health care system, everything else we do for the automakers may well be a waste. That's because health care costs are one of biggest things that are killing this country's auto industry. Detroit is spending more on health care these days than it is on steel.Even if they are both wars of choice, isn't a war to save people's lives and savings worth fighting over one that drains the treasury and kills hundreds of thousands?
Health care is only a war if there are those bent on preventing what's in the best interests, and the will, of the American people. It is the Republican party that is choosing to make health care a war.
To use the Iraq war as an analogy for health care reform would only work if Saddam Hussein had been the one who invaded America.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Insane
Now, even David Brooks, a Republican cheerleader, sees some problems with the party:
The problem with them and the problem with Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they are stuck with Reagan. They are stuck with the idea that government is always the problem. A lot of Republicans up in Capitol Hill right now are calling for a spending freeze in a middle of a recession/depression. That is insane.That Reagan crap was always insane, not just now.
Arsonists
Well, Frank Schaeffer* sure has a lot to say:
* Frank Schaeffer is a best selling author, former member of the Christian Right and a former Republican.
You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created.I'm glad he's seen the light, but what is about these people that take them so long to recognize how corrupt and devoid of ideas the Republican party has become?
* Frank Schaeffer is a best selling author, former member of the Christian Right and a former Republican.
The Socialist Society
That's right, to one extent or another, America is a "socialist" country (if we're going to disregard the true meaning of the world). And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Pig smell
There's near $2 million on the spending bill to study pig odor. Republican senators like Tom Coburn, John McCain, John Ensign, to name a few, are behaving like pigs in shit over this. Ensign even said this on the senate floor:
Anyway, why study pig odor?
Now, I'm a veterinarian by profession. I understand that pigs smell and pig farms smell worse than almost anything else, but when did it become the responsibility of the federal government to control pig odor?I only have one question for senator Ensign. Rumor has it that you had sex with your pig patients. Is that true? (Yes, that's a reference to LBJ's tactic).
Anyway, why study pig odor?
Pig odor is more than just a smell; it's dangerous stuff that cause serious health problems, both physical and mental, in people. It can even contribute to asthma in children.I guess until they can prove it harms fetuses, Republicans won't give a crap about it.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Republican Stupidity: Sen. Jim DeMint
Republicans are too lazy to do their homework:
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)... suggested that students in D.C. public schools are more likely to join gangs than graduate. “If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating,” he said. ... In fact, nearly 70 percent of D.C. students graduated last year, putting the District “in line with the national average,” while Sen. DeMint’s home state of South Carolina had a graduation rate of “almost 56 percent,” the fourth worst in the nation.Umm... no wonder there are so many Republicans in South Carolina.
Dittohead Party
Bob Cesca:
Year after year, the Republicans have been magnetically drawn ever closer to the simplistic worldview espoused by far-right talk radio: a segment of American society that's perhaps a little too comfy with laughing at a racial or sexist joke, or repeating nearsighted bumper sticker slogans like, "Your mortgage is not my problem."...Michael Steele has proved himself to be a Dittohead. Mike Pence and Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay? All dittoheads. You'd be hard pressed to find a Republican politician who hasn't in some way expressed his or her Dittohead status while also genuflecting at the bloated cankles of their radio warlord.
So it should come as no surprise that the leader of the dittoheads has become the leader of the Republicans.
"A little too comfy with laughing at a racial or sexist joke, or repeating nearsighted bumper sticker slogans"... this pretty much describes every single conservative I have ever met.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Reagan is dead, again
Oh my... veins are popping all over right-wing land:
Check out this question from the new Fox News poll: "What do you think the nation's economy needs more of right now -- the economic policies of Ronald Reagan or the economic policies of Barack Obama?"
The answer: Obama 49%, Reagan 40%.
This is not a right of center country. Heck, it's not even left of center. Americans are downright socialists/communists/Marxist/terrorist loving. Commerade
The Great Santelli
I'm a big fan of the Daily Show. This piece on CNBC and how they simply carry water for the Wall Street crowd may be one of the best ever:
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Tripping
Conservatives are tripping over themselves to call Obama's agenda socialism, Marxism, and/or communism. I wouldn't discourage them; I like knowing they're agonizing over it.
Americans prefer Dems
According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News (you know, Fox light) poll:
The poll had bad news for the Republican opposition. By a margin of more than 2-1, Americans trust the Democratic Party over the Republicans to get the country out of the recession. Views of the GOP are near an all-time low. And more than half of all adults say that Republicans in Congress have opposed Mr. Obama's proposals more to gain political advantage, compared with 30% who say Republicans have done so because they are standing up for their principles.So, Limbaugh and company -- shut the fuck up!
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Jobs
Under Democratic presidencies, job creation goes up. Every Democrat who followed a Republican did better than the Republican who preceded them. Every Republican who followed a Democrat produced fewer jobs than their predecessor.The message is simple: if you want job creation, elect a Democrat.
Monday, March 02, 2009
The party of Limbaugh is fighting
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele took umbrage Saturday night when CNN's D.L. Hughley referred to radio host Rush Limbaugh as "the de facto leader of the Republican party."
"No he's not. I'm the de facto leader of the Republican party," Steele said. The RNC chief went on to call Limbaugh, who that very day delivered the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a mere "entertainer" whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."
On his radio show today, Limbaugh fired back... "Michael Steele, you are head of the Republican National Committee. You are not head of the Republican party.
I'm stocking up on coke and popcorn. This is going to be fun.
UPDATE:
HAHAHAHAHA ... it only took a few hours for this coward (Steele) to recognize who is the leader of the Republican party:
They are so afraid of Rush... cowards, all of them.Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”
“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
McCarthy era taunt
After showing the poor public opinion results for Republicans in recent polls (you can see the details here), Jon Taplin makes this observation:
Note that in no category do the Repubs get much more than 30%. And then there are the Limbaugh Republicans who at 18% are so marginalized that the best they can do is go hear Rush mouth off about Socialism at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Having no ideas of their own about fixing our country, the Right has revived the McCarthy era taunt.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
The Republican leader
Rham Emanuel knows who is leading the Republican party -- Rush Limbaugh:
