Day: November 1, 2010

Heritage Foundation Lays Out Republican Budget Cuts the Candidates are Afraid to Say

Buck Banks

One of the truly gnarly parts of this rad Republican wave is the GOP’s constant harping about how it is going to balance the budget and reign in government spending — you know, the whole smaller government/bootstraps deal. If you’ve been conscious around a GOP candidate speaking about the budget, you’ve probably been rendered senseless by the utter lack of detail or solid programs he or she outlined.

There’s a reason for that — it’s called fear. Candidates are afraid to speak specifics because that would give voters the information they need to make truly informed decisions, and who needs that? So to protect the Republicans who refuse to “man up” and give us the truly horrifying news about their approach to fixing the economy, they got the conservative Heritage Foundation to do it:

Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that risks disaster for America. Runaway spending has increased annual federal budget deficits to unprecedented levels, adding $2.7 trillion to the national debt in the past two years alone. Each year’s huge federal deficit increases the mountain of national debt borrowed from future generations of Americans. Congress needs to cut federal spending sharply and quickly. This paper sets forth $343 billion in available spending cuts.

But rather than have to wade through all that turgid, foot-noted prose, just go to this handy 19-point Business Insider presentation that explains through bullet points and photos what the poor, uneducated, unhealthy and jobless have in store once the GOP wave subsides.

Oh, and you won’t see deep cuts in defense or an end to war as a swell money- and life-saving Republican alternative, either.

Right Versus Duty Blues

Buck Banks

I got the right to vote versus my civic duty blues,
And juggling conflicting emotions has got me all confused.
Tomorrow’s an election of historic proportions,
But I’m gonna be on jury duty — listening to motions!

I have the will to vote, to serve justice I’m inclined,
But how can I be in two places at the very same time?
Shoulda voted early, shoulda mailed in my vote,
But how could I have known I’d servin’ at the whimsy of the court?

I know my duty and I know my rights.
I think the clerk of the court did it out of spite.
I know my rights and I know my duty civic,
But meeting ’em both tomorrow’s gonna make me psychotic.

I got the right to vote versus my civic duty blues,
I’m in a patriotic pickle from my head down to my shoes.
Is there nowhere to to turn, no one to turn to?
All’s I can do is ask, What would Jon Stewart do?

Verbatim

Buck Banks

But we live now in hard times, not end times … The country’s 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our
problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder … If we amplify everything, we hear nothing … The press is our immune system; if it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema.

— Jon Stewart, host of the Daily Show, in his closing address at the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” taking aim at the media.

ABC News, Breitbart Now Squabbling over His Role as Election Night Commentator

Jon Ponder
Shirley Sherrod’s attorney’s likened Breitbart’s ABC invitation to “giving a Klansman an award for burning a cross on Shirley Sherrod’s house.”

ABC News’ misguided plan to use racist blogger Andrew Breitbart as a political commentator on election night continues to backfire.

First, ABC News got an earful about it from the likes of, well, us and many others, which forced them to relegate Breitbart from the main news set to online coverage.

Now, predictably, Breitbart and ABC News are exchanging angry emails about his role tomorrow night:

[…]

Four Days After Saying She Might Run for President, Palin Compares Herself to Ronald Reagan

Jon Ponder

You know, I agree with that, that those standards have to be high for someone who would ever want to run for president, like, umm, wasn’t Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn’t he in Bedtime for Bonzo, Bozo? So that Ronald Reagan was an actor. Now, look it — I’m not in a reality show. I have eight episodes documenting Alaska’s resources, what it is that we can contribute to the rest of the U.S. to economically and physically secure our union. And my family comes along on the ride because I am family. Family is — and my family comes along on the ride to document these eight episodes for The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel.

– Sarah Palin, comparing herself to Ronald Reagan four days after she told Entertainment Tonight reporter Mary Hart that she might run for president.

Union Plans to Turn Out Latin Vote

Trish

Despite being urged not to vote by a group with ties to the Bush White House and financing from GOP and pro-life leaders, Latinos will vote this year. So says Hector Figueroa, an officer with the Service Employees International Union-32BJ (SEIU), who claims most American Latinos are eager to cast their ballots.

Figueroa…says that almost 60 percent of Latino voters now say they are “very enthusiastic” about voting, up from 41 percent on September 6, according to the latest Latino Decisions tracking poll.

“There is a strong sentiment that those behind the Arizona law have been able to place candidates in strategic elections, and their election would be quite detrimental to our community. So in some ways it has galvanized attention. And Latinos want to be there at the polls and be counted.”

They want to be counted in spite of shameful ads like this one, run by the shadowy Latinos 4 Reform:

And if watching the ad itself doesn’t inspire Latino outrage at those who would cynically keep them out of the democratic process, SEIU volunteers will be working the phones on election day to turn out the Latino vote.