By Mike Luckovich Related Entries December 14, 2010 Weeper of the House December 9, 2010 Hold Your Nose and Vote ‘Aye’
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By Mr. Fish Related Entries December 14, 2010 Weeper of the House December 9, 2010 Hold Your Nose and Vote ‘Aye’
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By Robert Scheer The sight of Bill Clinton back at the White House podium defending tax cuts for the super-rich was more a sick joke than a serious amplification of economic policy. Related Entries December 14, 2010 Weeper of the House December 9, 2010 Hold Your Nose and Vote ‘Aye’
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California Sen. Barbara Boxer is one of a group of purportedly left-leaning politicians who is choosing to throw in with President Obama in his plan to preserve Bush-era tax cuts that give the wealthy a break along with Americans hailing from lower income brackets. Here’s what she had to say for herself Tuesday.
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Ever the classy bunch, the ladies of “The View” spent a few minutes Monday mocking incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner for tearing up during an interview with CBS's Lesley Stahl. The usual suspects, apparently no longer bothered by dramatic showings of disrespect towards national leaders, hit Boehner with characteristically immature and uninformed attacks. The bigger surprise, though, was self-proclaimed “objective” reporter Barbara Walters, who claimed that Boehner “has an emotional problem,” since “every time he talks about something that's not 'raise taxes,' he cries.” read more
Continue reading …After I heard the Kanamits GOP’s incoming House financial-services committee chairman say that Washington’s role is to serve the banks, I was reminded of the great Twilight Zone episode called ” To Serve Man. “It’s about aliens (Kanamits) who come down for a visit and want to gave us very nice gifts because they want to help the cause of humanity. The twist in Damon Knight’s story was that their goal was just to fatten up humans to serve them up with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Isn’t that what the banking industry did to the world when the crashed the financial markets with the morally corrupt mortgage scandal? They promised Americans the great dream (though not John Boehner’s), which is to own a house of their very own without any of the necessary qualifications or cash. In the end a complete meltdown followed after banks and Wall Street made billions off of it, and then they double-dipped and took another trillion dollars of our money with no sacrifice to their own profession. Now we’re being told by the Beltway media that in order for us to make up the debt that was caused by bankers’ malfeasance, we’ll have to take the pain of possibly losing our Social Security and Medicare and other entitlements. Think Progress: In an interview with The Birmingham News, Bachus made it clear why he opposed stricter regulations for banks in the wake of a huge financial crisis largely caused by Wall Street excess and a lack of prudent regulation. In Bachus’ estimation, the government’s role is not to protect consumers and the wider economy through regulating financial activity, but to simply “ serve the banks ”: Bachus, in an interview Wednesday night, said he brings a “main street” perspective to the committee, as opposed to Wall Street. “In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks,” he said. According to the article, Bachus later tried to clarify that what he meant was “regulators should set the parameters in which banks operate but not micromanage them .” As The Wonk Room explained, Bachus is far from the only Republican on the Financial Services Committee who feels that consumers and regulators should be subservient to the banks. But rarely has a Republican lawmaker laid out so starkly just whose interests he believes Washington is supposed to be protecting… read on Europe is not responding well to the austerity programs being put in place as punishment for the banking mess, as riots are breaking out over a loss of social services that helped the working class families work, eat and educate while billions of bonus money is being handed out to the Masters of the Universe. it would appear that they like their “man” medium rare. NY Times: Swarms of violent groups overtook a general protest against austerity measures in the city center on Wednesday, lashing out at the government and security forces and hurling gasoline bombs that, according to the police, set fire to a bank building and killed three workers. {} While the focus of blame was on the violent fringe group or groups, the dark turn had an immediate effect on world markets. The euro sank to a 14-month low of $1.28 as fears grew that unrest could spread to Europe’s other debt-ridden economies. Moody’s placed Portugal’s debt on a watch for a possible downgrade .
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From the “White House White Board” to Glenn Beck’s blackboard, it seems like everyone’s trying to spell out fundamental political concepts using methods usually reserved for elementary school teachers. Does this say something about their opinions of American voters? Related Entries December 13, 2010 No Act of Rebellion Is Wasted December 13, 2010 In Latest Compromise, Obama Agrees He Is a Muslim
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It’s not like nobody saw this coming, but Monday, one Judge Henry E. Hudson of Richmond, Va., kicked off the next round of attacks on what the right still likes to call “Obamacare” by contesting the constitutionality of one of the main tenets of the health care reform bill the president signed last fall.
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Click here to view this media [h/t PoliticsUSA ] Howard Dean appeared on Face the Nation today to discuss anger on the left, the tax deal, and why primarying Obama is a bad deal. Yes, there is anger, but it’s still a bad deal for a number of reasons. History proves it and the polls don’t support it . From the transcript (PDF) : HOWARD DEAN (Former Presidential Candidate): I don’t think he’s going to face an opponent in the democratic primary. I think that would be bad thing for the country and I think it would be a bad thing for the Democratic Party. The history of people running against Presidents in their own party as the challenger, you loses and then the President is weakened and loses. Now the President has done some things that I think are terrific. This is not one of them. But I– I think he will not get an opponent. This is not to say that Dean endorses the tax cut idea. He doesn’t. BOB SCHIEFFER: What do you think is going to happen here, governor? Do you think in the end the House Democrats like Congressman Nadler will come around, just looking– HOWARD DEAN: Well here’s the– here’s the big problem with this, Bob. This is terrible for the country long term and it’s not just the things that Jerry was talking about. First of all we’re going to find out if the Republicans are serious about the deficits. This tax cut’s not paid for. And the biggest part of the deficit in– as– if you project out until 2018 is the Bush tax cuts. That is what causes sixty percent of the deficit. Second of all the two percent payroll tax sounds great but in fact they take it out of the Social Security Trust Fund. Now here we are complaining about the Social Security Trust Fund going broke and we take a hundred and twenty million dollars of rev- – a billion dollars of revenue out and use it for a– a payroll tax mitigation. This is a short-term Washington fix. It does nothing about the biggest long term threat to America which is the deficit. I don’t hear Republicans or Democrats talking about the deficit. There is no pain in this agreement. This is the easy way out for everybody. Much as everybody is complaining and hooting and hollering, this is an inside the beltway fuss and somebody needs to do something about the long term problems in this country, it’s not in this bill. Later in the transcript Dean discusses the political cost to the President as a result of his deal with the devil Republicans: The truth is I don’t think this is all that bad for the President politically because he– he is going to be seen as acting presidential and bringing both sides together and all that stuff. The thing that bothers me about it is we have yet to deal with the biggest problem that is facing this country, which is the size of the deficit and nobody is doing anything about it. Dean almost got to why this deal really does put Obama at a political advantage in 2012 when he addresses the deficit issues. There have been rising signals from the White House that this bandage (or punt, or Hail Mary pass or whatever you want to call it) on the tax cuts doesn’t come without another price: A call for both sides to sit down and overhaul the tax code. Republicans have responded by promising cuts of an immediate $25 million by slashing Congressional staff budgets. Ooooh, a whole $25 million? Sheesh, $25 million doesn’t even cover John Boehner’s green fees, much less make a dent in the budget. If you want symbolism, that $25 million is it, right there. The new Republicans in the House and Senate are hiring lobbyists as their chiefs of staff, so count on a fight over pork — with the GOP taking the lead. Suddenly the party running on fiscal responsibility in 2010 will be held to that promise in 2011, and they’ll surely break that promise right away, leading to disappointment and anger in the Tea Party ranks . Over the next two years, they and their corporate masters will be forced into the position of having to defend their porky ways, their penchant for deficit spending, and their empty rhetoric. Will we capitalize on that? To me, a fight worth having is the one that hurts the other side, not our own side. We have shameless corporate hacks in charge of the budget and appropriations process now. They’ve promised to try and de-fund the health care bill, which will not be progress in any form if they succeed. They want to undermine Medicare and Medicaid while continuing outrageous corporate welfare to multinational corporations who currently pay no tax. When viewed in that frame (and by the way, please read this George Lakoff column for more on how we’ve all failed to frame this debate properly), aiming our ammunition at the right wing seems like a more sensible thing than assuming the mantle of the minority and the aggrieved.
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