I like Ron Wyden, I respect Ron Wyden, but he needs to get his ass kicked for this...

But the President and Democrats should kick his ass for this. No Privatization of Medicare, ever.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who has been castigated by Democrats and hailed by Republicans for his plan to privatize Medicare, will on Thursday unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program.

Working with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the Wisconsin Republican is developing a framework that would keep government-run Medicare as an option for new retirees starting in 2022, along with a variety of private plans.

Seniors would still receive a set amount of money from the government to buy insurance, as they would under the Medicare proposal Ryan included in the budget blueprint that passed the House last year. But the new approach would let that subsidy, known as premium support, rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies — creating more protection for seniors and saving potentially far less in the budget.

The unusual alliance between Ryan and Wyden could complicate election-year politics for both parties on an explosive issue. In recent days, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has embraced the Ryan privatization plan, and GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich has offered qualified support. Democrats, meanwhile, have been gearing up to challenge the GOP across the board on the issue, accusing Republicans of pushing to “end the Medicare guarantee.”

Ryan and Wyden said in an interview Tuesday that they joined forces in hopes of lifting the Medicare debate above the divisive political rhetoric and forging a genuine compromise that could save the program along with the government’s solvency.

I think we're going to enjoy hearing from American LP (VIDEO)

The complete 60 Minutes interview with President Obama... (VIDEO)

Sen. Lautenberg and Rep. McCarthy write a really dumb-ass column together...

Here is the actual headline in the piece o' crap Huffington Post today. Mind you, not the headline that makes you click on the story, but the actual headline:

Tell President Obama: Stop the NRA From Making Our Laws.

And the gist of the piece is?

The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 822) would allow gun owners to carry a concealed firearm across state lines even if they weren't issued a permit by that state. That means Texas Governor Rick Perry could decide who can carry a concealed weapon in your state -- even if they have a criminal record that your state would consider a barrier to owning a gun.

This gun industry bill recently passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with a little bit of Democratic help as well.

Americans of conscience who believe in protecting public safety should join us in asking President Obama to issue a veto threat to this ridiculous bill now, before it goes even further in Congress.

We have a petition, at www.StopHR822.com, to send President Obama a strong message from regular Americans across the nation that we will not let the gun manufacturers make laws that benefit them at the risk of public safety.

Click here immediately to call on President Obama to veto H.R. 822 -- we can't let this bill go any further.

Uhhh, excuse me Senator Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey...and Congresswoman McCarthy, Democrat of New York.

It strikes me you really should be going after to the people who would actually helped pass (and thus stop) said legislation.

Oh yeah...THEY WOULD BE CALLED SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES!!!

Look, these are two of the good guys when it comes to Gun Control. But it strikes me that people who are in a position to actually do something about bad legislation in its tracks have real nerve demanding President Obama do their damn job for them.


McCarthy is outnumbered.  She's got an excuse.  But in case you've forgotten, Senator...this hasn't passed the Senate yet, and there are things you yourself can do to stop this thing from happening.  You work within the single most dysfunctional branch of Government.  A Single Senator has the ability to grind any piece of legislation to a halt.  So how about putting a hold on the legislation?  How about organizing a filibuster?


How about you do your damn job before you go bitching to President Obama.

The bizarre alternate Universe where Insurance Companies have ASKED for more Federal Regulation is this one!

Uhh...say that again Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post??

A lot of coverage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law focuses on what isn’t happening: How the White House can’t get a head for its Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through Congress in the face of Republican opposition, how the law could become more vulnerable with the retirement of one of its architects, Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. Just this morning, as Suzy reports, former FDIC chair Shelia Bair called for part of the law to be scrapped altogether.

But, quietly, parts of the law are indeed moving forward, albeit with few headlines and little fanfare. This very morning, a new Dodd-Frank office got underway with work to reform one of the country’s most complex regulatory systems: insurance regulation.

The Federal Insurance Office was created by Dodd-Frank to bring a more national voice to how we oversee insurance. Until now, a federal agency to focus on insurance regulation just didn’t exist.

“Despite the sector’s size and important,” said deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, “the federal government had no central repository for comprehensive insurance expertise.”

The new office doesn’t make many headlines; you won’t see many mentions outside of some trade journals. But industries understand its important: The FIO drew a standing-room-only crowd to its first ever meeting at Treasury this morning. And at that meeting, insurance executives asked the Dodd-Frank agency to bring more federal regulation into their industry — not exactly an everyday affair in Washington.

It’s not a normal request, but insurance isn’t exactly a normal industry when it comes to regulation. States tend to oversee all insurance products, from health to life to homeowners. And that worked fine decades ago, when insurance companies tended to be more localized. But for any national company operating now, having 50 state regulators set 50 different standards has made it a complex system.

“The current system is highly inefficient,” says John Johns, chairman of the Protective Life Corp., which sells life insurance policies. Or, as Consumer Federation of America’s J. Robert Hunter put it, “If Nebraska is regulating hurricane insurance in Florida and flood insurance in Georgia, we have a problem.”

The President's Barnburner of a Speech in Osawatomie, KS (VIDEO)

What else can I say, but...whoa.

The Fireside Chat for December 3rd, 2011 (VIDEO)

I'm sorry, but did that Obama Black Friday Email "annoy" or "exasperate" any of you??

Damn villagers, again.

Look, I love Erza. Read him all the time. But like the rest of us, he can occasionally be full of shit:

Guess who tweeted this: “This Black Friday, take 10% off all purchases of...gear with code 10%TURKEYDAY”

Wal-Mart? Best Buy? A hedge fund trying to unload Greek bonds?

Nope. That was the official Twitter account of President Barack Obama — excuse me, President @BarackObama. And it’s not the first time Obama’s 2012 campaign has sounded more like a commercial for Al’s Used Car Lot.

Last month, “Barack Obama” e-mailed me with the subject line “Last chance at dinner.” “Because you and I don’t have a lot of chances to have dinner together,” he — or, more accurately, a campaign staffer claiming to be him — wrote, “I hope you’ll take advantage of the one that’s coming up this fall.” Then he asked me to donate some money so I could be entered into a raffle to have dinner with him.

Another e-mail, again from Obama, carried the subject line, “If I don’t call you.” Again, the upshot was you could donate money to be entered into a dinner raffle. But as Garance Franke-Ruta noted at the Atlantic, the e-mail writers at the Obama campaign had taken one of the most distinctive voices in American politics and left him sounding like a plaintive boyfriend.

All of this is, of course, a fundraising effort. And it’s working. The Obama campaign has received donations from more than 1,000,000 individuals, and 98 percent of those donations were for $250 or less. Some of those donations, to be sure, are Obama schwag. When you buy a hat or a shirt, technically, you’re donating to the campaign, and the campaign is sending you a token of its thanks. But it’s hard to argue with the results: at this point in the 2008 race, the Obama campaign had fewer than 400,000 donors. “This is what a grassroots campaign looks like,” the campaign brags in an infographic celebrating the million-donor mark.

But there’s something tawdry about it. This isn’t transformational politics. This is, almost definitionally, transactional politics. You give me money for my campaign, I give you a beer koozie with Vice President Joe Biden’s face on it.

I asked the Obama campaign about that seeming disconnect, but didn’t get much back. “We don’t talk specifics about merchandise because we don’t talk specifics about fundraising in general,” Katie Hogan, the campaign’s deputy press secretary, told me.

In a sense, these e-mails and tweets — and the annoyed, exasperated reactions many of their supporters have had to them — perfectly encapsulate one of their biggest challenges going into 2012: resolving the yawning chasm between the sort of politics America wanted from the Obama campaign and the sort of politics, the Obama administration has found, work in Washington.

All this was a preamble to a moderately decent piece highlighting the President's accomplishments while in Office, and the difficulties of changing the culture in Washington. (File under No shit, Sherlock).

But I want to ask, were any of you annoyed or exasperated by that Obama Email? Or were you like me, swimming around the site seeing if there was anything you'd like to buy.

This is what concerns me about my Hometown. This is another instance of the damn bubble again, and it confirms what we all know. It's not just the Presidents who live in it. Nine times out of ten, its the people in the Washington cocktail circuit who live in it. These are the people writing the columns, making the policy and talking to each other about the rest of us...all without the benefit of the rest of us being a part of the conversation.

Simply put, Ezra. I know of exactly ZERO people who were annoyed or exasperated by the President's fundraising efforts, and I'm betting I talk to a lot more actual Obama Supporters than you do. I know of exactly ZERO people from among the Liberal "disappointed" set who were annoyed or exasperated.

Now, I don't know of any one who bought anything either.  My guess is they looked, they shopped around a little, then trashed the email, and went back for a nap during the Frisco-Baltimore game.

And "tawdry" who the hell said anything about tawdry??

This is not something actual Obama Supporters are talking about, sorry Ezra.  This is all in your head.

Who exactly are these people Ezra is talking about--...

...ooooh, that's right. A bunch of Washington DBs talking to other Washington DBs.

Sorry, this one got on my nerves.

"Hello, Scranton..." (aka the President's Speech in Scranton, PA) (VIDEO)

And Lawrence's commentary, complete with an interview with Jay Carney, the President's Press Secretary:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Fireside Chat for November 24th, 2011 (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for November 19th, 2011 (VIDEO)

And now a Republican "Ruh-Roh" moment brought to you by the Washington Post and Small Donors...

Watch out now...

Even with low approval ratings and an uncertain path to reelection, President Obama is exceeding expectations in one area: His campaign is doing far better at attracting grass-roots financial support this year than his GOP rivals or his own historic effort in 2008, according to new contribution data.

The sheer scale of small donations, totaling $56 million for Obama and his party, has surprised many Democratic strategists and fundraisers, who feared that a sour economy would make it difficult for Obama to raise money from disenchanted and cash-strapped voters.

President Obama’s reelection campaign and DNC together raised $70 million in the third quarter of 2011. Outside of fundraising, the president is ramping up support for his reelection with his visits and talk about focusing on the economy.

A Washington Post analysis shows that nearly half of his campaign contributions, and a quarter of the money he has raised for the Democratic Party, has come from donors giving less than $200. That’s much higher than it was four years ago, and far beyond what the best-funded Republicans have managed.

Sonofagun...guess that "Satan Sandwich" is gettin' a bit tastier...

From The Hill:

The bipartisan debt-limit deal, famously called a “Satan sandwich” by a prominent Democrat this summer, is looking more heavenly to the left.

Republicans crowed after striking the agreement with President Obama, while congressional Democrats cried foul. Despite the White House’s endorsement of the bill, 95 House Democrats voted against it.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the Budget Committee, subsequently said Republicans called Obama’s bluff. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he got 98 percent of what he wanted in the deal.

Three months later, members of both parties are looking at the deal much differently.

A GOP lawmaker who requested anonymity told The Hill that “it’s the 2 percent that’s killing [Boehner] … I’ve never understood why we thought 12 people could come up with a solution any better than we could.”

With the supercommittee deadlocked, the sequestration cuts of $1.2 trillion are now likely to be triggered. Those reductions would hit national security programs, but not call for structural reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and/or Social Security.

Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services committees were wary of putting defense cuts in the trigger, but Democrats essentially said the GOP would have to choose between tax increases or cuts to the military. Republicans opted for the latter, despite major concerns expressed by House Armed Service Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.).

Now, in sharp contrast to this summer, Democrats say they are in the driver’s seat. They note that Republicans are already vowing to torpedo the sequestration cuts to the Defense Department, something Democrats say they will not go along with.

Many Democrats would prefer the sequestration cuts over a deal that would make major reforms to entitlement programs.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who voted against the debt deal on Aug. 1, is openly rooting for the super-panel to fall short.

“I hope that they cannot reach an agreement,” Nadler told Capital New York.

Nadler favors major cuts to the military — which could happen in 2013 if Congress cannot pass a deficit-reduction bill.

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who dubbed the debt deal a “Satan sandwich,” has tempered his critique.

He, along with dozens of congressional Democrats and Republicans, has called for the supercommittee to “go big” and find deficit savings in the $3 trillion to $4 trillion range. Part of that savings, Cleaver has made clear, should come from the expiration of the Bush tax rates.

There's more, but you get the idea.

Jonathan Chait explains the SuperCommittee Jujitsu in a way that most of us will enjoy...

My favorite bit is Hensarling's little warning to his colleagues.  I think this is the first time I've heard a Republican publicly acknowledge that they might not win the White House.

By the way, you know Chait's moved to New York Magazine, right?

Recent coverage of the supercommittee budget negotiations has trumpeted the fact that some Republicans have agreed, in theory, to increase tax revenue. But this isn’t any kind of compromise, and Democrats would be crazy to take this so-called “concession,” even if it came attached to no spending cuts at all.

The Republican offer is a response to the fact that Democrats hold all the leverage. At the end of 2012, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire. If that happens, tax rates would return to Clinton-era levels, and revenue would increase by $3.7 trillion over a decade. That would solve the medium-term deficit problem without cutting a single dollar in spending.

Of course, it would also effectively hike taxes on the middle class, which Democrats oppose, or claim to oppose. But if those tax cuts expire in a way that allows Democrats to avoid the blame, they could have a win-win.

It’s the flip side of the situation they faced at the end of 2010, the last time the tax cuts were set to expire. Democrats couldn’t afford to yank the economy off life support before the 2012 elections, and so agreed to extend the cuts in exchange for extending some stimulative measures like payroll tax breaks and unemployment insurance.

Now that the tax cuts have been extended through 2012, the Democrats can afford to hang tough. They can make the election a choice between the Republican vision of keeping Bush-era tax rates on the rich and slashing retirement programs, and the Democratic vision of higher levels of retirement spending financed by higher taxes on the rich. That’s a very favorable contrast for the Democrats. And if the two parties fail to reach an agreement, the tax cuts disappear automatically. The bottom line: The expiration of the tax cuts poses a huge threat to the GOP.

Republicans understand this problem, and their offer before the supercommittee is a tactical effort to reduce the potential risk. The GOP is offering to increase tax revenue slightly above current levels – about $250 billion over a decade – in return for locking in the Bush tax cuts permanently. And they are only offering this in return for Democrats agreeing to cuts in entitlement spending and privatization of Medicare.

I’d be willing to consider a deal that cut entitlements in return for higher revenue. But the GOP deal wouldn’t produce higher revenue — it’s merely a hedge. Jake Sherman and Manu Raju report that Jeb Hensarling, an arch-conservative on the supercommittee, has made exactly this case to his colleagues:

“In a 20-minute presentation Tuesday, Hensarling told his House Republican colleagues that it was in their interest to cut a deal now since Obama could keep the White House, and Republicans should look at the proposal as avoiding a huge rate hike in 2013, when the Bush tax cuts expire. The usually rambunctious House Republican Conference gave Hensarling a standing ovation.”

Republicans are publicly framing this offer as a concession, in return for which they must get tax reform and entitlement cuts. But if Democrats really want to cut a deal, they need to demand higher tax revenue without locking in the Bush tax cuts.

It is certainly true that many House conservatives are freaking out at the supercommittee Republican offer, insisting that the party can never allow taxes to go even one cent higher under any circumstances. But this is merely the expression of the party’s anti-tax fanaticism – they are so dogmatically committed to the anti-tax cause that they won’t even buy what’s essentially an insurance policy to protect against a huge possible tax hike. The split within the GOP is not a split between anti-tax fanatics and deficit hawks. It’s a split between anti-tax fanatics who understand how to protect their interests and anti-tax fanatics who are too uncompromising to do even that.

The Fireside Chat for November 12th, 2011 (VIDEO)

What heroism can look like... (VIDEO)

Yes, even here on a political blog, the Penn State Scandal's icy claw can reach in. But this was too good not to share.



To stand against the winds of adversity. To speak against the mob.  Man, that's something.

This may be Veteran's Day, and there may be bolder, more life-threatening, more life-changing kinds of heroism than this, but in terms of what it means to be an American? You'll find few better examples.

And bear in mind, apparently the kid wearing the Dorsett jersey (not a good thing in my mind since I'm a Redskins fan) is a cousin of Dorsett's. All the cheap shots thrown his way? The kid didn't blink. Good for him. I hope he runs for office, because despite his nefarious Dallas Cowboys connection, he may just get my vote..

Randi Rhodes' Interview with John Nichols of the Nation Magazine on Tuesday's elections (AUDIO)

"That's exactly what I said. Let Detroit go Bankrupt..." (VIDEO)

The Daily Show Interview with Bill Clinton (VIDEO)

Part 1:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Part 2:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Part 3:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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But before everyone gets all happy about Bubba's return to the stage, I have to point out another example of Bill's temper getting the better of him...this time in print:

In his new book, Bill Clinton writes, as Politico puts it, that he was "mystified that Democrats last year would have agreed to Republican demands to extend the Bush era tax cuts without insisting on a simultaneous increase in the federal debt limit." That Obama — what an amateur! But yesterday, Clinton recanted his criticism, telling an audience at the New York Historical Society, "I was wrong."

Clinton — being interviewed by his daughter Chelsea Clinton — said he recently received a clarifying email from Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling, who also worked in the Clinton White House. Sperling, Clinton recounted, assured him that, “Oh, we tried.” The Democrats’ efforts, according to Clinton’s account of what Sperling told him, were thwarted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who threatened to filibuster the entire package if an increase in the debt limit was included. Clinton said he incorrectly believed that Senate rules would not have allowed a filibuster of this type of fiscal measure.

Usually this is something you would try to find out before penning a criticism of a fellow Democratic president. Bill, you're worth a bazillion dollars — maybe spring for a research assistant next time.

The Story of Broke (VIDEO)

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) explains the Occupy Wall Street Movement (VIDEO)

What if...?? (VIDEO)

60 Minutes: The Jack Abramoff Interview... (VIDEO)

Also known as the Lobbyist's playbook...



UPDATED 4:10pm, Pacific:

There was more, and I'm putting it all down here.

How to use Congressional Hearing to destroy people...




The Culture of Corruption:




And just to remind you, an emphasized segment detailing the murky-language "perfect" tactic:




And what of Jack's time in Prison?

Best Sacha Baron Cohen character...ever (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for November 5th, 2011 (VIDEO)

Guest starring Joltin' Joe Biden!!

The post where I introduce you to Imran Khan, and tell Pakistan to bite me.

There's a Politican named Imran Khan. He's attracting big crowds, getting a lot of attention, and he may be bad news.

First off, it seems he may be getting financial support from the ISI, but more importantly:

The real key to Khan's popularity lies in his public stance against U.S. foreign policy, and what he describes as Washington's interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. He has consistently condemned drone strikes against militants in Pakistan's tribal belt, and argued that Pakistan's alliance with the United States is the main reason why the country is now facing a Taliban insurgency. Khan was careful on Sunday to indicate that he would be open to continued ties with the United States if he came to office, but only on Pakistan's terms. This is a heartening message for millions of Pakistanis who are still reeling from the audacity of the unilateral U.S. raid against Osama bin Laden's compound in May, which many saw as a brash violation of Pakistan's national sovereignty and an act of betrayal by a so-called ally. If this tactic succeeds, Khan will not be the first Pakistani politician to convert anti-Americanism into votes.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Also, reeling from the audacity of the unilateral U.S. raid against Osama bin Laden's compound in May, which many saw as a brash violation of Pakistan's national sovereignty and an act of betrayal by a so-called ally? Bite me, Pakistan.  Your Military and Intelligence command hid target number one and refused to cooperate in his capture, so we went in and got him.  @#$% you.

One would think Mr. Khan also knows how to add, and will get into office, look at the amount of funding we're giving him and make his actual decision from there.

It's very possible that he'll still dial back the Pakistani-American relationship. Then again, we seem to be anxious to dial it back ourselves.

I hope Mr. Khan understands that should there be another High Value Target in his country, alliance or no, we're still taking him out, and there's incredibly little Pakistan can do about it, except maybe get off a lucky shot.  (Remember Pakistan scrambled fighters to intercept our Raid Team's Choppers, but by the time we got there, they were already outta there, and UBL was dead.

Yes, Pakistan has nukes...but so does another country that's veeeery close to them...and we like them better.

The other Black Man relavent in the Herman Cain fiasco...and it's not who you think it is...

A couple of years ago, the residents of my hometown, Washington D.C. were treated to the spectacle of Marion Barry's arrest, and his subsequent...

Well, I'm not going to say downfall...

Let us say his trials due to his addiction to crack cocaine.



(Note: if you've watched the above video, just so you know, Jesse Jackson did not run for Mayor.)

I was in my teens at the time when the problem first became apparent to one and all. I was living in heavily suburban, but black Prince Georges County, Maryland, just over the border from substantially poorer, but still black District of Columbia.

Years before he arrest, I was a sophmore in High School when I saw the Mayor onstage, making a speech about the dangers of drug addition, and doing it in a mania very reminiscent of present-day Charlie Sheen. I knew the man was doing drugs. I just laughed it off at the time as ironic, and went to buy more of these new-fangled things called CDs.

I was a Sophmore at the University of Maryland when they finally got him.  I watched this very broadcast of the CBS Evening News after about a full days coverage from the Local News.  These where the days when Oprah wasn't yet Oprah, and you could have 3-4 hours of Local News a night.

America (by which I mean White America) was all atwitter.  A Mayor? An elected Official doing drugs?? Surely, America thought, this menace would be going to jail.

Hold up.  Not so fast.

The problem for the outside world...and by outside world I mean the non-African-American world outside of the Washington D.C. Area, was that the champion for putting this man behind bars was prosecutor Jay Stephens, a white Reagan appointee (featured at the 1:49 mark of the video). Even I knew at that young, still somewhat politically naive age that there was no way Black Washington D.C. was ever going to let a white Reagan Appointee tell them who was or who wasn't going to be their Mayor.

Four years after the arrest, the black residents of D.C. proved me right when, even after spending two years in jail, Marion Barry was returned him his fourth and final term as Mayor of the District.

I believe we're starting to see somewhat similar circumstances flow around the Herman Cain situation. But instead of the hard-headed, prideful (sometimes overly so) black residents of D.C., this is about the hard-headed, hyper-prideful, rabid, hyper-right wing base of the Republican Party.


And there is no way that any D.C. Establishment Cocktail Party Republican is going to tell them they have to "accept Mitt Romney" as their nominee.

While these folks hate Mitt Romney, they probably hate the D.C. Establishment Republicans even more. These are the people who say they'd rather lose to Barack Obama with one of their faithful, than to even make it close with Multiple Choice Mitt.

These are people who hate the mainstream media so much, who distrust it so much that they'd rather stick a thumb in their own eye and flush their electoral chances down the tubes in order to prove to the world just how hardcore they are. More importantly, they'll do this to prove that they can't be pushed around by the Villagers in the D.C. Republican Establishment.

That's why I think we're seeing a bump in Cain's fundraising numbers and his polling numbers. The establishment is trying to tell the base that he's dead (as a Candidate), and the base is saying...hold up, not so fast!!



(Note: For those who want to relive the glory days of the 1990s, there was a Documentary made about two years ago called The Nine Lives of Marion Barry. It didn't get picked up for distribution, but was shown on HBO and is now available at the iTunes Store for 9.99. It was worth a look.)

This is an intersting idea from #OWS...(VIDEO)

Never get into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrell... (VIDEO)

The Daily Show
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Here's what's coming for Mitt Romney in 2012 (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for October 29th, 2011 (VIDEO)

Hey, Alabama! Stephen Colbert TOLD YOU SO (about your B.S. Immigration Law)!!!

The Colbert Report
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And yes, here's Colbert's complete actual Testimony in front of Congress:

The Colbert Report
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The Daily Show: Science, what's it up to?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Why Sen. Marco Rubio is finished (as a potential Vice Presidential Candidate)

Remember, Marco Rubio did not lie. He took advantage of a lie to promote his Political biography. And when caught, he has waffled between doubling-down on the lie he took advantage of, and well...waffling even more.

As Chris Matthews explains in the clip below, in Politics you are either attacking or explaining.

Rubio is now into week two of explaining.


This here's coming out an inch at a time...and there's at least a few more feet to go.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the St. Petersburg Times:

On May 18, 1956, Mario and Oriales Rubio walked into the American Consulate in Havana and applied for immigrant visas. The form asked how long they intended to stay in the United States.

"Permanently," Mr. Rubio answered.

Nine days later, the couple boarded a National Airlines flight to Miami, where a relative awaited.

So began a journey that seems as ordinary as any immigrant story, but decades later served as the foundation of an extraordinary and moving narrative told repeatedly by their third child as he became one of the most powerful politicians in Florida and then a national figure.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has come under fire for incorrectly linking his parents to the Cubans who fled Fidel Castro beginning in 1959. He insists they are exiles nonetheless and angrily denounced the suggestion he misled for political gain.

"My upbringing taught me that America was special and different from the rest of the world, and also a real sense that you can lose your country," Rubio said in an interview this week.

But the visa documents cast clearer divisions between his parents, who came for economic reasons, and the Cubans who scrambled to leave their homeland but thought they could soon return. And the documents come to light amid new discrepancies since Rubio's time line came under scrutiny last week.

From Politico (and mind you, these are the stories from today):

In Miami’s Little Havana, the Cuban exile community has rallied to the defense of its favorite son, Sen. Marco Rubio, as he fights off allegations he embellished his family history to boost his meteoric political career.

But well beyond Calle Ocho, the freshman Florida Republican still faces a bigger challenge selling himself to the broader Hispanic electorate. Rubio is expected to encounter tough questions from voters and activists over his hard-line stance on immigration as he heads to Texas and possibly Arizona next week to court Hispanic voters and high-dollar donors. As his personal history morphs into a national political story, it’s clear Rubio still has plenty of skeptics in the Latino political community.

“He is a laughing stock in the Southwest … because people discovered he wasn’t telling the truth about his political Cuban exile history,” said DeeDee Garcia Blase, founder of Somos Republicans, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GOP group that backs a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. “They are saying, at the end of the day, ‘He is just like us. His mom and dad came here; they migrated because of economic reasons, just like the rest of us.’”

The controversy about when — and under what circumstances — his family arrived in the U.S. has proved to be the first major test for the rising GOP star as he transitions from Sunshine State politics to the national stage, where the exile experience that he’s embraced doesn’t resonate among non-Cuban Hispanics as much as it does in the quaint cafes and bustling streets of Little Havana.

That cultural divide between his home crowd and the larger Latino electorate could pose a problem for Republicans who have billed Rubio, a favorite for the vice presidential spot in 2012, as their party’s great Hispanic hope.

And the Washington Post:

Republicans who are eager to repair the party’s battered image among Hispanic voters and unseat President Obama next year have long promoted a single-barrel solution to their two-pronged problem: putting Sen. Marco Rubio on the national ticket.

The charismatic Cuban American lawmaker from Florida, the theory goes, could prompt Hispanics to consider supporting the GOP ticket — even after a primary contest in which dust-ups over illegal immigration have left some conservative Hispanics uneasy.

But Rubio’s role in recent controversies, including a dispute with the country’s biggest Spanish-language television network and new revelations that he had mischaracterized his family’s immigrant story, shows that any GOP bet on his national appeal could be risky.

Democrats had already questioned whether a Cuban American who has voiced conservative views on immigration and opposed the historic Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina justice, could appeal to a national Hispanic electorate of which Cubans are just a tiny fraction but have special immigration status. And Rubio’s support in Florida among non-Cuban Hispanics has been far less pronounced than among his fellow Cubans.

That ethnic calculus was further complicated by records, reported by The Washington Post last week, showing that Rubio had incorrectly portrayed his parents as exiles who fled Cuba after the rise of Fidel Castro. In fact, their experience more closely resembles that of millions of non-Cuban immigrants: They entered the United States 2 1 / 2 years before Castro’s ascent for apparent economic reasons.

Rubio made the exile story a central theme of his political biography, telling one audience during his Senate campaign, “Nothing against immigrants, but my parents are exiles.” A video, apparently produced for the conservative site RedState.com, shows black-and-white footage of Castro as Rubio speaks.

Even after the new reports of his parents’ entry, Rubio has said he remains the “son of exiles,” saying his parents had hoped to return to the island but did not because of the rise of a Communist state.

But in elevating exile roots over the apparent reality of his parents’ more conventional exodus, Rubio risks setting up a tension point with the country’s Hispanic voters — most of whom are Mexican American and have immigrant friends or ancestors who did not have access to the virtually instant legal status now granted to Cubans who make it into the United States.

“If he does take that mantle, there’ll be a lot of clarification that he’ll have to make on a whole lot of issues,” said Lionel Sosa, a longtime GOP strategist.

The President's appearance on the Tonight Show (VIDEO)

Which I forgot to DVR last night, so here we go. (And be prepared for a lot of commericals)...

Here's the cold open, which was funny in a...ehhh, Jay Leno way (but made its point):



Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:

The President's Speech launching Project Rebuild (VIDEO)

And he met with a Las Vegas family who was able to buy a home with help from the Administration's housing policies.

The Fireside Chat for October 22nd, 2011 (VIDEO)

Why I disagree with Jonathan Bernstein, and Marco Rubio is in for a looong year...

First off, Jonathan Bernstein, at his own blog A Plain Blog About Politics, made this point about the recent revelations about Marco Rubio's past:

The oddity of the Rubio situation is that I don't recall such an obvious VP frontrunner in any previous cycle. Now, preseason Veepstakes is notoriously silly; after all, guessing the pick even when there's just a few weeks to go and we know who is doing the picking rarely works out well. And the usual caveat applies: the bottom of the ticket doesn't really matter very much in November. So I'm not speculating about whether Rubio will actually get the nod. But it is, I think, worth pointing out that near as I can tell there's been a pretty solid consensus that Rubio is the obvious selection, and that such a consensus is unusual. My guess is that this story doesn't really shake the current consensus -- although whether everyone's expectations now have anything to do with who actually gets the pick is unknown and unknowable.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. Courtesy Chris Cilliza:

Say what you will about the birthers, but don’t call them partisan.

The people who brought you the Barack Obama birth-certificate hullabaloo now have a new target: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a man often speculated to be the next Republican vice presidential nominee. While they’re at it, they also have Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and perhaps a future presidential candidate, in their sights.

Each man, the birthers say, is ineligible to be president because he runs afoul of the constitutional requirement that a president must be a “natural born citizen” of the United States. Rubio’s parents were Cuban nationals at the time of his birth, and Jindal’s parents were citizens of India.

The good news for the birthers is that this suggests they were going after Obama, whose father was a Kenyan national, not because of the president’s political party. The bad news is that this supports the suspicion that they were going after Obama because of his race.

The quick video of Hillary learning of Gaddafi's capture (which eventually led to his death) (VIDEO)

I never though I'd say it, and it cannot be said enough: Hillary Clinton is going down as one of the great Secretaries of State in our history.

The President's statement on Gaddafi's death... (VIDEO)

The Democrats may now have a candidate to run against Scott Walker in a recall (maybe)...

And he's a good one, should he choose to do it:

Former longtime Congressman Dave Obey (D-WI) is joining the call among Democrats to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2012. He would also consider running as a candidate himself in such a recall -- but would prefer to see candidacies by either Sen. Herb Kohl, who is retiring in 2012, or Milwaukee Mayor and unsuccessful 2010 Democratic nominee Tom Barrett.

However, Obey also said that when he has talked to the other two men about running for governor, they politely told him to stop "pestering" them about it.

Obey told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board that "there is so much anger out there" against Walker, predicting that Democrats would successfully collect enough signatures for the effort. (The Dems need to collect over 540,000 signatures, plus a significant buffer that campaigns routinely collect in order to protect against signatures being disqualified over one imperfection or another.)

The Initial BBC Timeline of Gaddafi's death...

This is the kind of reporting I like: raw. It still hasn't been filtered or formed.. The Editors and Producers haven't gotten ahold of it to shape it and change it (usually for the worse).  It's basically as close to reporters notes as you can get.

Thus, I present to you this from the BBC:

In the last fortnight, National Transitional Council (NTC) forces mounted a major offensive against the city and succeeded in pushing Gaddafi loyalists back towards the sea.

The last significant pocket of resistance was reported to be in District 2, in the north-west of the city.

In the early hours of Thursday it appears that some pro-Gaddafi forces attempted to break out.

An armoured convoy of vehicles, which according to some reports contained key Gaddafi loyalists and his son, Mutassim Gaddafi, attempted to fight their way through NTC lines.

It is not clear whether Col Gaddafi himself was part of this convoy or whether the convoy itself formed part of a wider diversionary plan to allow him to slip away.

Air strike

At around 0630 GMT Nato aircraft are reported to have attacked the convoy, according to Daily Telegraph reporter Ben Farmer approximately 3-4 km west of the city.

There are some reports that Col Gaddafi was then initially captured, with serious injuries, at around noon on Thursday.

Pictures circulated by Agence France-Presse showed a large concrete pipe in which the deposed leader apparently took refuge.

Arabic graffiti above the pipe reads: "This is the place of Gaddafi, the rat... God is the greatest."

A fighter loyal to Libya's interim authorities told the BBC he found Gaddafi hiding in a hole and the former leader begged him not to shoot. The fighter brandished a golden pistol he said he took from Col Gaddafi.

A man claiming to be an eyewitness told the BBC that he saw Col Gaddafi being shot with a 9mm gun in the abdomen at around 1230 local time.

A fairly graphic video of Gaddafi being drug out of that sewer can be found here.

President and Mrs Obama on the American Jobs Act Bus Tour

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act in Jamestown, North Carolina (VIDEO)

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act in Emporia, Virginia (VIDEO)

President Obama's speech dedicating the MLK Memorial in Washington D.C. (VIDEO)

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act at Asheville NC Regional Airport (VIDEO)

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act in Millers Creek, North Carolina (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for October 15th, 2011 (VIDEO)

999: A vicious assault on the working poor, and a lavish giveaway to the rich (VIDEO)

"The most vicious assault on the middle class and the working poor, and the most lavish giveaway to the rich, that has ever been proposed by a presidential campaign frontrunner."
-Lawrence O'Donnell
October 13, 2011

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From Ezra Klein:

Herman Cain has not proposed three entirely separate taxes -- one a 9 percent corporate income tax, another a 9 percent consumption tax, and then a final 9 percent personal income tax. Rather, he has proposed an 18-9 plan: an 18 percent consumption tax and a 9 percent personal income tax. Or maybe he has proposed a 27 plan: a straight 27 percent payroll tax on wage income. Depends on which tax professor you ask and how deep into the details you want to go.

As Daniel Shaviro, a tax professor at New York University, notes, “a key part of 9-9-9’s intuitive appeal is the idea that, not only is 9 a low number, but the plan’s three 9’s appear to be spread out.” The only problem? The business tax and the sales tax are “effectively the same tax.”

The business tax is not a corporate income tax. It’s essentially a value-added tax. And a value-added tax is simply a form of a consumption tax. To tax wonks, this is comedy gold. Here they have spent years arguing whether a sales tax or a VAT tax is the better way to tax consumption, and Cain just went ahead and put both taxes in his plan. “So two of the 9’s in the Cain plan are simply redundant versions of almost the same thing,” writes Shaviro. That’s how you get to an 18 percent consumption tax.

From Glenn Kessler (whom I'm not quite as fond of, but always worth monitoring):

Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan administration official who now calls himself an independent, also offered a critical examination this week on the New York Times Economix blog. He (as did Kleinbard) noted that the business tax allows for no deduction for wages, which he said “is likely to raise the cost of employing workers, even with abolition of the employers’ share of the payroll tax.”

Cain, in his television appearances, glosses over such details. “The fact that we are taking out embedded taxes that are built into all of the goods and services in this country, prices will not go up,” he asserted on MSNBC. “They will not go up.” He then gave an example of a family of four earning $50,000.

“Today, under the current system, they will pay over $10,000 in taxes assuming standard deductions and standard exemptions. I've gone through the math, $10,000. Now, with 9-9-9, they're going to pay that 9 percent personal — that 9 percent tax on their income. So that's only $4,500. They still have $5,500 left over to apply to this sales tax piece. …They are still going to have money left over.” 

We’re not sure how Cain calculates that this family now pays $10,000 in taxes, but the reliable Tax Foundation calculator comes up with a much more reasonable figure: a total tax bill of $3,515 — $690 in federal income taxes and $2,825 in payroll taxes. (The family gets a big income-tax savings from the child tax credit, which Cain would eliminate.)

So, in other words, under Cain’s plan, this family would instantly pay $1,000 more in income taxes. They would also pay additional sales taxes, probably more than $3,000, on their purchases. It’s unclear how the business tax would affect the family’s tax bill but it appears this theoretical family would get no tax cut but instead a 100 percent tax increase.

(The picture changes somewhat if you assume that all the employer-paid payroll taxes automatically would revert to the employee. We’re not sure that’s a good bet given the design of Cain’s business tax, but pro-Cain advocates make that assumption with their own tax calculator. But even under this scenario, the family appears stuck with at least a $2,000 tax increase.)

We take no position on whether it is good or bad to make the tax code less progressive. Perhaps in response to questions, Cain appears to still be tinkering with the plan. In Concord, N.H., he said on Wednesday that, among other changes, he would preserve the deduction for charitable donations and would exempt any used goods, including previously owned homes and cars, from the new 9 percent sales tax.

The Pinocchio Test 

We can excuse Cain inflating his adviser’s resume, but his campaign needs to do more to address the fuzzy math behind his tax plan. (We asked the campaign for a copy of Lowrie’s analysis but did not receive a response. UPDATE: The documents are posted below.)

Give Cain credit for thinking boldly, but he’s not talking clearly. As far as we can tell from the limited information Cain has provided, the plan he touts as a big tax cut would actually increase taxes on most Americans. Just like it would be wrong to claim pizza is a low-calorie meal, Cain’s description of the plan’s impact on working Americans is highly misleading.

Three Pinocchios

Oh, and in case you missed it, Glenn's definition of what Three Pinocchios means?

Significant factual error[s] and/or obvious contradictions.

Bruce Bartlett took a moment to note its effect on business...well, certain businesses:

Little detail has been released by the Cain campaign, so it’s impossible to do a thorough analysis. But using what is available on Mr. Cain’s Web site, I’m taking a stab at estimating its effects.

First, the 9-9-9 plan is actually an intermediate step in Mr. Cain’s plan to overhaul the tax system and jump-start growth. Phase 1 would reduce individual and business taxes to a maximum of 25 percent, which I assume means reducing the top statutory tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent.

No mention is made on the site of a tax cut for those now in the 10 percent, 15 percent or 25 percent brackets. This means that the only people who would get a tax rate cut are those now in the 28 percent, 33 percent or 35 percent brackets. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, only 4 percent of taxpayers pay any taxes at those rates.

As for corporations, Mr. Cain’s proposal is primarily going to benefit those with revenues of more than $1 million a year, because they account for 98.7 percent of all receipts by C corporations. (A C corporation is a legal entity separate and distinct from its owners that is taxed as a corporation; its shareholders pay taxes individually on their gains.) Those companies with receipts over $50 million account for 88.8 percent of total receipts.

Other business entities — sole proprietorships, S corporations (which have between 1 and 100 shareholders and pass through net income or losses to shareholders) and partnerships — would not benefit because they are not taxed on the corporate schedule. But they represent 92 percent of all businesses.

Elizabeth Warren’s story (VIDEO)

First saw this over at the Political Carnival. Enjoy!

Lawrence O'Donnell: When Obama starts campaigning...watch out! (VIDEO)

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At the heart of #OWS is a Civil War between Main St. and Wall St. with both sides shooting at Obama...

Ezra Klein recently went to he Cleveland Clinic’s annual innovation summit where Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric and chairman of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, delivered the keynote and sat for a Q&A.

It was a Q & A that if you were inclined to dislike or distrust Immelt, what he said there was hardly going to change your mind about him. (My own view got dramatically worse):

Business types really hate Barack Obama. Everybody sort of knows that, but it’s hard to get a sense of it if you’re not in the room listening to them laugh bitterly at questions like, “Does Obama understand the damage regulations are doing to business?”

In fact, this audience is so down on Obama that Immelt, who you have to assume is one of the more pro-Obama CEOs out there, is not willing to defend him or his policies before this audience. At all. Even a little. His only comment is that people need to roll up their sleeves and help rather than complain. And his answers to Maria Bartiromo’s questioning slyly suggest sympathy with the audience. Asked by Bartiromo how he’ll make the White House listen to him and the business community, his answer, with a smile, is “repetition.” Everyone laughs. “Our job is to make our ideas his ideas,” Immelt says.

This is the sort of audience that makes you think the White House is going to have a lot of trouble meeting its fundraising goals next year.

“When you criticize Wall Street, they don’t care. You’re hurting the guy in Illinois who wants to build a factory.”

I should say that this is more a comment on the conference and some of the other panels than on Immelt himself, but these folks really, really feel persecuted and unappreciated. The common response to this, of course, is that corporate profits have hit record levels in recent years and the top 1 percent has never been richer. But if you need more evidence that money doesn’t buy happiness, you should sit with some CEOs for an hour.

The President has reached out to these people, and this is the thanks he gets from them.

My own first reaction is say "@#$^ you" to Wall Street.  (You can now see what side I'm on).

The President steps up, defends the Wall Street Protesters, telling the world he understands why they're pissed, and a lot of reaction from the Professional Left, as well as from some of the Wall Street Protesters has been to say "@#$% you, Mr. President.  You've sold us out to the Banks."

I'm left wondering why the hell President Obama wants to bother.  Why not just let the Professional Left run their dream candidate; let the Wall Streeters run Mitt Romney, and watch America pay the price.

Meanwhile, this second part from Ezra highlights what's really going on here, a Civil War between Wall Street and Main Street, with both sides feeling they're the most important thing in America, and both sides pissed off that the other side doesn't get it.

The Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is the Obama administration’s answer to the charge that it doesn’t listen to the business community. It includes not just Immelt but executives from Xerox, DuPont, American Express, Kleiner Perkins Caufield &; Byers, TIAA-CREF, Southwest Airlines, Procter & Gamble, Boeing, Intel, Citigroup, Eastman Kodak, Facebook, Comcast, BNSF Railway and UBS Investment Bank. And today it released its interim report (PDF).

This is, in other words, the big moment: This is the business community trying to make its ideas President Obama’s ideas. But here’s the thing: Its ideas don’t seem to differ much from Obama’s ideas.

The report proposes “five common-sense initiatives to boost jobs and competitiveness.” Initiative No. 1 is more infrastructure and energy investment. The White House would happily check that box. Initiative No. 2 is a grab bag of proposals to help “high-growth enterprises,” ranging from more visas for skilled immigrants to patent reform, to amending Sarbanes-Oxley to make it easier to go public, to tax changes to make it more appealing to invest in start-ups. Then there’s the “National Investment Initiative,” which might as well be called “winning the future.” Fourth on the list is streamlining regulations. And then there’s worker retraining, educating more engineers and a second high-five for high-skills immigration.

I’m sure if you dug into the details of the policies on this list, you would find items the administration doesn’t support. Perhaps the business community would deregulate beyond White House regulatory chief Cass Sunstein’s comfort level, for instance. But all in all, you could lift most of these items out of Obama’s speeches. Judging from this report, business leaders’ thinking is substantially his thinking already. Which makes sense: Like many of them, Obama is an Ivy-educated datahead who likes reading boring reports. But sitting with a group of CEOs, you would never know that. In those gatherings, he’s often presented as a naive Marxist who is one bad day away from trying to throw everyone with a corner office into jail.

Perhaps the distance is greater than this report suggests. Perhaps the CEOs have a much more dramatic agenda than they were willing to put on paper. But I haven’t seen much evidence for that view. Most business leaders I talk to would love to see something along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan pass, and at this point, so too would the White House.

Another possibility is that the gulf between the business community and the White House is more cultural and personal than it is substantive. Matt Yglesias had an interesting take on this last week. “A lot of what you have is . . . a kind of bitter feud between businessmen and the kids they went to college with who didn’t go on to become businessmen. What did they do instead? They became teachers or doctors or nurses or professors or lawyers or scientists or nonprofit workers. . . . The business coalition sees the service coalition as composed of useless moochers, and the service coalition sees the business coalition as greedy bastards.”

“If it were merely a clash of objective interests, it really wouldn’t be much of a clash,” Yglesias wrote. “A healthy business environment needs schools and hospitals and public infrastructure to backstop it, and nobody is made happy by a business cycle downturn. There’s tension at the margin, but it’s not a zero-sum world. Layered on top is, I think, a raw level of gut-level dislike — both kinds of people think the other kind of people are clueless about what really matters in life.”

Increasingly, I’m coming to agree with that analysis.

The American Jobs Act...this ain't over yet! (VIDEO)

Why I don't need Andrew Sullivan's or anyone else's permission to come down hard on Herman Cain (VIDEO)

Following up on Lawrence's interview with Herman Cain:

Part 1:

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Part 2:

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Andrew Sullivan was just a little insulting this morning with his Moore Award Nominee:

"Mr. Cain, you were in fact in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily as a student at Morehouse between 1963 and 1967 actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Morehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watched black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come south AND BE MURDERED, fighting for the rights of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?" - Lawrence O'Donnell, in a pretty horrifying interview.

Horrifying?

Yeah, he said horrifiying.

First off, to be clear, let me give you the definition of the Moore Award. This is from Andrew's own site, now. It is named after film-maker, Michael Moore - is for divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric.

Hm.

I'm personally horrified at how horrified people are at Lawrence's interview with Herman Cain. He treated Mr. Cain far more politely than I or virtually any other African-American I know would have given the circumstances.

And the circumstances are these. My Father attended the University of Texas roughly during the same time period. UT was desegregated at the time, but he has no fond memories of the school. The atmosphere was such that a Professor at Texas publicly vowed that any Black Student who enrolled in his class would start at a "C" and head downward.

My Father never suffered the physical jeopardy that other African Americans suffered in trying to get their due rights. He had a beer dumped on him during a Texas-Oklahoma game while sitting in the burnt orange section, but that was it. Mostly everything he experienced was delay, resistance and frustration.

Maybe that's why he thought it was important to find the time to test Restaurants during his stays at both Texas Schools. In the end, he knew it was his about him and his children, when he had them. So even though I wasn't even in glimmer in his eye, he was doing it for me.

He also met another student at the time who was also testing restaurants while attending Texas Southern University. Her name was Claudette Smith. I know her today as Mom.

One may argue that Herman Cain had a right not to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, and that may be true. But here's the problem, he's holding himself up as an example of, if not the very pinnacle of, the black community. (Just ask him, he'll be glad to tell you). He has gone so far as to suggest that Black People who do not support him (not give him a fair hearing, mind you, but out and out support him) have been brainwashed by the Democratic Party.

May I suggest that my Father and Mother were not brainwashed? May I suggest that they saw with their own eyes who was supporting Civil Rights and who wasn't; and their allegiance forevermore was aligned with the Democratic party.

And for the record, yes, there were Southern Democrats who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They long ago switched parties and joined Herman Cain's party, the Republicans. I'm sure even Mr. Cain remembers Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, and saying he was delivering the South to the Republicans for the next 40 years. He was wrong. Try 60-70.

The horrific part of the interview which apparently did not catch Andrew's eye, was Lawrence's first asking Mr. Cain if he wanted to back off that "brainwashing" statement. Mr. Cain did not. With him questioning my intelligence as a African-American, I had a a right to know where he stood in relation to the community he was questioning. I had a right to know what kind of African-American he was, and yes that is something I can judge given the questions Lawrence O'Donnell asked rather haltingly. I had a right to know what he had given to the cause. Because if he had stood with my parents, if he had marched with my parents, then African-Americans as a whole would have shrugged when he called us "brainwashed". At least, he earned the right.

But he didn't. He didn't march. He didn't sit-in. He didn't test. He didn't want to get involved, because frankly, it was probably more important to him to ingratiate himself to the white community, and if you look, it certainly paid off for him. I'm sorry to come off sounding like a member of the Black Panther Party, but African-Americans see people like Mr. Cain all the time. They're the ones who think they're better than the rest of us, smarter, and the only ones fit to lead, the only ones fit to be heard from. You know this because they spend a lot of time shouting down the opposition. These people ars not a symptom of ideology, it happens in both left-wing and right-wing circles. It comes from a life spent in front of, or behind the pulpit, where the Preacher was the most powerful man in our community.

In the end, Herman Cain is not powerful, he is a parasite. He is a man who will twist himself into any shape required to make his money, to ingratiate himself to the white community, and more importantly to show himself superior to the African-Americans that frankly he despises. Yet, with equal lack of character, he will do the same to ingratiate himself back with his fellow African-Americans because he suddenly needs their votes. Remember, though Mr. Cain wants those votes, he still feels those voters inferior to the greatness that his "him" and will let that attitude slip out on occasion; like he did when he called a great many of us "brainwashed".

Andrew is wrong, and just a little bit insulting. The African-American community will call Herman Cain out on his past. It may be regrettable that Lawrence O'Donnell a white Irish-American face was the one asking him the questions, but make no mistake, African-Americans wanted those questions asked, and we don't need Andrew Sullivan's permission or anyone else's approval to have it so.

The Fireside Chat for October 8th, 2011 (VIDEO)

Finally, Barack Obama gets to enjoy the perks of the job (VIDEO)

Just remember, that smiling jackass standing next to the President (aka, Mike Dikta) briefly considered running against then State-Senator Barack Obama after Jack Ryan dropped out of the race. Wisely, he dropped out.



And notice that Dikta and Buddy Ryan are standing on opposite sides of the stage.

HEY! #OWS!! You may think Obama and Bush are the same, but Obama HAS YOUR BACK!!

From today's Press Briefing:

Cantor weighed in on the growing Occupy Wall Street movement in a speech to the social conservatives at the 2011 Values Voter Summit in Washington.

"I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country," he said.

Uh, excuse me? White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in the briefing today.

"I sense a little hypocrisy unbound here--what we're seeing on the streets of New York is a an expression of democracy," Carney said. "I think I remember how Mr. cantor described protests of the tea party--I can't understand how one man's mob is another man's democracy."

Note: I corrected a mistake in the text.  For some reason identified the bold quote as coming from Cantor, which didn't make sense, given the story.

So, OWS...

Look, I support you, I support your goals, but at some point what you're doing is going to have to translate into some kind of political action.  I know a lot of you feel let down by the Democrats and the President, but the Republicans are your mortal enemies.  If you don't support the President in 2012, and he loses, what the hell was the point of all this if all you do is wind up handing power to the people who think you're nothing but an unwashed mob?

Lawrence O'Donnell's complete interview with arrogant ass Herman Cain (VIDEO)

First off, a word of caution, watching this takes a strong stomach.

Herman Cain has accused me (however indirectly along with every other African-American who supports President Obama) of being brainwashed because I (as a black man) won't support him.

Herm, that tends to happen to black people who stab their own in the back. How can I say this? He was in College from 1963 through 1967, by his own admission, in his own worthless misbegotten book, and did not participate in the Civil Rights Movement.


He also got out of serving in Vietnam to work on Ballistics Analysis, which my Father assures me was an actual field...until computers did away with it.

Now, Mr. Cain can call me brainwashed all he wants, but to do so, he needs to give and every other black person and explanation of why he didn't march in the Civil Rights Movement. My personal assessment...and by the way, I don't have any facts to back this up, but...the words House N***** come immediately to mind.

Also, let me say for a guy who claims to be a Mathematician, most of the numbers he used were suspect at best, and outright lies at worst.  I mean, c'mon, did Herman even know he was being interviewed by someone who used to write Tax Code for a freakin' living?

My father, who is an actual black Professor of Mathematics said that his computations of poor people's taxes were just flat out wrong, and his statement about the "percentage" GOP votes for the Voting Rights Act...also wrong, deceptive, and a curious editing of history.  (see: Dixiecrats)


Part 1:

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Part 2:

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Part 3:

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