Friday Mashup (5/25/12)

To begin, I give you the comic stylings of Mann Coulter, on how that Kenyan Muslim socialist wealth redistributor in the White House is supposedly such a spendthrift (here)…

…Obama didn’t come in and live with the budget Bush had approved. He immediately signed off on enormous spending programs that had been specifically rejected by Bush. This included a $410 billion spending bill that Bush had refused to sign before he left office. Obama signed it on March 10, 2009. Bush had been chopping brush in Texas for two months at that point. Marketwatch’s Nutting says that’s Bush’s spending.

Obama also spent the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP). These were discretionary funds meant to prevent a market meltdown after Lehman Brothers collapsed. By the end of 2008, it was clear the panic had passed, and Bush announced that he wouldn’t need to spend the second half of the TARP money.

I realize that there are probably too many layers of stoo-pid to cut through here, but let’s just focus on the patently absurd claim that “the (financial) panic had passed…by the end of 2008.”

As noted here…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. economy suffered its biggest slowdown in 26 years in the last three months of 2008, according to the government’s first reading about the fourth quarter released Friday.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation’s economic activity, fell at an annual rate of 3.8% in the fourth quarter, adjusted for inflation.

That’s the largest drop in GDP since the first quarter of 1982, when the economy suffered a 6.4% decline.

More to the point, I’m not going to play this game about Obama and spending, since he didn’t create the deficit to begin with (yes, he added to it, but you have to spend to invest and demand has to come from somewhere). I would only ask that you consider the following from here, and I would also ask that you keep all of this in mind assuming those wretched George W. Bush tax cuts finally die once and for all in 2013 and “Taxmageddon” (ugh) kicks in next year with spending cuts negotiated with that fraud U.S. House “leadership,” which, in all probability, will sink us into recession officially once again (thank you, o zany Teahadists).

(Oh, and for the record, here is the chart Coulter is talking about…when you find that supposed $410 billion dollar spending bill Obama signed off on instead of Dubya, let me know, OK?)

Next, one of my pet causes resurfaced in the news yesterday (here)…

WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican, joked that he was witnessing “sort of a Lazarus moment.” On that score, at least, Mr. Corker got no quarrel from his Democratic colleagues.

Thirty years after it was signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the United Nations treaty that governs the world’s oceans is undergoing one of its periodic resurrections in Congress. A Senate committee on Wednesday summoned three top national security officials to make yet another plea for the agreement, in the face of narrow, but stubborn, opposition.

The Senate has never ratified the treaty, despite the support of Republican and Democratic presidents, the Pentagon, environmental advocates, the oil and gas industry — virtually anyone who deals “with oceans on a daily basis,” in the words of Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the Republican who recently lost a primary, who is a supporter.

So long has the “Law of the Sea” treaty been stalled on Capitol Hill that its opponents — a handful of conservative Republicans who view it as an infringement on American sovereignty — have taken to calling it “LOST, ” an uncharitable, if apt, acronym.

Memo to Mark Landler and The Old Grey Lady – the correct acronym is UNCLOS, as in “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” And nice job not to use the correct acronym anywhere in the story and thus propagate another wingnut talking point (tell me once again how liberal the New York Times supposedly is…by the way, the story tells us that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified at the invitation of Sen. John Kerry, head of the Foreign Relations Committee).

I’ve been posting to one degree or another about this topic for the last five years because, as noted here (from October 2007)…

The Law of the Sea Convention was concluded in 1982 and went into force in 1994. President Reagan opposed U.S. participation because of one provision dealing with deep seabed mining. That provision was amended in 1994 to satisfy U.S. concerns and signed by President Clinton, but the Senate ignored it.

(In 2004), the Foreign Relations Committee voted unanimously in favor of the treaty but the full Senate, then in Republican hands, did not take it up.

The treaty recognizes sovereign rights over a country’s continental shelf out to 200 nautical miles and beyond if the country can provide evidence to substantiate its claims. It gives Arctic countries 10 years after they ratify the treaty to prove their claims under the polar ice cap. The United States, with its Alaskan coast, is the only Arctic nation not party to the treaty.

Also (as noted here)…

…unless the United States joins up, it could very well lose out in what is shaping up as a mad scramble to lay claim to what are believed to be immense deposits of oil, gas and other resources under the Arctic ice — deposits that are becoming more and more accessible as the earth warms and the ice melts.

So who exactly is standing in the way of ratifying UNCLOS in the Senate (besides perpetual climate denier Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, I mean)?

The Times tells us…

Senator James Risch of Idaho said it would oblige the United States to adhere to international agreements to stem greenhouse gas emissions. “That’s got Kyoto written all over it,” he said, referring to the climate change treaty rejected by the United States.

Mr. Risch seemed particularly rankled by Mrs. Clinton’s contention that the treaty’s opponents were driven by “ideology and mythology,” not facts. “I hope you weren’t scoffing at us,” he said. “I’m one of those that fall into that category.”

Which is totally not surprising since Risch is one of the “44 Congressional Darlings of the Koch Brothers” Caucus; as noted here, Risch isn’t even in the top tier of recipients – he’s from the second-level “gang of eight” that received about $87 grand total (and don’t you know that “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey is on that list too).

The political gamesmanship on this issue (which plays into both our military and economic well-being, to say nothing of the future survival of this planet) is something more representative of a third-world, pseudo Marxist-Leninist tribal backwater than a country that is supposedly the leader of industrialized nations. And the fact that it has gone on now for 30 years with no end in sight is so absurd as to be beyond parody.

Finally, I give you the following hilarity from Michelle Malkin (here, in the matter of the resignation of Gregory Jaczko as the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission)…

(Nevada Dem Senator Harry) Reid connived to install Jaczko at the NRC to carry on their shared crusade against the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste facility in Nye County, Nevada. Despite assurances that he would recuse himself, Jaczko proceeded to meddle aggressively in the issue. After the Obama administration named Jaczko chairman of the safety panel in 2009, all hell broke loose — and then some.

Oh, and by the way, Jaczko was named to the NRC in 2005. Now who would have been president back then?

Hmmm, let me think…

Continuing…

Out of fear that researchers would confirm positive safety data, Jaczko ordered NRC staff to halt a technical evaluation of Yucca Mountain. Then he used the lack of data to order a complete work stoppage on the long-obstructed project. Last summer, the NRC inspector general determined that Jaczko “strategically withheld” information from the rest of the panel, manipulated agendas, and “was not forthcoming about his intent” to shut down Yucca by any means necessary.

Let us not forget that any actions by any government official that runs contrary to the wishes of Malkin and her ilk automatically constitutes a conspiracy of one type or another (And any proof of “positive safety data,” by the way? What on earth does that phrase even mean?).

Continuing…

(Jaczko) kept the panel in the dark on other matters, too. After the Fukushima meltdown in Japan, Jaczko ordered his staff to hoard safety findings and keep them from other commissioners while he made unilateral policy decisions against their will.

In the course of his investigation, the NRC inspector general heard from numerous commission staffers about Jaczko’s “unprofessional behavior” and outbursts of anger that created an “intimidating workplace environment.” The report said Jaczko told investigators he “regretted” his temper tantrums.

Last fall, the entire commission sent an extraordinary letter to the White House expressing “grave concerns” about Jaczko the Jerk’s continued boorishness. “We believe that his actions and behavior are causing serious damage to this institution and are creating a chilled work environment at the NRC,” wrote NRC commissioners George Apostolakis and William D. Magwood IV (Democrats) and William C. Ostendorff and Kristine L. Svinicki (Republicans). Commission staff detailed how Jaczko’s “shaking angry” rage fests caused at least one woman to cry, and prompted Svinicki to have a staffer accompany her whenever she was in Jaczko’s presence.

In response, I give you the following from here…

In the wake of the (nuclear accident in Japan), Jaczko sought recommendations for US nuclear safety. The Near-Term Task Force (NTTF) Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Accident produced a collection of basic (and, as discussed here, rather weak) recommendations last summer. Chairman Jaczko tried to start the process of turning those recommendations into rules–a process that could stretch beyond five years–but met objections from each of the other four commissioners. Jaczko also wanted lessons learned from Fukushima included in construction and licensing permits granted to four AP1000 reactors (two to be built in Georgia, two in South Carolina), but the chairman was outvoted four-to-one by his fellow NRC members.

Doesn’t sound to me like Jaczko “kept the (NRC) panel in the dark” and “made unilateral policy decisions against their will” (of course, Malkin’s lies fall under the heading of “sky is blue and water is wet”…what would be newsworthy would be if she were actually telling the truth).

Continuing…

(Another) (and most often referenced) complaint fired at Jaczko was that he had created a “hostile work environment,” especially for women. Though Svinicki, the only woman on the commission, lamented Jaczko’s tone, the specific “charge” (if it can be called that) was brought by Commissioner William Magwood. Magwood said there were female staffers that Jaczko had brought to tears, though none of those women personally came forward (because, it was said last year, they did not want to relive the humiliation).

The story gained extra prominence when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY; Kentucky, by the way, home to a nuclear waste nightmare called Paducah) attempted to use this alleged incident to disrupt the rising narrative of the Republican “war on women.” McConnell and others from his side of the aisle took to the microphones to denounce the administration’s treatment of whistleblowers and praise the apparently brave and much put-upon Svinicki.

In what seems to be a rare case where the public’s relative lack of interest in nuclear regulation can be called a positive, McConnell’s gambit failed. . .

. . . at least in derailing the “War on Women” story. (It also probably owes much to the GOP actually continuing its war on women.)

But when it came to serving the nuclear industry, McConnell’s contribution to the ouster of Jaczko will likely be rewarded. . . with industry contributions of the monetary kind.

(The nuclear industry, it should be noted, was not a fan of Jaczko because of his emphasis on safety, particularly in light of the Fukushima accident. Something else that should be noted is that President Obama nominated Svinicki, a Republican, to the commission for a second term this year over the objections of Harry Reid and Sen. Barbara Boxer of California.)

Was Jaczko a tyrant on the job? Probably, maybe…I don’t care (unless he was doing anything illegal, which is another story). What I do care about is that someone takes his place as NRC head who isn’t a craven industry shill and who would actually pay attention to safety considerations (such a person would no doubt also earn Malkin’s enmity, a life form who, as noted here, knows a thing or two herself about meltdowns).

Tuesday Mashup (5/22/12)

I neglected to point out the following recently (until now) by Former President Highest Disapproval Rating in Gallup Poll History, on the pages of the Murdoch Street Journal (of course – here)…

Some in both parties in Washington look at the risks inherent in democratic change—particularly in the Middle East and North Africa—and find the dangers too great. America, they argue, should be content with supporting the flawed leaders they know in the name of stability.

Like this guy, jackass? Nice job to blow him off (along with just about all else from your wretched presidency) and leave for Number 44 to clean up.

Apparently, some in our corporate media will go to any lengths in an effort to “rebrand” our 43rd president as some kind of a statesman or a visionary on foreign policy.

Part of me wishes there were a punch line to that remark, but the joke is so unbelievable that I can’t think of anything to top it.

Next, the Moustache of Understanding returned to form in the New York Times Sunday (here)…

Microsoft still does more than 80 percent of its research work in America. But that is becoming harder and harder to sustain when deadlock on Capitol Hill prevents it from acquiring sufficient (H1B) visas for the knowledge workers it needs that America’s universities are not producing enough of. The number of filled jobs at Microsoft went up this year from 40,000 to 40,500 at its campus outside Seattle, yet its list of unfilled jobs went from 4,000 to almost 5,000. Eventually, it will have no choice but to shift more research to other countries.

Naah, it’s not because our august captains of industry are rapacious, unrepentant pirates who plead for tax cuts while the middle class that built the products that made them rich are forced to settle for ever-smaller pieces of the proverbial financial pie. Don’t you see? They “have no choice” but to do the whole “engulf and devour” thing elsewhere instead.

In response, I give you the following from here…

D.C. is filled with mills that produce bogus studies to provide Congress with rose-colored glasses that deprive reality. Some studies spin H-1B workers as “entrepreneurs.” Others make absurd job claims, such as that each H-1B worker creates six additional jobs (Do the math here: With around 100,000 H-1B visas a year, that would make H-1B the single largest job creation factor in the economy.)

In fact, the opposite is true. The largest users of H-1B visas are foreign offshoring companies. They use H-1B visas to provide on-site support for projected moved to other countries. In that model, each H-1B worker here is a proxy for even more jobs lost.

In spite of a long parade of damning audits on the H-1B program, Congress has done nothing to clean up the mess. Deliberate loopholes in the law allow employers to replace Americans with lower-paid H-1B workers. Working in the computer industry, I have witnessed employers openly replacing hundreds of Americans with cheaper worker on H-1B visas.

H-1B supporters rarely forget to remind the public that the statute requires H-1B workers to be paid “the prevailing wage.” They invariably forget that, 20,000 words later, the statute redefines the term “prevailing wage” in such a manner that an employer can legally pay a software engineer in Edison, N.J., $34,133 a year less than the median wage.

How is it possible that Americans can be fired in their own country, be replaced with foreign workers, and Congress does nothing for decades? H-1Bs, bailouts to Wall Street, and subsidies to politically connected business are all symptoms of the same problem: a government that is controlled by special interests that are antithetical to those of the American people.

And on top of that, this post from 2008 tells us of a recruiter who pretty much debunked the entire mythology that there aren’t enough “knowledge workers” in this country to fill the available jobs (God forbid that employers haven’t fine-tuned their resume-screening software, or you’re out of luck, Mr. or Ms. Unemployed American Worker).

Rest assured, though, that apologists like Friedman will always return twice a week on the pages of The Old Gray Lady to reinforce the status quo (and possibly get in a plug for the economic “virtues” of China also, along with the wonders of the Internet, of course).

Finally, I give you BoBo, trying to sanitize the business exploits of Willard Mitt Romney on the matter of GST Steel (here)…

Private equity firms like Bain acquire bad companies and often replace management, compel executives to own more stock in their own company and reform company operations.

Most of the time they succeed. Research from around the world clearly confirms that companies that have been acquired by private equity firms are more productive than comparable firms.

This process involves a great deal of churn and creative destruction. It does not, on net, lead to fewer jobs. A giant study by economists from the University of Chicago, Harvard, the University of Maryland and the Census Bureau found that when private equity firms acquire a company, jobs are lost in old operations. Jobs are created in new, promising operations. The overall effect on employment is modest.

In response, I would suggest that you read the following from here (Bain bought a controlling interest in GST for $8 million, sold $120 million worth of bonds, and then paid themselves a $36 million dividend…they repeated this trick with another steel mill, combined both as “GS Industries” and ended up about $378 million in debt between the two)…

During all of this they constantly cut both the workforce and safety standards of both plants while failing to invest even minimal money into the plants upkeep much less towards making any capital improvements. Finally in 2001 “GS Industries” now over $500 million in debt declared bankruptcy and closed the plants.

It then became apparent that Bain had also declined to adequately fund the workers pension plans, employees suddenly out of work were now faced with the additional loss of promised severance pay, health insurance, and life insurance. In 2002 the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation had to commit $44 million to make up the shortfall towards funding only the basic pension payments. The workers never did receive their promised insurance benefits…

So in this instance Romney and Bain not only cost over 750 workers their jobs and forced two previously fairly healthy businesses into bankruptcy. They also managed to line their pockets with millions of dollars while doing so and before forcing a government agency to step in and pay $44 million towards their bad pension debt.

If this is Mitt Romney’s idea of how to “create jobs and restart the economy” I don’t think I want anything to do with it.

And by the way, let us not forget this priceless little moment concerning the presumptive Repug nominee and our not-completely-still-moribund economy

I would be curious to see what would happen if the New York Times was ever acquired by a private equity firm similar to Bain. I would hope that a lot of the paper’s talented news professionals wouldn’t have to worry about their jobs, but, as the process of “creative destruction” unfolded, I would like to know how “modest” the effect would be on BoBo’s future employment.

Wednesday Mashup (4/25/12)

(Testing, testing…is this thing still on ?)

OK, allow me to back up and do some ‘splainin’ here…

I pretty much walked away from this site about a year and a half ago out of total disgust, keeping Blogger as my main platform for this kind of thing. Not with WordPress as a blogging platform, I wish to emphasize, but with the impending Dem loss of the U.S. House, including the PA-08 seat of Patrick Murphy to “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick (guilty of this recent, particularly heinous moment which, in a manner utterly true to form, has been thoroughly ignored by his house organ, the Bucks County Courier Times). Also, at the time, I wasn’t sure if the Senate would fall either, but thanks to the intervention of the teabaggers, who made sure that “Yes, Wiccan” O’Donnell was nominated in Delaware along with Sharron Angle in Nevada and John Raese in West Virginia, the Senate remained under the control of the Dems. I wanted the post with the Rachel Maddow video to remain as the first thing a reader saw at this site as a “J’Accuse!” gesture of sorts (I think it’s safe to say that, after all this time, I’ve made my point).

Well, Blogger is now thoroughly hosed when it comes to fairly long, textual posts and I have neither the time nor the desire to figure out how to deal with the problem. So, on the infrequent, oft chance that I am able to generate content again, I’m planning to do so here for the immediate future.

And with that boring pretext out of the way, allow me to bring you the following from the New York Times on Monday (from here)…

Under federal labor law, employees have the right to join together to seek better pay and working conditions, with or without a union. If an employer tries to punish organizers, employees have the right to seek protection from the National Labor Relations Board. But employees still don’t have the right to be informed of their rights.

Last August, the N.L.R.B. issued a rule requiring employers to post a notice in the workplace telling employees of their rights. The rule was prompted by the board’s finding that young employees, recent immigrants and workers in nonunion workplaces were generally unaware of the law’s guarantees and protections.

The backlash was furious. The National Association of Manufacturers sued to block the rule in federal court in Washington, D.C. The United States Chamber of Commerce sued in federal court in South Carolina. In both cases, industry claimed that the law did not expressly permit the board to require employers to post a notice.

And yes, to answer the question, those opposing the notice were acting typically ridiculous, thus inspiring this video.

If you want to understand exactly how much this notice (at the very least) needs to be posted, click here to find out how Target has been fighting the efforts of its workforce to form a union (including making a video using unionized actors, believe it or not), click here to read how T-Mobile workers were trying to do the same thing (its parent company in Germany employs a unionized workforce, though that isn’t the case here – Dem U.S. House Rep Tim Bishop and Dem Sen. Richard Blumenthal supported the effort, as noted here), and this tells us how workers at Station Casinos started a seven-day hunger strike in an effort to unionize, and have faced a campaign of illegal intimidation and firings as a result.

Next, Ken Blackwell is back to attack Hillary Clinton (some things never change), including taking a shot at the new START treaty (here – in response, this tells us the following)…

The treaty commits the former Cold War enemies to each reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 – 30% lower than the previous ceiling.

Mr Obama said it was an important milestone, but “just one step on a longer journey” of nuclear disarmament.

Mr Medvedev said the deal would create safer conditions throughout the world.

If ratified by lawmakers in both countries, the treaty will replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) of 1991, which has expired.

Update: My bad – should have noted that, despite the caterwauling of Repug Sen. Jon Kyl, the treaty was ratified by the Senate, as noted here, and a particularly brainless update is here.

Blackwell also whines as follows…

This is the same Russia whose foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, Hillary famously gifted with a red “Re-set” button on their first meeting. That was to signal the new administration in Washington wouldn’t fuss about Russia’s 2008 aggression against the Republic of Georgia.

In response, this tells us how the Obama Administration, far from acting like wallflowers while the Russia/Georgia conflict simmers, brokered the following deal…

At the end of last year, the final roadblock to Russian entry into the (World Trade Organization) was Georgia’s insistence that Russia agree to increase transparency of trade across Russia’s borders into Georgia’s breakaway autonomies of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. (WTO rules allow every member the right to veto a country’s membership, and Georgia, as a member, could do so with Russia.) The August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia led to Russian military occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moscow’s recognition of the autonomies as independent states. Even before the war, however, Russia controlled both sides of the crossings into Abkhazia and South Ossetia and staunchly refused access to either Georgia or international monitors.

While Russian membership in the WTO has been a priority of the Obama administration’s Russia policy, the administration has also made a point not to pressure Georgia into giving its consent. The administration thus insisted to Moscow that it had to negotiate the conditions for its accession directly with Tbilisi, while it underlined to Tbilisi the importance the United States placed on a successful agreement.

The result is, on paper, a spectacular success. The WTO agreement provides a novel mechanism for monitoring trade between Russia and Georgia across Abkhazia and South Ossetia (as well as at their third, already functioning, land crossing in undisputed territory). Both governments have agreed to report data on trade to the WTO and to affix electronic seals on outbound cargo to facilitate the tracking of goods. They have also agreed to allow a private company to confidentially monitor trade and to recommend, on the basis of that monitoring, the inspection of cargo by either party. Finally, the agreement establishes a mechanism for arbitrating disputes.

Blackwell should really avoid anything more substantive than attacking children’s television programs, as noted here, which is actually more of his speed.

Finally, someone named John Hawkins at Clownhall.com presented five “devastating” numbers that supposedly show Number 44’s “incompetence” (here).

1) The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.”

This is from an analysis from Mark Knoller of CBS News, who, as noted here, has a history of absolving Former Commander Codpiece of any financial wrongdoing and laying all blame at the feet of Number 44.

Besides, as Media Matters points out…

In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies. But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit. In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession. Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary.

The second graph shows that under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much. [The New York Times, 7/23/11]

Continuing…

2) This country has already lost its AAA rating, we’re 15 trillion dollars in debt, we have 100 trillion dollars in unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities…

The reason we lost our Triple-A rating was because of the dithering of Man-Tan Boehner and that sleazy weasel Eric Cantor on raising the debt ceiling. The debt was mentioned previously, and Social Security (which, as noted here, is projected to drop off funding to about 70-80 percent in 20 years, which is still more funding than what is paid out today…more here) has nothing to do with the deficit. And yes, we need to look at Medicare, but even that isn’t the biggest driver of the debt.

3) We’re now up to 1,091 days without a budget despite the fact that it’s the most basic function of Congress and it’s required by law.

Oh brother – as noted here…

HONOLULU — President Obama agreed on Friday to delay a request to Congress to expand the government’s borrowing authority by $1.2 trillion, allowing lawmakers time to return from recess and register their views on it.

The delay, which a White House official said would be only a few days, will not jeopardize the operations of the government, as last summer’s impasse over the debt ceiling did. The budget agreement of Aug. 2, which broke that deadlock, has made it highly unlikely that Congressional Republicans could block an increase in the debt limit through the 2012 election. Since signing legislation to codify that agreement, Mr. Obama has already obtained two increases totaling $900 billion.

And as noted here, Boehner and his pals are making noise like they might renege on the debt deal later this year (figures).

4) One of the great ironies of this election is the still rabid support that black Americans have for Barack Obama. This is kind of like Columbine High School throwing a “We Sure Do Miss You” Memorial Rally for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

Let’s see, tasteless, racist, and utterly inaccurate all at once? Yep, pretty much.

And as noted here…

During an exchange with Fox News analyst Juan Williams during a debate in South Carolina on Jan. 16, Gingrich defended previous statements that poor kids lack a strong work ethic, that they should be put to work as janitors (child labor laws be damned), and that black Americans should “demand jobs, not food stamps.”

“Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?” Williams asked.

“No,” Gingrich responded, to roaring applause and rolling laughter. “I don’t see that.”

“It sounds as if you’re speaking to belittle people,” Williams added later in the exchange.

“Well, first of all, Juan,” Gingrich said, “the fact is, more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.”

This statement, while technically true, is no more reliable as a factual observation than other conservatives’ claims that Obama has governed during the highest unemployment spike in decades, or that his presidency has overseen the biggest national debt in history.

All three statements may be true on their face, but they lay responsibility for the greatest recession since the Great Depression at the feet of a man who wasn’t even president when the economic floor caved.

Funny, but I don’t hear Democrats questioning the work ethic of men and women of color. And I know that’s a little tangential to job numbers, but it does have something to do with stigmatizing the employment prospects for a rather significant demographic in this country.

And in terms of economic policies that actually help African Americans, Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett said here that unemployment funds are a stimulus of sorts, earning her the right-wing umbrage noted here.

More to the point, though, this tells us the following…

Even here, the black employment outlook is mixed. Black men appear to have gained jobs since February 2011 in manufacturing, construction and the service sector. And while government employment held steady this month, deep staff cuts in state and local government have hit black women particularly hard. Indeed, government agencies, a sector that has slashed about 500,000 jobs since February 2010, employed just over one-quarter of black women before the recession began. That has caused the number of black women with jobs to fall, although that number held steady in February, (Bill Rodgers, a Rutgers University economist who studies inequality) said.

The issue is spending to create demand not just to spur hiring for a racial class, but an economic class that will lift all of the proverbial boats, as it were.

And concluding with Hawkins…

5) The average unemployment rate during George Bush’s time in office was roughly 5.3% as compared to 8.2% today, which is part of the longest streak of over 8% unemployment since the Great Depression. However, because of the way the unemployment rate is calculated, even those horrific numbers don’t give you the full sense of the Mt. Krakatoa-like havoc that Barack Obama has wreaked on the job market.

In response, please click here to read each of the three charts, including the last one, showing job losses from Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History and job gains under the current occupant of An Oval Office.

Oh, and one more thing: Hawkins begins his screed with the following…

Whether you’ve had some form of head trauma that has caused you to like Barack Obama or like all good hearted people, you can’t stand him, his performance has objectively been terrible.

I realize that violent imagery and veiled threats of physical harm are right out of the typical right-wing playbook (along with typically pejorative, “us versus them” rhetoric about how all “good hearted” people can’t stand Obama), but I would just like for this fool Harkins to consider something here.

This is a picture of the late actress Natasha Richardson, who died three years ago last March. She fell while on a skiing trip and, indeed, suffered the “head trauma” that Harkins apparently thinks is something to use to ridicule those with whom he disagrees. She left behind a grieving husband and two young boys.

Find a conscience somehow, you contemptible guttersnipe.

Thursday Mashup Part One (10/21/10) (updates)

1) I swear, every time I think our corporate media can’t get any stupider (here)…

Yesterday, several news outlets reported that White House aides had scrapped a planned presidential tour of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, the spiritual center of the Sikh religion. The reason for avoiding the temple, according to unnamed sources: Head covering. As the New York Times explained, “[T]he plan appears to have foundered on the thorny question of how Mr. Obama would cover his head, as Sikh tradition requires, while visiting the temple.” (It was previously reported, in India, that Obama would likely visit the shrine.)

Obama, according to unnamed sources, did not want to stoke the false impression among many of his constituents that he is a Muslim, even though the Sikh religion is distinct from Islam. I was skeptical of the reports when I read them, given the scant sourcing, so I emailed two officials at the White House. I did not hear back.

So, of course, Michael Scherer of Time contacted White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and claimed that – aha! – I got a “non-denial denial,” so there must be something to Obama not wanting to wear a head covering.

Of course, some presidents can visit places of religious worship and wear such ornamentation with no problem and some can’t (because, you know, no one will ever associate Dubya with rumors that he’s really a closet Kenyan Marxist who won’t show us his Hawaiian birth certificate).

2) Next, it’s time for more propaganda from The Doughy Pantload (here – first the following is from Greg Sargent’s blog at the Washington Post that Jonah Goldberg links to in his post)…

The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll came out this morning, and there’s no sugar-coating it: The poll has some very grim results for Democrats. In the 92 most competitive House districts, the GOP’s lead among registered voters is 14 points.

But what may be even worse are the numbers that show how bad the “enthusiasm gap” remains, with less than two weeks until election day.

I would only say in response that the issue isn’t really one of Dem non-enthusiasm, but one in which there is typical Dem enthusiasm for a mid-term election – however, Repug enthusiasm is off the charts because, now as ever, they never had a desire from Day One to work with Obama and the Democrats and now see their chance to hurl us back into the ‘90s, with Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, and more investigations than you can imagine (oh, and by the way, defunding government and rolling back all the good that has been accomplished over the last two years in particular…also, what else would you expect from a poll involving the Murdoch Street Journal?)

(Also, I don’t mean to imply that Democrats don’t have to continue trying to counter the Repugs on this up until the moment the polls close on November 2nd, because we do.)

Now, I give you J. Goldberg…

First, I’ve never had a problem with using fear in elections, if it’s rational and accurate. But I’m not the one who elevated “playing on our fears” to some sort of cardinal sin.

Oh really?

In response, I give you the following here (and from a conservative blogger, by the way)…

The emotional state of conservatism now coupled with the hyper partisan atmosphere in the country (and the already excessive ideological nature of the opposition to Obama) is a combination that afflicts the reason centers of the mind and is proving to be a block to thinking logically. What is there to “fear” about Obama and the Democrats? They are proposing the same liberal crap that the left has been promoting for more than 30 years. We have fought them before using reason and logic. What is so different now?

And when it comes to an absence of reason and logic (to say nothing of not being “rational or accurate”), I give you Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” noted here, in which he argues basically that Hitler was a “man of the Left,” even though “there exist about a million nearly epileptic quotes from Hitler and [Josef] Goebbels and other Nazis expressing their luminous hatreds of liberalism and of communism.”

I respect Greg Sargent, but I wish he would bother to “look inside the numbers” a little more on this.

The bottom line – it all comes down to GOTV, as noted here.

3) Finally, I give you some true hilarity from Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao here…

The Senate’s top Republican says President Barack Obama and a more-Republican Congress could join to pass laws on trade and spending policy and make changes to the health care overhaul if the administration listens to voters on Election Day.

“I can’t believe he’s going to continue to ignore the wishes of the American people if his party has a very bad day Nov. 2,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “If he pivots and wants to work with us, obviously I’d be happy to talk to him.”

Too funny; as noted here from January 2009…

“As Republicans look for common ground,” McConnell says. “Some will no doubt accuse us of compromise. But those who do so will be confusing compromise with cooperation. And anyone who belittles cooperation resigns him or herself to a state of permanent legislative gridlock. And that is simply no longer acceptable to the American people.”

So what did McConnell produce from then until now? As noted here from last March…

We are now in the 111th session of Congress, and it appears that a new record will be set once again. To date, there have been 76 motions filed to end filibusters, resulting in 40 votes on cloture, and 40 instances of it being invoked. If we project these numbers to the end of the 111th session of the US Senate, that would result in a record number of cloture invocations, and near record levels of motions along with actual votes.

…

There is more. Wes Rackley documents that while only 3 Bush nominees have been held up more than 3 months during his first year, 63 Obama nominees have been subjected to delay tactics, leaving important posts left unfilled.

So, whenever I hear about McConnell pledging “cooperation” with Obama or any other Democrat…well, I think the following pic is a sufficient response:

Update 1 10/22/10: And this makes McConnell an even bigger liar than he is already.

Update 2 10/22/10: My bad for not realizing that the true leader of the GOP was calling the shots on this all along (here – h/t Atrios).

Update 3 10/25/10: The truth at last (here)…

Friday Mashup Part One (10/15/10)

(Note: After today, posting of actual content is going to be iffy for probably about another week at least.)

1) Let’s start with Jonah Goldberg and get him out of the way as soon as I can (here)…

This is why I never lend out my iPhone when I visit leper colonies:

Goldberg then includes a story about how quickly germs can be spread from the touch screens of iPhones to one’s fingertips, something of particularly note with the onset of the flu season a month or so away.

But for Jonah’s information, leprosy, though it is in decline (as noted here), is definitely not something to joke about. As the Wikipedia article tells us…

Although the forced quarantine or segregation of patients is unnecessary in places where adequate treatments are available, many leper colonies still remain around the world in countries such as India (where there are still more than 1,000 leper colonies),[11] China,[12] Romania,[13] Egypt, Nepal, Somalia, Liberia, Vietnam,[14] and Japan.[15]

If Goldberg is searching for something to laugh about, though, maybe he should tale a look at this.

2) Next, I give you the following from Christopher Rugaber of the AP here…

Numerous polls show voters blame President Barack Obama and his party for the slow economic recovery and the 9.6 percent unemployment rate — not much better than the 9.7 percent rate when the year began.

I know I’ve linked to this a few times already, but I’ll continue to do so whenever lazy reporters like Rugaber say this stuff without any sourcing to back it up.

3) Also, tomorrow is the five-year anniversary of the signing of the Iraqi constitution, as noted here. And at the time, a certain Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History said the following…

“This is a very positive day for the Iraqis and, as well, for world peace,” Bush said in brief remarks to reporters. “Democracies are peaceful countries. The vote today in Iraq stands in stark contrast to the attitudes and philosophy and strategy of al Qaeda and its terrorist friends and killers.”

I wish I could tell you that everything is just hunky dory in Mesopotamia now, but alas I cannot – as noted here…

Washington waits and waits while constantly demanding that Iraq’s government function properly—that its leaders compromise and work together, that it at least provide electricity, trash pick-up, and minimal services to its citizens. Yet all this is impossible because of the structure of government America set up there. Hopelessly dysfunctional, it was doomed from the start.

There is simply no way Iraq’s government could or can succeed. Think first how we destroyed its civil structure—its police, civil service, most of its functions of government, even schoolteachers were fired en masse. Then it’s easier to comprehend that Washington also set up an unworkable government. Indeed, an article in the American Prospect, “The Apprentice,” indicates that wrecking Iraq as a nation state was intentional.

…

“The constitution may well be more of a prelude to civil war than a step forward,” warned another expert in 2005, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Rather than an inclusive document, it is more a recipe for separation based on Shiite and Kurdish privilege,” he wrote, as quoted in an article by Robin Wright in the Washington Post. The Post report also warned that “the Shiite and Kurdish militias are the de facto security forces in their territories and are loyal to their own political leaders.”

By 2006, then CIA director Michael Hayden was acknowledging that in Iraq, “the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible.” He added, “We and the Iraqi government do not agree on who the enemy is … . It’s a legitimate question whether strengthening the Iraqi security forces helps or hurts, when they are viewed as a predatory element.”

…

Washington’s neoconservatives may look benignly on an Iraq whose dysfunctional government serves as an excuse to keep the region occupied with 50,000 troops and massive air bases. But America’s “mission accomplished” has created an unstable, economically devastated nation that will be yet another constant source of instability for the whole Middle East.

And this is from a conservative publication, people.

4) Finally, Michael Gerson profiled Christopher Hitchens today in the WaPo (here). And don’t ask me about the column, because I barely read a word of it. And that’s because I’m tired of our media wasting precious online type and column inches over this guy.

I’m sorry that Hitchens is dying from cancer. I hope his passing from this world comes with as little pain as possible. But somehow I can’t help but get the feeling that our media is hanging with this man through every final hour and second waiting for some moment of clarity in which he’ll exclaim, “Oh God, praise Jesus! You were right all along, and I was wrong!”

That clearly isn’t going to happen (I have a low regard generally for Hitchens, but I’ll give him credit for remaining true to his beliefs).

And I also think it’s more than a little disingenuous for our corporate media to give Hitchens a “deathbed conversion” and ignore moments like the one here, where (speaking of Iraq) he criticized Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes for making the rather astute connection between the war and the flooding of cheap credit in the early part of this decade to inflate the housing bubble, in which our ruling cabal turned our economy into a casino.

Also (linked to the post), Hitchens claimed that Martin Luther King, Jr. “doesn’t deserve his acclaim,” and Hillary Clinton is “an aging and resentful female.”

And last but perhaps least, I give you this Hitchens moment from an episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher.”

So, let us allow Hitchens to leave us with as little fanfare as possible, please. I will grant that he should be allowed the dignity to spend his final days as he chooses (which he denied to those caught up in the Iraq maelstrom that he considered “worth the price,” but there you are).

Before he goes, though, I’ll give him the salute that he so gleefully gave his detractors on the Bill Maher program…

Monday Mashup Part One (10/11/10)

(At least one of these items is from last week, but this is the first chance I’ve had to post on it.)

1) Former Senator (and would-be Repug party presidential nominee, apparently – dear God, please let him win the nomination…I’ll post forever!) Man-On-Dog opined as follows in (where else?) The Philadelphia Inquirer recently here…

Liberal elites are once again using health-care policy to advance one of their agenda items, this time on the abortion front.

The American Civil Liberties Union has launched an effort to force religious hospitals to provide abortions. The organization is asking the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – which controls nearly $800 billion in President Obama’s latest budget – to force hospitals to provide abortions or lose federal funding.

The views of the centers’ administrator, Dr. Donald Berwick, are so controversial that Obama had to appoint him while Congress was in recess. Now he is overseeing the writing of countless new health-care regulations, and the ACLU can’t let an opportunity like that slip by.

Using a handful of mostly anonymous anecdotes about pregnant women who were denied abortions at religiously affiliated hospitals, the group is demanding that Berwick’s agency rewrite the rules of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act to force care providers to perform abortions.

I’m not going to post about Dr. Berwick because I don’t want to rehash any right-wing arguments and thus inadvertently give them more oxygen than they deserve. Instead, I want to focus on an “anonymous anecdote,” as Little Ricky glibly puts it, that seems to be a lynchpin for his specious argument (of course, he con-vee-niently chooses to downplay the anonymity right patients have anyway due to HIPAA regulations).

This tells us of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ, a Catholic-owned hospital that provided a life-saving abortion to a young mother of four who was dying from pulmonary hypertension.

As the story tells us…

The hospital’s Ethics Committee determined that her physicians would be permitted to perform the abortion under the Ethical and Religious Directives under which Catholic hospitals operate. Though the hospital provided the necessary care in this instance, the Catholic hierarchy — via the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (PDF) and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix (PDF) — subsequently issued statements denouncing the emergency abortion, and making clear that abortion can essentially never be performed at a Catholic hospital. This means that the next woman who enters a Catholic hospital in need of an emergency abortion could die.

And as this story tells us, the hospital administrator, Sr. Margaret McBride, was “automatically excommunicated” by Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted.

The story from the ACLU web site tells us that the group “asked the federal government to ensure that religiously affiliated hospitals provide emergency reproductive health care as required by the Emergency Medical Conditions and Women in Labor Act and the Conditions of Participation for hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds (PDF).”

Of course, given what passes for Santorum’s thought processes, forcing Catholic hospitals to comply with the law automatically gets spun into forcing health providers who oppose abortion to act against their “conscience.”

So just remember, you would-be moms who run into catastrophic circumstances with your pregnancy, as far as Santorum is concerned, you can either save your own life and commit a mortal sin in the process, or die a slow, excruciating death with a clear conscience, just so long as you “propagate” the faith.

2) Also, I haven’t had much to say about columnist Deroy Murdock, but this item was impossible to ignore, particularly the following…

Washington dictates showerhead water pressure, limits the capacity of flush toilets, and essentially will ban Edison-style light bulbs as of 2014.

Yep, looks like those dern terrists are even gonna come after us in our bathrooms (Godless heathens, including those danged li-bu-ruuls).

This tells us that the law phasing out incandescent light bulbs was signed in 2007, so whatever you may think of that (and the jury seems to still be out, as they say, on the replacement-type bulbs…I’ve read that though fluorescent bulbs contain a smaller amount of mercury than the traditional incandescent bulbs, they pose more of a risk of mercury exposure than the older type if they break), you can’t blame Obama for that (not as president, anyway).

But in terms of the water from the shower heads, the Murdoch Street Journal tells us here that consumers mostly aren’t affected, and 95 percent of existing shower heads are compliant anyway.

So it looks like Deroy Murdock is all wet (sorry, too easy).

3) Finally, it’s time for another chapter of Fun With Poll Numbers Starring Former Laura Bush Employee Andrew Malcolm (here)…

According to president No. 44, George Bush presided over eight years of failed policies and left a huge mess that Obama has been unable to clean up, even with Joe Biden’s verbal help.

But here’s the problem. And it’s a big one: The American public is now disagreeing with Barack Obama on that issue, too. A new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows the pair are virtually tied now in terms of approval of their presidencies.

This tells us the following (“Photoshopped” pic and all)…

A new CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll released today should provide some hope to Democrats and cause a bit of concern for the GOP ahead of the mid term elections. The poll revealed that a majority of Americans (53%) blame George W. Bush and the GOP not Barack Obama and the Democrats for the nation’s current economic problems.

The CNN/ Opinion Dynamics poll asked a very simple question. Who do you hold responsible for the nation’s current economic problems George W. Bush and the GOP, or Barack Obama and the Democrats? Fifty three percent of respondents blamed Bush and the Republicans, while only 33% blamed Obama and the Democrats, 10% blamed both parties, 3% said neither, and 1% were not sure.

In the poll cited by Malcolm, the numbers are 47 percent Obama and 45 percent Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History (which, despite it all, are twice those at least of a former moose-hunting, half-term Alaska governor, as noted here).

Wednesday Mashup (9/29/10)

Some of these are a few days old, but this is my first chance to say anything in response…

1) John Harwood of the New York Times told us the following recently (here)…

Mr. Obama aims to use President George W. Bush’s record in the same way Mr. Reagan used Mr. Carter’s. It was Mr. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress, he tells campaign audiences, who drove the economy “into a ditch.”

The velocity of contemporary media, not to mention its ferocity, may render that argument more difficult to make. In the ever-advancing news cycle, on cable television and the Internet, news tends to get old faster.

Soo…Harwood is arguing that the Internet will make people forget who created the mess that Obama inherited?

Not according to this.

2) Also, Marc Thiessen, in the midst of some shockingly sensible commentary, provided what I thought was a hilarious observation here…

The arrival of conservative insurgents will fundamentally transform the Senate in other ways. Some of the worst bills in the Senate get approved by unanimous consent, which means all it takes is one senator to object. Today, for example, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma wages a lonely campaign for fiscal discipline by objecting to authorization bills where spending increases are not offset by spending cuts elsewhere. But it gets tiring being the skunk at the garden party every week. Soon there will be a raft of newly elected senators willing to join him in saying “no” to bad legislation.

This tells us that Coburn is holding up a food safety bill costing $1.4 billion because he claims that the bill isn’t paid for. Of course, no immediate calculation is available telling us how much it would cost to hospitalize victims of something similar to the recent egg contamination outbreak were that to occur again – my guess is that it would cost more than $1.4 billion (And as far as I’m concerned, Coburn’s supposed fiscal prudence is more Beltway media mythology – how about cutting $95 million in useless “abstinence only” funding, as noted here?).

What I object to most in Thiessen’s column, though, is the notion that, in the god awful event that people such as Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, etc. were actually elected to the Senate, they would restore some kind of fiscal rectitude.

In response, I think we should look at a hero of the teabaggers from a few months ago, and that would be Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts. As noted here (hat tip to lynnrockets.wordpress.com)…

WASHINGTON — Senator Scott Brown says he will fight to fund a multibillion-dollar weapons program that could generate jobs in Massachusetts but that the Pentagon insists it does not need, sparking criticism that Brown is breaking his campaign vow to rein in wasteful spending.

The Bay State Republican’s support for General Electric’s bid to build a backup engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter puts the new senator in the middle of a confrontation over congressional earmarks with the Obama administration, which has threatened a presidential veto if Congress inserts funding for the engine for the fifth year in a row.

…

“This is yet another example of how ‘fiscally responsible’ lawmakers have a giant blind spot when it comes to defense spending in their districts,’’ said Laura Peterson, a senior national security analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group that monitors earmarks. “His support was clearly driven by parochial concerns rather than financial ones.’’

“If Scott Brown helps out GE he will be doing exactly the opposite of what he said he would do when he ran,’’ said Loren Thompson, a defense budget specialist at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., which is supported by multiple defense firms, including Pratt & Whitney.

And in another related “pot, meet kettle” development, I give you this.

3) Finally, Joe Pitts was given more online real estate at Tucker Carlson’s Crayon Scribble Page recently to concoct the following (here)…

The first objective of the Pledge to America is to create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive. This means standing against job-killing tax hikes that are due to take effect on January 1, 2011. Our plan calls for growing new and existing small businesses through a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their business income. We also need to repeal the burdensome new tax-reporting requirement created by the health care reform bill.

As noted here…

Republicans forecast disaster when the Democratic Congress and President Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993, and forecast rising prosperity when taxes were cut in 2001. Both forecasts were wrong.

From the end of 1993 through the end of 2000, the American economy grew at a compound annual rate of 3.9 percent. Since then, the average rate has been 1.6 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose at a compound rate of 13.1 percent a year during the first period, assuming reinvestment of dividends. Since then investors have not even broken even. Of course, there is no way to know what would have happened had tax laws not changed in those years.

Pancake Joe also tells us…

The Pledge calls for an immediate stop to stimulus spending. Over $200 billion remains unspent and we must act quickly to prevent more waste. This also means permanently cancelling the TARP bailout program and returning the money to the Treasury.

As the New York Times noted recently here in a fine editorial about the “pledge,” the recent Dodd-Frank amendment in financial reform legislation prohibited more TARP funding.

The editorial also tells us the following…

While it promises to create jobs, control deficit spending and restore Americans’ trust in government, (the “pledge”) is devoid of tough policy choices. This new “governing agenda” does not say how the Republicans would replace revenue that would be lost from permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts, or how they would manage Medicare and Social Security, or even which discretionary programs would go when they slash $100 billion in spending. Their record at all of these things is dismal.

The best way to understand the pledge is as a bid to co-opt the Tea Party by a Republican leadership that wants to sound insurrectionist but is the same old Washington elite. These are the folks who slashed taxes on the rich, turned a surplus into a crushing deficit, and helped unleash the financial crisis that has thrown millions of Americans out of their jobs and their homes.

Not only are the players the same, the policies are the same. Just more tax cuts for the rich and more deficit spending. We find it hard to believe that even the most disaffected voters will be taken in. But again, these are strange and worrying times.

Returning to Pitts…

One way to get back to balanced budgets is to repeal the healthcare law. Contrary to White House claims, the Congressional Budget Office and Medicare’s own actuaries have shown that Obamacare will not pay for itself. This new law will be an extraordinary weight on government, businesses, and, most importantly, doctors and patients. We are committed to repealing the law and replacing it with free-market solutions.

No word on whether or not Pitts wants to “repeal” the defense budget, for example, and replace it with “free market solutions” (many expenditures in the budget will not pay for themselves and are “an extraordinary weight”…of course, Pitts con-vee-niently singles out one of his favorite targets).

Meanwhile, in the matter of the financing of health care reform, the following should be noted (here)…

(The Congressional Budget Office) has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score…But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years — so, 2020 to 2029 — it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.

And if Pitts had read the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) report that was released in April of this year, he would know that increases in national health expenditures are largest in 2016 and “gradually decline thereafter” (here).

Update 10/1/10: As noted here, HCR is “paid for” anyway, so Pitts’ entire talking point looks particularly ridiculous.

When I think of the GOP’s “pledge,” I think of a household product of the same name that applies a shine to furniture, but does nothing to structurally reinforce the product to which it is applied. And in terms of making something look attractive without implementing economically sound fundamental fixes, I think of the GOP’s “pledge” in about the same way.

Once more, to help Lois Herr, Joe Pitts’ Dem opponent for his PA-16 U.S. House seat, click here.

Another “Thanks” To Dubya And His Pals On Iraq

This clip, with K.O. interviewing Jeremy Scahill of The Nation, should be required viewing for everyone; kudos to Scahill for his passion on this subject.

A Musical Reminder For McConnell

Note to Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao: watch this video and try explaining to me how Number 43 should get credit for anything, you soulless shill (here).

Tuesday Mashup Part One (8/24/10)

1) Interesting stuff from BoBo in the New York Times today (here – not necessarily good, mind you, just interesting)…

…in general, the culture places less emphasis on the need to struggle against one’s own mental feebleness. Today’s culture is better in most ways, but in this way it is worse.

The ensuing mental flabbiness is most evident in politics. Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so. Many liberals would never ask themselves why they were so wrong about the surge in Iraq while George Bush was so right. The question is too uncomfortable.

Uh, actually the question isn’t “uncomfortable” at all.

In as much as the surge “worked,” it did so also because of the ethnic cleansing that preceded it and because of the Sunni Awakening, which basically went after al Qaeda operatives in concert with the fine work of our military (and as you might expect, I see no equivalency between this matter and that of Repugs who will never believe Obama is anything but a SCARY MUSLIM SCARY MUSLIM SCARY MUSLIM SCARY MUSLIM!!!).

And if BoBo needs more proof that Iraq can hardly be called a success, I give you this from one of Brooks’ former colleagues (and a highly unlikely source, I know).

When that country has a government that actually functions and shares power between its perpetually warring (either politically or for real) factions (and can provide more than a few hours of electricity per day for residents of Baghdad), THEN Brooks can crow about how wonderful Mesopotamia supposedly is now.

2) Next, I give you the latest from Tucker Carlson’s scribble page (here, on a bit of a similar theme)…

Expect to hear a lot about how much the Iraq war cost in the days ahead from Democrats worried about voter wrath against their unprecedented spending excesses.

The meme is simple: The economy is in a shambles because of Bush’s economic policies and his war in Iraq. As American Thinker’s Randall Hoven points out, that’s the message being peddled by lefties as diverse as former Clinton political strategist James Carville, economist Joseph Stiglitz, and The Nation’s Washington editor, Christopher Hayes.

I’ll cut to the chase a bit here and tell you that the right-wing argument is that the “stim” costs more than the Iraq war, so Obama is more at fault for our deficit than Dubya.

Yes, sadly, I’m serious.

In response, I give you the following (here, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)…

The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.

In rather stark terms, Paul Krugman (h/t Atrios) tells us here that, if ever there was a time to borrow like crazy and create all kinds of “shovel ready” infrastructure projects, it is right now, with a 10-year Treasury rate of 2.53 percent.

But of course, if we do that, the invisible bond vigilantes will descend from the planet Klorp in their spaceships, capture our women and children and enslave us in debt forever, so we won’t (and that explanation is only a shade stupider than what passes for conventional wisdom on this subject these days).

3) Finally, this post from Forbes tells us the following (staying with the economy a bit)…

No matter how many Obama economists say that stimulus has a positive multiplier, it’s simply not true. Stimulus spending does not stimulate. Because it takes resources from growing sectors of the economy and pushes them to shrinking sectors of the economy– it de-stimulates. It taxes and borrows from good business models to support bad business models.

It’s simple math. Enlarging government means shrinking the private sector. History is clear: The larger the government share of GDP, the higher the unemployment rate.

Well, for stimulus spending that supposedly did not “stimulate,” the CBO told us last May that it is projected to create a total of 3.7 million jobs (here – and yes, I know this is familiar territory).

However, the reason I’m highlighting this story is to counter it with this Daily Kos post, which tells us the following…

Businesses aren’t creating jobs, and they have no intention of doing so unless they see signs that consumers will again resume spending. Consumers won’t be spending as long as they have nothing or too little to spend. It’s a feedback loop. There is only one way to break it. It has to be the government. The government has to create jobs. Infrastructure. Clean energy. Mass transit. There are plenty of social goods for government to fund, and there are plenty of people who are willing and able to be trained and employed. It has to happen. And only the government can do it.

I also wanted to highlight the Forbes story for this item…

But before you think that we have slipped into pessimism, we expect growth to accelerate in the year ahead and we expect the unemployment rate to fall further.

I think the true Repug “base” just tipped its hand here.

Anyone who thinks that our august captains of industry in this country are merely impartial observers in our electoral process (particularly after the horrific Citizens United ruling, which opened the proverbial floodgates of corporate campaign donations) must also believe that those zany teabaggers are scholars of Constitutional law.

They have a vested interest in seeing that the Democrats get trounced this fall (and here is the proof). Whether or not that happens (and let’s do all we can to make sure it doesn’t), they will do what is in their best interest regardless.

And if that means a bit of a hiring uptick which ends up getting much more than offset by further gains in their wealth (which would tie neatly into the story line that even a modest Repug victory in Congress is a “miracle cure” for the economy), well, lah dee dah, lah dee dah….