Month: July 2011
Obama Said to Be Caving in Fake Debt Ceiling Crisis Negotiations – Hostage Takers’ Latest Demand: Kill ‘Obamacare’ Mandate
In the wake of a spate of polling and punditry suggesting Pres. Obama had gained the upper hand over Speaker Boehner and his tea bagger caucus in negotiations over the debt ceiling crisis, now comes word that the president intends to cede to a deal that favors Republicans.
In an editorial for USA Today published yesterday, the president said he agreed with a majority of voters, including a majority of Republicans, who want deficit reduction deal that includes tax increases as well as program cuts:
PRES. OBAMA: A balanced deficit deal that includes some new revenues isn’t just a Democratic position. It’s a position that has been taken by everyone from Warren Buffett to Bill O’Reilly. It’s a position that was taken this week by Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, who worked together on a promising plan of their own. And it’s been the position of every Democratic and Republican leader who has worked to reduce the deficit in their time, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton.
What he did not say was that the only new revenue in the deal will come from allowing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy to expire in December 2012, as they are set to do anyway. No loopholes for billionaires will be closed or corporate welfare reduced. Instead, the president will give in to Republican demands that the federal budget must be balanced on the backs of the middle class and the poor, including the gutting of Social Security and Medicare and trillions in cuts to federal programs.
All the tea baggers have to do is promise they won’t fight to extend the Bush tax cuts in December 2012. Of course, they won’t have to keep that promise if Mitt Romney or Rick Perry is elected president seven weeks earlier — an unhappy prospect that becomes much more likely if seniors, liberals and independents stay home on Election Day 2012 because Obama presided over the shredding of the nation’s safety net.
Takes One to Know One
One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at three o’clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they’re looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole.
— Former White House economic adviser Larry Summers, quoted by Fortune, on the brothers who claim to have had the idea for Facebook.
The Dull Throb
Michele Bachmann is the Tea Party’s queen of sass,
But alas, her presidency might not come to pass.
Seems stories of her migraines
Are causing her campaign pains —
Not in the head, but in the ass!
On Sacrificing the Goal for the Sake of the Principle
If it’s an all-or-nothing strategy, you’re likely to end up with nothing. The notion of just standing firm for your principle at the expense of achieving your goal is just wrong.
— Former Rep. Vin Weber (R-MN), quoted by the Los Angeles Times.
Mitt’s Pitch to Prospective Donors
Obama was a nice guy and America did something they like to do and that is trust a likable guy, well spoken guy, handsome guy, and well meaning guy, but it turns out he’s clueless about handling the sophisticated economics stuff… Obama has never had a business job, never had to lead an organization. Never, not once.
— According to a top donor, this is the message Mitt Romney repeats consistently when pitching to prospective campaign donors behind closed doors, as reported by ABC News.
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During DOMA Hearing, Sen. Franken Catches Anti-Gay ‘Expert’ Citing False Data
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) took on a representative of the conservative group Focus on the Family for mischaracterizing a study on “nuclear families” at a hearing on a bill which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Franken noted that the group’s testimony listed the benefits of children “living with their biological and/or adopted mothers and fathers” as surpassing those of children “living in any other family form.” He observed they listed a Department of Health and Human Services study as backing that up.
“I actually checked it out,” Franken said in reference to the study FOF’s Thomas Minnery has cited. He then observed it uses the term “nuclear families” without specifically mentioning “opposite sex married families.”
“Isn’t it true, Mr. Minnery, that a married same-sex couple that has had or adopted kids would fall under the definition of a nuclear family in the study that you cite?” Franken asked.
“I think that the study, when it cites nuclear families would mean a family headed by a husband and wife,” Minnery said.
Talking Points Memo on Facebook“It doesn’t,” Franken said, getting laughs from the audience.
View of Deficit Default Crisis from Britain: ‘GOP Seems Even Loonier, Crazier and More Reckless Than They Do Stateside’
British ex-pat Andrew Sullivan, a lapsed supporter of the Republican Party who lives in Washington, has been back home in England for the past couple of weeks. He says the tea-party driven deficit default crisis looks even more bizarre from across the pond:
When I explain the details of Obama’s last Grand Bargain … most Brits see it as a Cameron-conservative-style austerity measure.
From this side of the Atlantic, the great game of chicken now being played by the American political class with the debt ceiling is regarded as a sign that America — or rather, America’s Republicans — has gone completely insane. Everyone in Europe is desperately trying to stave off default — and here is the most powerful economy on earth actually hoping for it! When I explain the details of Obama’s last Grand Bargain – a debt reduction built on a ration of 3:1 spending cuts and tax increases – most Brits see it as a Cameron-conservative-style austerity measure. They simply cannot understand why the GOP doesn’t take what would for any sane conservative in any civilized country be a no-brainer. I’m reduced to trying to explain what passes for “conservatism” in America is nothing of the kind – just know-nothing, fundamentalist, Manichean pseudo-conservatism. From this distance, the GOP seems even loonier, crazier and more reckless than they do stateside.
