Tag Archives: economy

Recap / GIFs from the SOTU and the GOP response

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Obama’s State Of The Union Address (FULL TEXT) » The President spoke about the policies and issues on which he campaigned AND WON a second term.

PDF from the White House of the policies that the President outlined.

State of the union address: Obama lays down gauntlet »

  • Second term to focus on immigration, gun control, economy
  • Obama: ‘We must pay our bills on time’
  • President announces pullout of 34,000 troops from Afghanistan
  • Calls for increase in minimum wage for US workers


via @Ronc99

Ezra Klein: Imagine, for a moment, that President Obama managed to pass every policy he proposed tonight. Within a couple of years, every four-year-old would have access to preschool. The federal minimum wage would be at $9 — higher than it’s been, after adjusting for inflation, since 1981. There’d be a cap-and-trade program limiting our carbon emissions and a vast infrastructure investment to upgrade our roads and bridges. Taxes would be higher, guns would be harder to come by, and undocumented immigrants would have a path to citizenship. America would be a noticeably different country.


Daily Intelligencer: Joe Biden loved it when Obama suggested that Congress “pass the rest” of his jobs legislation.

“We are citizens. It’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations; that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story.” — President Obama, SOTU 2013


via workingamerica

JM Ashby: While I will praise this announcement, I expect the Far Right will say it’s too soon, and the Far Left will say it’s too late.

President Barack Obama Blows a kiss to first lady Michelle Obama,
  
via obama2016


via krispycrustacean

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And the GOP’s response, courtesy of their best hope (this week) for 2016:


via inothernews


via theatlantic

Full transcript of Sen. Marco Rubio’s response to the State of the Union »

The State of the Hydration, in “slow-mo” (notice Rubio NEVER loses eye contact with the camera):

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via @jedlewison


…said no one but Fox Nation. (via)


via myhappymachine

FACT CHECK: Under President Obama, federal spending has grown at the slowest rates since President Eisenhower » (via occupy-my-blog)

Other:

Twenty-two Congressmen invited people whose lives have been touched by gun violence, in an effort coordinated by Jim Langevin, Democrat of Rhode Island. Counterbalancing those invitees is a Texas congressman who invited Ted Nugent. Nugent was investigated by the secret service after saying that if President Obama were reelected he, Nugent, would end up “dead or in jail.” Turned out the answer was c) at the state of the union. — guardian.co.uk

Photos of Shitty Pants Nugent during the SOTU here and here and here.

Worst. President. Ever. (Let’s do it again with Mitt Romney)

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Political Wire: “An excerpt of Where They Stand:The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians by Robert W. Merry in Salon suggests George W. Bush will be ranked near the bottom of all presidents: ”Based on the contemporaneous voter assessments, the objective record, and what we know of history, it’s difficult to see him even in middle-ground territory. History likely will view Bush largely as the voters did after eight years of his stewardship. And so it’s probably just as well that he doesn’t care much about the verdict of history.“

Consider that Mitt Romney, in actions if not in words, is creating a campaign that seems to be an exact duplicate of the Bush Years, from extending tax cuts for the one percent — who’ve already surpassed all other earners in the country with net income advantages, and who’ve hoarded their wealth gains to the detriment of our entire economy — to a neocon foreign policy platform that’s becoming more “Cheneyfied” by the day. What could go wrong?

Ari Berman: “Of Romney’s forty identified foreign policy advisers, more than 70 percent worked for Bush. Many hail from the neoconservative wing of the party, were enthusiastic backers of the Iraq War and are proponents of a US or Israeli attack on Iran. [...]  Romney’s malleability is an advantage for his neocon advisers, giving them an opportunity to shape his worldview, as they did with Bush after 9/11. Four years after Bush left office in disgrace, Romney is their best shot to get back in power. If that happens, they’re likely to pursue the same aggressive policies they advocated under Bush. “I don’t think there’s been a deep rethink,” says Clemons. “I don’t think the neoconservatives feel chastened at all. As a movement, the true neoconservatives never, ever give up. They will be back.””

Andrew Sullivan: “When you check reality, rather than the alternate universe constantly created by Fox News and an amnesiac press, you find that Bush had a chance to pay off all our national debt before we hit the financial crisis – giving the US enormous flexibility in intervening to ameliorate the recession. Instead, we had to find money for a stimulus in a cupboard stripped bare – its contents largely given away, by an act of choice. I’m tired of being told we cannot blame Bush for our current predicament. We can and should blame him for most of it – and remind people that Romney’s policies: more tax cuts, more defense spending are identical. With one difference: Bush pledged never “to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.””

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) 

Morning Bunker Report: Saturday 5.26.2012

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WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY—————————–—

“I like competition, and I think the game is like a sport for old guys. I mean, you know, I can’t compete in competitive sports very well, but I can compete in politics, and there’s the—what was the old ABC ‘Wide World of Sports’ slogan? ‘The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.’ The only difference is victory is still a thrill, but I don’t feel agony in loss.” – Mitt Romney, comparing the presidential election to a game, in an interview by Peggy “Drunk at” Noonan, published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.

“It’s all in the game, yo. All in the game.” Omar Little

Romney argues big spending cuts would cause ‘Depression,’ contrary to Tea Party activists – While rival schools of economic thought have never agreed on each other’s fundamental principles, over the past several decades, the notion that more government spending helps during a recession had gained broad acceptance. But it has been rejected by Tea Party members of Congress and conservative interest groups like the Club for Growth, who have bemoaned Obama’s stimulus package and other efforts to boost the economy as job-killing government spending. Club for Growth declined to comment for this article. The rhetorical thrust of a sharp distinction between the Tea Party’s demand for big cuts and Obama’s supposed propensity to spend has been a central tenet of the GOP’s political messaging over the past two years. And Romney has run afoul of budget-cut purists before, recently over comments he made during a campaign stop in Michigan. “If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy,” Romney said, according to MSNBC. That comment prompted this response from Club for Growth lobbyist Andy Roth: “It’s hogwash. It confirms yet again that Romney is not a limited government conservative.” — HuffPo

  • And so it naturally follows: DC Republicans reinvent themselves as Keynesians to warn of the impending harm to the U.S. economy of cutting government spending. — TPM

A top Mitt Romney campaign adviser on Friday disavowed conspiracy theories pushed by Donald Trump, one of Romney’s most high-profile supporters. The adviser said the campaign could not be held responsible for everything that Romney supporters say. Trump is a birther. He clings to the notion that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not the United States, despite the fact that this theory has been proven to be baseless. Next week, Romney will be holding an event with Trump. In a CNN interview on Friday, Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom said the campaign was going ahead with the May 29 event despite Trump’s birther views. — HuffPo

  • Trump still talking about Obama’s place of birth yesterday – “Look, it’s very simple,” said Trump, who has spent the past 13 months questioning Obama’s constitutional eligibility to occupy the White House (and only doubled down with his stubborn skepticism after Obama produced a long-form birth certificate, certifying he was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii, and then hilariously roasted him at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. “A book publisher came out three days ago and said that in his written synopsis of his book,” Trump went on, “he said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia. His mother never spent a day in the hospital.” — Lloyd Grove | Daily Beast
  •  Romney-Trump 2012? — Asked Friday in a guest appearance on ABC’s “The View” if he was interested in joining Mitt Romney’s presidential ticket, Donald Trump asked, “Who would turn it down?” – CNN Political Ticker

Let the eagle soar! Paid sick leave for workers: ILLEGAL — Last year, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Wisconsin’s Republican legislature approved a law making it illegal for Wisconsin’s cities to require that businesses provide their workers with paid sick days. Milwaukee had crafted a law mandating paid sick leave for workers within the city, but Walker and Wisconsin GOP nullified it. A judge, in ruling that the state had the ability to preempt Milwaukee’s law, said “I don’t feel real good about how this happened politically.” Louisiana’s legislature is now considering a similar bill to preempt local efforts at requiring paid leave for workers… [...] Just a few cities in the country — Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle — along with the state of Connecticut require that workers receive paid sick leave. The United States is all alone in the industrialized world in not requiring some form of paid leave as a matter of national policy. Each year, the U.S. economy loses $180 billion in productivity due to sick employees attending work and infecting other workers. — Think Progress

Bush signs tax cuts via WikimediaHouse GOP plans August vote to extend Bush tax cuts  – “Knowing that comprehensive reform will take time, we must ensure that while Congress is working to bring about competitive change, government does not increase the cost of business,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor wrote in a note to Republican representatives on Friday. “Before we leave for August, I expect to schedule a vote on legislation preventing the largest tax increase in history.” – Raw Story

  • The Hill reports that vote will happen in July.

Damage done: The Romney campaign seems to have decided that it can’t repair the damage to his chances with Hispanics post-primary and he’ll focus on getting votes elsewhere.  – TPM

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

“[T]he rate of spending – federal spending increase is lower under President Obama than all of his predecessors since Dwight Eisenhower, including all of his Republican predecessors. That is a fact not often noted in the press and certainly never mentioned by the Republicans. [T]his President has been – has demonstrated significant fiscal restraint and acted with great fiscal responsibility. That is also why he has put forward a balanced plan to further reduce our deficit and debt by over $4 trillion….. I simply make the point, as an editor might say, to check it out; do not buy into the BS that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint [sic] with regard to this administration. I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness.” – White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, speaking to the press corps on Wednesday aboard Air Force One

An Obama Spending Spree? Hardly. – The fact that the national debt has risen from $10.6 trillion to $15.6 trillion under Obama’s watch makes for easy partisan attacks. But the vast bulk of the increase was caused by a combination of revenue losses due to the 2008-09 economic downturn as well as Bush-era tax cuts and automatic increases in safety-net spending that were already written into law. Obama’s policies, including the much-criticized stimulus package, have caused the slowest increase in federal spending of any president in almost 60 years, according to data compiled by the financial news service MarketWatch. — TPMDC

Obama calls Romney speech ‘a cow pie of distortion’ – The president said there may be value in Romney’s experience in corporate buyouts, “but it’s not in the White House.” He also noted that the former governor doesn’t talk about his record in Massachusetts. Speaking directly to Iowans, Obama used local lingo to slam Romney: “Governor Romney came to Des Moines last week and warned of a prairie fire of debt,” he said. “But he left out some facts. His speech was more like a cow pie of distortion.” Then he quipped, “I don’t know whose record he twisted the most – mine or his.” — MSNBC

Bill Maher: Obama ‘is a lousy socialist’ — Maher ended Friday night’s “New Rules” segment by calling out the Right’s ridiculous mischaracterization of the President. “…Newt Gingrich called Obama the most radical Leftist President in history. Senator Marco Rubio called him the most divisive figure in American history. Michelle Bachmann said Obama is the most radical President we have ever seen in the history of the country …John Bolton said Obama just doesn’t care about national security. Honestly, there are Mexican drug mules who don’t pull this much stuff out of their ass,” Maher said. Maher, expressing disappointment in Obama’s accomplishments, then said, “If Obama were as radical as they claim, here’s what he would have already done: Pulled the troops out of Afghanistan, given us ‘Medicare for all,’ ended the drug war, cut the defense budget in half, and turned Dick Cheney over to the Hague.” – Raw Story 

TGIF morning’s 9 marginally interesting things

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1) Economy gets more good news - ”After more than two years of frustrating fits and starts, the U.S. economy is showing signs of moving onto firmer ground. A host of reports Thursday underscored that point, as well as the perils that persist. The number of Americans filing initial claims for government unemployment benefits has fallen to levels last seen before Lehman Brothers collapsed, the Labor Department said. The stock market, a leading indicator of growth, is off to its best start this year since 1998 and notched more gains Thursday. Meantime, consumer confidence has reclaimed ground lost last year, and another report showed that income growth is firming. However the economy is far from robust. Government and company reports showed consumer spending has been mixed. And the manufacturing sector, though on the rebound, isn’t booming, according to a survey of manufacturing purchasing managers by the Institute for Supply Management.”

2) Obama Tells Congress To Eliminate ‘Outrageous’ Big Oil Tax Breaks - In a speech before a large crowd in Nashua, New Hampshire, President Barack Obama exhorted Americans to tell Congress to eliminate $4 billion in annual subsidies to big oil companies, who are making record profits on soaring gas prices. The audience booed as Obama talked about the “outrageous” and “inexcusable” tax breaks. Obama had an unambiguous message for every member of Congress: “You can either stand up for the oil companies, or you can stand up for the American people.”

3) Leaders Ask Why We’re Exporting Fossil Fuels Without Considering American Security First - Panelists Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA)  bemoaned the fact that the United States does not have a national strategy on exports.  Wyden accused the country of being “on autopilot” to an energy export policy, which could have tremendous economic, social, and environmental consequences.  He expanded: So I have been somebody who’s been expansionist on trade and think that we ought to have freer trade, have fairer trade, but we also need to have smarter trade.  And allowing energy producers—we haven’t really touched on this—to trade away our international competitiveness and our energy independence by exporting the resources right now without thinking through the implications here of what it means for consumers and our companies doesn’t strike me as a smart trade policy.

…

4) Mitt Romney is not impressed with the ‘fancy raincoats’ worn by NASCAR fans - these three sentences, from The New York Times writeup of Romney’s visit to the Daytona 500, might just be the three most hilarious sentences about Mitt Romneybot that you read all day. But the crowd initially booed Mr. Romney, who occasionally struck a discordant note, as when he approached a group of fans wearing plastic ponchos. “I like those fancy raincoats you bought,” he said. “Really sprung for the big bucks.” The only question is whether he’s so clueless that he’s never seen plastic ponchos before and actually thinks they are a big money item … or if he’s a enough of a condescending jackass that he’d make fun of somebody for wearing one.

  • “Look, I have worn a garbage bag for rain gear myself.” - Mitt Romney

5) SLUTS* AND THEIR CONTRACEPTION: Senate Votes in Favor of Loose-Moraled Hussies (Blunt Act) -The Senate rejected an amendment [yester]day that would have vastly expanded so-called conscience objections to the Obama administration’s health care law. The measure, which was narrowly defeated in a 51-48 vote, would have allowed employers and insurers to opt out of any portion of the health care law they found morally objectionable, including the requirement to cover the costs of birth control. Currently, churches are the only institutions fully exempt from that requirement, though President Obama recently announced an accommodation by which religiously affiliated organizations such as charities, schools, or hospitals can refuse to provide contraceptive coverage through their insurance plans. ||  *if by ‘sluts’ you mean average women…

  • Rep. Speier calls for boycott of Limbaugh sponsors - But on his show, Limbaugh accused Fluke of not being able to afford contraception because she was “having so much sex.” Then on Thursday, he demanded that women post sex tapes online if they use insurance-covered birth control. “Shame on you for calling the women of this country prostitutes,” Speier said. “Ninety-eight percent of the women in this country at some time in their lives used birth control.” “So I say to the women in this country, do something about this,” she continued. “I say to the women of this country, ask Century 21, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Sleep Number to stop supporting the hate mongering of Rush Limbaugh and if they do not do that, then I ask them to boycott those companies.”

6) First Company Pulls Ads From Rush Limbaugh’s Show, Others May Follow - After repeatedly and unapologetically attacking law school student Sandra Fluke as a “slut” on his nationally-syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh is facing backlash from his advertisers, reports the Huffington Post. Mattress retailer Sleep Train announced this morning that they would be pulling all of its advertisements from the program after being besieged on Twitter by angry customers. ProFlowers, eHarmony, and several other companies have also been fielding complaints as well, and both companies have said they are considering taking action as well.  || Note: can you IMAGINE getting flowers at this point from PROFLOWERS, sent by some guy who ordered them from there because he listens to Limbaugh? It would be like getting spit on and then pushed down.  

7) John Boehner vows to continue war on icky lady parts - Asshole: “I think it’s important for us to win this issue,” Mr. Boehner told reporters just before the Senate killed a Republican measure with a vote of 51 to 48. “The government, our government, for 220 years has respected the religious views of the American people, and for all of this time there’s been an exception for those churches and other groups to protect the religious beliefs that they believe in, and that’s being violated here.” [...] “I’ve been trying to take this out of the political realm and get it into a position where we can continue to protect the American people’s right to their own religious views,” he said. “And there are a lot of ways to do that. There’s one in the Senate. We have a couple in the House. It’s matter of how we proceed.” [...] “The government is moving in a direction that would force some Americans to violate their religious beliefs,” he said. “This is wrong, and we want to stop it.” 

8) Pillheads in the Senate - This is not a debate, let alone a “fierce” one. This is an issue on which the country made up its damn mind long ago, regardless of how ginned up some politicians can get the rubes. It’s also not a debate about “religion,” unless, to borrow Garry Wills’s felicitous phrase, one reduces the Gospels to “the mere smithying of chastity belts.” … Let us begin by noting that the whole fooferaw happened at all because the Republicans decided to attach an anti-contraception amendment to a multimillion-dollar bill aimed at improving the nation’s highways, which are presently falling apart faster than Roy Blunt’s libido. This, of course, makes the entire thing a profoundly embarrassing charade. This, of course, makes this the United States Senate. The fact that this nonsense failed by an extraordinarily narrow 51-48 reinforces my belief that this issue is not the gold-plated sure winner that White House partisans think it is. (In case you’re wondering, the three hopeless Democrats were Joe Manchin of West Virginia, young Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and the Council Of Trent, and the inevitable Ben Nelson.)

Democratic ideal

9) Dems vow: No more cuts for federal workers - Leading Democrats charged Republicans this week with “discrimination” against federal workers amid Congress’s struggle to cut deficit spending. The Democrats said a series of federal pay cuts – most recently as part of the payroll-tax package – pile the deficit-reduction burden on one group of Americans while the rest of the country gets a free pass. The lawmakers – all of whom represent districts laden with federal workers – are vowing to oppose any future legislation that includes cuts in federal compensation. [...] The Democrats on Wednesday defended the pay discrepancy. The problem is not that federal workers are overcompensated, they said, but that too many private-sector employees are denied fair wages and benefits. “We’re trying to give them a living wage – how awful that is,” Hoyer quipped. “Let’s correct what they’re doing in the private sector,” Cardin added, “[not] race to the bottom.”‘

  • NTEU launches Web site to counter ‘false statements’ against federal workers - Upset by “a wide variety of politicians, pundits and think tanks making grand statements and broad assertions about federal government employees,” the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has launched a Web site to provide a counter view. “Far too often, these statements will be false,” the union said in a news release Thursday. The Web site, FederalEmployeeFacts.com, is “dedicated to correcting those who are all too willing to bend the truth when it comes to claims about the federal workforce,” NTEU said.

Joy Behar and the GOP’s newest Shiny Object

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source: leftish

The newest shiny object that the GOP / Fox “News” team is dangling in front of its base of support is the religious “freedom” / contraception debate: Look! look over here! at social issues like birth control and abortion… Jeeeeeesus wants you to pay attention to this! But don’t look at the improving economy. Forget about that.

“I’m off the committee if we’re going to talk about further defense spending.” ~ Sen. John Kyl

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JON KYLE WANTS HIS UNICORN and his rainbow or he’ll take all his toys and go home:

Senator Jon Kyl starts off the Super Committee talks by underscoring he will put party before country.

On the first day of work on Thursday for a “super committee” charged with finding $1.2 trillion in new government savings, a member of the panel threatened to quit if defense spending cuts are discussed, underscoring the difficulties ahead.

Despite Republican Senator Jon Kyl’s surprise disclosure after the panel’s inaugural meeting that “I’m off of the committee if we’re going to talk about further defense spending,” other Republicans worked to put comprehensive tax reform squarely on the agenda and urged bipartisanship.

Source: sarahlee310

Kyl is out of his mind if he wants to pretend that defense spending cuts shouldn’t be discussed. Here’s some information from Brian Beutler at TPM on the defense budget vs. everything else:

The idea here is that since this money is largely devoted to education, health care, and other services that benefit broad swaths of the population, the amount of it should grow roughly with population size. This stands in contrast to defense spending, which is why the committee did not correct defense spending for population growth. We took the numbers and put them in a slightly different context, so you can see by what percentage spending and revenues have risen and fallen on a population adjusted basis over the last decade. Makes it pretty clear what is and is not the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending.

And, oh yeah, new revenue should also be discussed and enacted — like ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Americans more concerned about the economy and jobs than the deficit 58% to 16%

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Americans (58%) think the economy and jobs are more important, but Teapartyers (16%) want to use the debt / deficit politically. Think Progress reports:

[N]ew polling from Gallup shows that far more Americans care about the economy and jobs than addressing U.S. debt. The poll finds that 31 percent of Americans find the economy to be the most important problem in America today, 27 percent find unemployment to be the highest problem, and only 16 percent say that the debt is:

The divide between Americans and the Teaparty has never been more clear than it is right now. A loud minority shouldn’t be allowed to set our country on fire.

The truth about the economy in 2 minutes by Robert Reich

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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said he could explain the problems with the economy in less than 2 minutes, 15 seconds—and he did it (with illustrations to boot). It’s great! Check it out. (Via Moveon)

Connecting the dots:

  1. American economy has doubled in size since 1980, but wages are flat.
  2. All gains from the economy have gone to the super rich. They have 40% of the nation’s wealth.
  3. All that money at the top has given the super rich lots of political power — especially the power to lower their tax rate. Most wind up paying 17%.
  4. Tax revenues are the lowest in 60 years. There are huge budget deficits and public services are being cut at all levels of government.
  5. Middle class is divided by fear and instead of joining together for better wages, they compete over the scraps that are left behind: union vs. non-union, public employee vs. private…
  6. Vast middle-class doesn’t have the purchasing power it once did, resulting in unemployment and an anemic recovery.

The answer for economic recovery? A strong middle-class.

Robert Reich’s website: http://robertreich.org/

President Obama has a 60% approval rating

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President Barack Obama’s approval rating has hit its highest point in two years — 60 percent — and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected

In worrisome signs for Republicans, the president’s standing improved not just on foreign policy but also on the economy, and independent Americans — a key voting bloc in the November 2012 presidential election — caused the overall uptick in support by sliding back to Obama after fleeing for much of the past two years.

It’s a relief to finally hear from the silent majority — the independents. The teabaggers are loud and funded by the Koch brothers — they’ve got that going for them. But they always have been and will continue to be the minority.

“I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

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Pat Bagley
Pat Bagley ☀

Super rich see federal taxes drop dramatically — Denver Post:

The Internal Revenue Service tracks the tax returns with the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes each year. The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992.

Over the same period, the average federal income tax rate for all taxpayers declined to 9.3 percent from 9.9 percent.

[...] House Republicans want to eliminate breaks to pay for lower overall rates, reducing the top tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.

Tax breaks and the deficit — The New York Times:

If there is one big-ticket budget item on which Democrats and Republicans should be able to find common ground, it’s tax breaks. Each of the various bipartisan deficit panels has called for a big reduction, saying such breaks — exemptions, deductions, credits and other loopholes — are inefficient and unaffordable. All told, they cost the federal government about $1.2 trillion in lost revenue last year. As it happens, the budget deficit was $1.3 trillion. Source

Once again, from Krugman:

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I think that fall in the 90s is mainly about the 1997 cut in capital gains taxes; and then, of course, you can really see the Bush tax cuts. Clearly, we need to cut taxes even further so as to balance the budget.

Teaparty rally cry:

19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America

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As you read these 19 items below, think about the attack on labor unions, the shrinking middle-class, continuing the tax cuts for the wealthy — and the information at the bottom.

  1. The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.
  2. Dell Inc., one of America’s largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.
  3. Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.
  4. In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero.
  5. According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.
  6. As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.
  7. The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.
  8. According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.
  9. In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.
  10. Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford’s new “global” manufacturing strategy.
  11. As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
  12. In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.
  13. The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
  14. In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.
  15. Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
  16. Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.
  17. The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States.
  18. One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
  19. The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

Source

Consider:
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When income grows, who gains?

There’s something Robert Reich called The Republican Strategy, which is, in part:

The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans hope to deflect attention from the big story. That’s the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.