Morning Bunker Report: Sunday 6.10.2012

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WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————

Yes, Republicans are stepping on the economy for political gain — The Republican line is that, even in current conditions of mass unemployment, zero interest rates and low inflation, higher short-term deficits harm the economy rather than help it. Republicans embraced this unorthodox line of thinking suddenly, after maintaining the opposite when their party held the White House. I used to reject the accusation that Republicans reversed their thinking out of a conscious decision to sabotage the economy in order to regain power. [...] I was shaken of that belief not long ago, when Mitt Romney said off the cuff that cutting spending in his first year would retard the recovery… Conservatives mounted zero pushback whatsoever, suggesting that their newfound attachment to contractionary fiscal policy is a pure shift of expediency, to be discarded immediately if their party wins power and suddenly has an incentive to speed up rather than slow down the economy. — Jonathan Chait | image: phroyd 

Romney Energy Plan Includes Drilling ‘Virtually Every Part’ Of U.S., No Protections For National Parks — As the [Washington] Post reports: Asked whether any place would be off limits for oil drilling, campaign spokesman Andrea Saul said, “Governor Romney will permit drilling wherever it can be done safely, taking into account local concerns.” [...] Presumably, if there was oil and gas found there, Romney would allow drilling in places like the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Isle Royale National Park in the Great Lakes, regardless of its impacts on them. In essence, he would take lands that belong to all Americans and turn them over to oil companies. – Think Progress

  • THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “AMERICAN” OIL — The oil or gas is drilled by corporations of various sizes ranging from wildcat, low-budget start up operations through Exxon/Mobil. [...] The thing is, the stuff that comes out of a successful well doesn’t belong to you and me. Or the state or federal government. It’s owned by the company that drilled for it, produced it, and shipped it to market. It’s not “America’s oil.” It’s Exxon’s. And BP’s. And Shell’s. And believe me: Exxon doesn’t think of it as “American oil.” They think of it as a commodity sold on a hyper-competitive global market. — PoliticalProf

Just to reiterate: Romney’s “jobs” plan is to fire government workers, he mocked President Obama for wanting to hire more teachers, firefighters and police officers  – Mitt Romney once again made it clear that his jobs plan is to fire government workers: “[the President] wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” — Greg Sargent

via: DailyKos 

Mitt Romney Thinks High Private Sector Growth and 4.3 Million New Jobs is a “Moral Failure of Tragic Proportions” – Mitt Romney today declared that the floundering economy under President Obama is not just a “failure of policy” but a “moral failure of tragic proportion,” though he offered few new details as to what he would do differently as president.  [...] “When you look around at America’s economy, three-and-a-half years into this presidency, it’s painfully obvious that this inexperienced president with no experience as a leader was simply not up to the task of solving a great economic crisis,” said Romney. “This is not just a failure of policy; it is a moral failure of tragic proportion. Our government has a moral commitment to help every American help himself. And that commitment has been broken.” – ABL

All employees: total private industries 

image: Bob Cesca

The private sector IS doing fine — According to the Wingnutosphere, yesterday was a day that will live in infamy. Why? Because President Obama said the private sector is “doing fine.” They are doing fine, actually. [...] Business Insider’s glorious collection of charts also covers the president’s words on the slump in public sector employment, but that’s not in dispute by the Republicans. They may even gloat about it. You know, because those aren’t real jobs. – Bob Cesca

Libertarians work through the five stages of grief over Rand Paul’s endorsement of Romney – The Libertarian Party issued a blistering statement through the party’s website, in which they called Rand a turncoat, a traitor to his father’s legacy and a sellout. “(N)o true libertarian, no true friend of liberty, and no true blue Tea Partier could possibly even consider, much less actually endorse or approve of, the Father of Obamacare, Big Government tax and spender, Republican Mitt Romney,” the statement said. [...] “WHY RAND WHY?!” wrote one angry Reddit poster, who included the climactic scene of George Lucas’s third “Star Wars” prequel, in which Anakin Skywalker is betrayed and abandoned by Obi Wan Kenobi. “He bowed to the neocons!!!” wrote another, “WELL LISTEN RAND!!! WE WON’T BOW!!! WE WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AS YOU BOWED TO THE KILLER GLOBALISTS!!!” On Facebook, one Ron Paul supporter wrote, “Rand Paul you disgust me.” – Raw Story || Stage one: ALL CAPS

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————


image: storiesbysharkbait

Tell Congress we can’t wait — The President’s jobs plan would put teachers, firefighters, police officers, and construction workers back to work right now. And it’s paid for by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more, but Congress refuses to act. Tell Congress we can’t wait: JobsNow – YouTube

…

Sen. Sherrod Brown on JP Morgan’s trading mess: ‘These banks are not just too big to fail, they’re too big to manage‘ – Brown (D-OH) said that JP Morgan’s trading mess proves banks are not only too big to fail — meaning they are explicitly backed by the government and will be rescued if they blow themselves up — but simply “too big to manage”: [...] “Jamie Dimon’s smart, he’s articulate, he’s probably a good manager, he’s probably a good CEO. I don’t like his public persona in terms of what he’s done to weaken these regulations and to undercut them. They lost their fights in Congress, now they’re organizing to win them in the regulatory agencies. But I think, if he can’t manage a bank this size, it probably isn’t manageable. I think these banks will be stronger and healthier and probably more profitable if they’re smaller.” – Think Progress

Well played, Senator:

Kudos to Sen. Sherrod Brown for giving CNN contributor/Breitbart.com loon Dana Loesch exactly the amount of respect she deserved, when she popped up like a malevolent jack-in-the-box at the Netroots Nation conference. — LGF

Harry Reid said he will likely push for changes to filibuster rules if the Democrats retain control next year – “I’ll just bet you … if we maintain a majority, and I feel quite confident that we can do that, and the president is reelected, there is going to be some changes,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “We can no longer go through this, every bill, filibusters [even] on bills that they agree with. It’s just a waste of time to prevent us from getting things done.” It remains unclear, however, if Reid would have the votes to change the Senate’s rules, which would require a simple majority vote at the start of the new Congress. Should Democrats retain control of the Senate, they will likely have a razor-thin majority in 2013. Only one or two defections could lead to defeat of the motion, as all Republicans are united against such a change in rules. – The Hill

image: abaldwin360

Paul Krugman at Netroots Nation: solving this depression isn’t an economic problem, it’s a political problem – The Nobel Laureate said that the current state of the U.S. economy is “incredibly awful,” and dinged Romney’s exorbitant wealth, saying, “If you don’t know multiple people who are suffering, then you must be living in a very rarefied environment. You must be maybe a member of the Romney clan, or something.” Krugman underscored the fact that the current economic crisis has been created by deregulation and poor policy decisions. “None of this has to be happening,” he said, “We didn’t have a plague of locusts, we were not hit by a tsunami, there wasn’t some act of God that created this terrible situation. It was acts of man.” [...] “Solving this depression is not fundamentally an economic problem,” he said, “it’s a political problem.” – Raw Story

Things you never imagine Dick Cheney doing: Joe Biden had an epic waterfight with kids today – The Vice President invites the press and their families to his home at the Naval Observatory every year. — Buzzfeed (more photos at the link)