Archive for July, 2011
“Liberal” Blog Cheers Obama/Boehner Deal
This is how far right our politics have gone. This is the headline from the radical, liberal, socialist Huffington Post:
This, sadly, is the new norm in the “liberal media” but as for me and my friends? Our heads are exploding.
President Obama Thanks Americans For Tweeting
Geezus. I was composing a post a few minutes ago about how President Obama was going to “speak to the nation” at 8:45 p.m. ET, but his “speech” came and went in a flash.
It was roughly 90-seconds long and he — the most powerful man on the planet — thanked the nation for tweeting their congresspeople, as if he has/had no control over what’s going on in Washington.
Un. Freakin’. Believable.
No way is he wise enough to be president in these times.
Yes, he might be intelligent. But wise? I don’t think so.
UPDATE: I just watched the “speech” again. Obama thanked American’s for tweeting their representatives: that “compelled Washington to act.”
What happened was the Tea Party got pretty much everything it wanted so I guess he’s thanking them.
Crazy depressing or what?
Tea Party: Jump! D.C. Democrats: How High?
This would be our Tweet of the Day (read this and you’ll understand how Washington just fucked working Americans (including Tea Partiers, by the way)):
If you’re unaware of what’s going on right now, read this.
Republicans must be laughing their asses off at Obama…astonished that they got essentially everything they wanted. Next time all they have to do is hold out and voila, they’ll get the rest of the stuff they want, like doing away with The Big 3.
Gotta love community organizers.
Ford Creates 5,000 New Jobs
Hell yeah. Let’s give corporations (even more) tax breaks so they’ll create jobs…like they are now, right?
Ford to Create 5,000 Jobs — IN INDIA!
US automobile major Ford will invest $1 billion (Rs.4,000 crore) to manufacture cars and engines at an integrated facility at Sanad in Gujarat, generating 5,000 jobs, the company announced Thursday.
Ford has entered signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government to construct the facility, a company statement said. The construction of both the plants will begin later this year, with the first vehicle and engine scheduled to come off the line in 2014, it added.
How long are people going to buy the tax-breaks-create-jobs meme? It should have died back in 2008 at the beginning of this recession or certainly, in the nearly three years since.
Geezus.
Writer’s Block
The New York Times has an interesting little post up about what some famous writers snack(ed) on while they write. This would be Truman Capote:
Hey, if it works…
Nothing to do With the Debt Ceiling
Check out these hilarious portraits of dogs, snapped while they were shaking water off of themselves:
Obama — Got Cojones?
Obama — what you’re doing ain’t workin’.
We want a fighter. We don’t want a college-professor-type whose press secretary uses the word “compromise” 49 times during a presser in the midst of a fight-for-the-life of the poor and middle class.
Geez Louise.
(Via.)
I’ll say it again: Yo. White House. Anybody home?
Washington is Insane
Right now (see C-SPAN) the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is voting to name a Post Office in Mississippi.
Where are the grown-ups?!
The Debt Ceiling Debate — in Pictures
The history of the debt ceiling debate, in pictures — check it out. It’s great.
Here’s a taste:
Again, go to the link above to see the whole thing. We could use a bit of levity around here after such a maddening week.
So, Let’s Cut Some More Jobs!
Guess we better get used to the phrase, “less than expected:”
The U.S. economy grew less than expected in the second quarter as consumer spending barely rose, and growth braked sharply in the prior quarter, a government report showed on Friday.
Growth in gross domestic product—a measure of all goods and services produced within U.S. borders—rose at a 1.3 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said.
First-quarter output was sharply revised down to a 0.4 percent pace from 1.9 percent.
Economists had expected the economy to expand at a 1.8 percent rate in the second quarter.
Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, decelerated sharply to a 0.1 percent rate — the weakest since the recession ended two years ago.
So hey, let’s lay a bunch of people off and cut the meager assistance some people are getting so everyone freaks out even more about what might happen in the future and thus they spend even less. Yeah, that’s the way to “jump start” the economy.
Loons.
It’s About Jobs, Stupid
Sadly, this is our Tweet of the Day:
Yo, Washington — is anybody home? Hello!
Breaking Weather Records
Did you hear about the record-breaking rain in South Korea? Seoul has received 2 feet of rain just this week. Two feet!
If Your Social Security Check Doesn’t Arrive…
Here’s an ad produced by a coalition of labor unions — AFSCME, SEIU, the NEA and Americans United For Change — that hits Republicans hard (and Eric Cantor specifically) for their failure to come to an agreement on the debt ceiling.
It’s good. And I’m glad to see that Democrats/Progressives are are hitting the air waves. Maybe this ad will give some perspective to Karl Rove’s PAC of lies.
(Via.)
Stop the Spending; Reduce the Deficit!
The Tea Party is obsessed with stopping government spending and reducing the deficit. So explain to me why, as of tonight, many of them have signed on to John Boehner’s plan to,
Cut deficits by $917 BILLION over 10 years,
but they hate, hate, hate,
Obama’s plan to cut $4 TRILLION over 12 years.
Oh wait. This isn’t about spending or deficits:
You Can’t Make This Up
Fox is turning into a cartoon network:
This would be Fox’s John Scott interviewing Bill Nye (The Science Guy) on Fox’s “Happening Now” yesterday about two new volcanoes found on the Moon:
Scott: Does it go, you know, anywhere close to the climate change debate that’s underway here on Earth? I mean, you know, of the Moon had erupting volcanoes a few years ago, well, a few million years ago, however you want to put it, you know, it’s not like we’ve been up there burning fossil fuels.
Nye: Ah, no. Volcanoes are not connected to the burning of fossil fuels.
Scott: No, but…
Nye: They’re connected to mining.
Watch the full video here.
We should be embarrassed as a nation that this kind of mumbo-jumbo passes for “news.”
Karl Rove’s PAC Lies About Obama’s “Blank Check”
Again, this whole debt ceiling debate is about paying for things that are already on the credit card — decades worth of charges. It isn’t about raising the credit limit on the card so Obama has a “blank check.”
But hey, never mind facts. Karl Rove sure doesn’t care about them. I just saw this ad while watching my local evening news and yes, it was paid for by Darth Rove’s group, Crossroads GPS:
Be scared America and get ready. You’re going to watch a lot of lying ads like this between now and November, 2012. After all, corporations are now “people” and they can contribute all they want to brainwashing campaigns like this.
Not only that, but look at what Obama was willing to give away in order to get the Republicans to pay the debt they largely ran up. A blank check? Hey, they want us to look the other way.
The World According to Fox
If you follow Fox (ahem) News on Twitter, as I do, you grow accustomed to receiving tweets like this that peak your curiosity and cause you to frantically grab your mouse and click on the link because you want to expand your mind:
#ThisIsNews?
#IDon’tCareWhoKnittedMr.Roger’sSweater
#AnythingElseHappeningInTheWorld?
A Silver Lining to the Budget Talks Breaking Down
I knew it. Obama was selling us out behind the scenes (he’s his own worst enemy):
Report: Obama And Boehner Agreed To Raise Medicare Eligibilty Age Before Debt Talks Broke Down
Details of the plan were not yet finalized before the Obama-Boehner talks collapsed on Friday. But in general, the agreement called for very gradually increasing the eligibility age from 65 to 67 over about two decades, according to administration and Republican congressional sources.
One pathway would call for increasing the age by one month per year beginning in 2017 until it reached 66 in 2029. In 2030, it would increase two months per year until it hit 67.
Hopefully this is off the table now.
That said, we’re being told “the Reid Plan” might end up being what we get, but I hear it’s awful for We the People too so we aren’t out of the woods yet.
(Interesting, isn’t it, that they’re keeping the details of all these plans secret? They want to spring them on us at the last minute, vote one of them in, and leave us saying WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE. Ah yes. “Democracy.”)
Enough Already. Shut Up. Raise the Debt Ceiling
You’ve gotta hand it to the kids. They know how to cut to the chase. Raise the freakin’ debt ceiling already so we can get to the things that really matter like ah, hello, jobs!
Courtesy of the Roosevelt Campus Network.
(H/t Beth.)
The Tea Party Rally That Wasn’t
Yesterday I put up a post about rallies that were held across the nation by pro-tax-the-rich and pro-tax-the-corporations (and don’t cut our Social Security) sympathizers. As I noted, the rallies were essentially spontaneous, having been organized over a 24-hour period.
Compare and contrast that to a Tea Party rally (if you can call it that) that was held in Washington, D.C. today that was a total bust:
During the health care debate, Tea Party groups mobilized thousands of members to rally against the bill right on lawmakers’ doorsteps in Washington, DC. Now the movement is again at a crossroads as Republicans struggle over how far they’re willing to push Democrats on spending cuts before raising the debt ceiling. You wouldn’t know it, however, from their rally on Wednesday.
Despite featuring Tea Party icons Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY), among others, a gathering outside the Senate organized by the Tea Party Express to urge Republicans to stand firm against a compromise bill drew only a handful of attendees. Reporters, many of whom came to interview presidential candidate Herman Cain, appeared to easily outnumber protesters. And despite being the most prominent attendee, Cain ended up no addressing the crowd and instead watching from the sidelines.
Couple that with this news that came out the other day: REPORT: Number Of Tea Party Events Down More Than 50 Percent In 2011
So here we are, waiting for the Tea Party Republicans in the House to make a move on raising the debt ceiling — something one would think would rally their supporters no end. But from the outside looking in, it appears as if their base has evaporated yet the country’s being held hostage by this supposed force of Tea Party energy. Maybe it’s time to draw the curtain back on that.
UPDATE: MoveOn.org is calling for a rally in D.C. tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll keep you posted.
The Kids Are in Charge
This would be our Tweet of the Day:
Again, President Obama should have said no, I want an up or down vote on extending the debt limit and we’ll talk about budget cuts/revenue increases after that. Period.
He should never have let it come to this.
Did the President Quit?
I was just scrolling through the headlines at the Huffington Post when I came across this one:
and I burst out laughing because it’s so perfect: “That’s your idea, call your congressman? Did the President just quit?”
Good question. Where IS the president?
(See the video here.)
Tim DeChristopher Tried to Save the Planet — Now He’s Going to Prison
If you don’t know about Tim DeChristopher — and you probably don’t — please take the time to read this: The Courage to Stop Pretending: Tim DeChristopher Sentenced.
If our media was truly liberal, he’d be all over it and we’d all know about how he tried to save the planet.
Oh, and don’t forget: The banksters are still lying on the beach in the Hamptons.
MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan Thinks Murdering Liberal Kids Might be a Good Thing
This would be Pat Buchanan, the former Republican presidential candidate and a guy MSNBC (that liberal bastion) holds out as their wise old sage:
Today, in a World Net Daily op-ed, failed presidential candidate and conservative pundit Pat Buchanan offers an example of the ethnic bigotry and racial insensitivity that has come to define him. Offering his take on the horrendous terrorist attacks in Norway, Buchanan joined the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post in arguing that the far-right extremist perpetrator Anders Breivik may have had a valid point.
[...]
As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right, [Buchanan said].
There are lots of posts up about this today but for the most part the wording of the articles are way too deferential to home boy Pat. (You know: misspoke and stuff like that.) It’s time to cut through the crap. Pat thinks mowing some people down (liberals and Muslims I presume) is, hey, a good thing.
He’d be off the air if he was an Ed Schultz, a Cenk Uygur or a Keith Olbermann, all MSNBC’ers who’ve been disciplined or fired for not being a part of the establishment. So, this is “the establishment??
Fox Bases Pro-GOP Headline on the Word of “One Senate Republican Aide”
This is the headline at FoxNation.com right now (5:19 p.m. ET):
Wow. Sounds like everybody — EVERYBODY! — wants congress to reduce spending, right?
Not exactly. When propaganda is the name of the game, all it takes to put up a screaming headline like that is the word of one single measly GOP aide who just might (ya think? have a dog in this fight:
Telephone calls and emails flooded into the Capitol Tuesday, overwhelming the phone system and slowing computer servers after President Barack Obama urged voters Monday night to support the Democrats’ debt-ceiling plan.
An internal email sent around to U.S. House offices said “House Telephone Circuits Near Capacity” and told users, “Due to the high volume of external calls, House telephone circuits serving 202-225-XXXX phone numbers are near capacity resulting in outside callers occasionally getting busy signals.”
One Senate Republican aide credited some of the increased phone traffic to Mr. Obama’s speech but added that the callers to Republican offices aren’t backing the president’s approach. “The majority of calls that our offices have received have all been calls to reduce spending,” the aide said.
So, if all you saw was the headline, and you didn’t click on the title and read the actual article — carefully — you’d think yes, that EVERYONE wants congress to reduce spending.
Americans to D.C. — Don’t Cut Entitlements!
Here’s yet another indication D.C. isn’t listening to We the People:
What if pollsters asked Americans which concerns them more: The prospect of tax hikes on people like them, or the possibility of cuts to Medicare and Social Security?
Well, a new National Journal poll released today has done just that. And by a sizable margin, a plurality is more concerned about cuts to entitlements than about paying more taxes. It’s yet another sign that the public is on the Dems’ side in this fight.
Here’s the key finding, from the internals of the poll, which were sent my way by National Journal:
In the debate over proposals to increase the federal debt ceiling, which of the folllowing possible outcomes concern you most?
A default on the federal debt that could raise interest rates for things like mortgages and consumer loans: 17
An agreement that raises taxes on people like you: 17
An agreement that authorizes too much federal spending in the next few years: 19
An agreement that cuts too much from government programs like Medicare and Social Security: 39
Hike our taxes before you cut our “entitlements.” GOT THAT WASHINGTON?!
Can You Hear Me Screaming?
Oh my God. Read this with the “definition“ of insanity in mind:
One word: Despair.
Trump to GOP: Wreck the Economy So Obama Won’t Win in 2012
Well now, this is presidential:
Donald Trump has some advice for the Republican Party. The New York real estate tycoon went on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning and told the hosts that if the GOP wants to ensure that President Barack Obama isn’t re-elected, all it has to do is not make any deals with Democrats and default on Aug. 2.
That from a guy who’s still considering running for president in 2012 because, why? He loves the country and he respects the democratic process and all that? Wow.
Save (What’s Left of) the American Dream
You won’t see this on teevee tonight (but you would if it involved the Tea Party):
With a turn-out that seeks to make the Tea Party jealous, Moveon.org, Campaign For America’s Future and the Rebuild The Dream Movement are encouraging 20,000 supporters to protest on Capitol Hill against the debt ceiling “compromise.” For those who can’t make the trek to DC, the groups are calling for members to protest outside their local district office.
Organized by the burgeoning Dream movement the protests are an effort to galvanize the force of separate progressive organizations into a uniformed movement that rivals and counteracts the Tea Party’s influence on Washington.
The local protests are happening today; they were organized over just the last 24-hours. Here are a few pictures, more of which you can find here (click on the bottom to activate the roll):
