In two videos, @Lawrence O'Donnell breaks down the REAL "IRS Scandal"...

Day 1: May 13, 2013:

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Day 2: May 14, 2013:

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@RuthMarcus, Villagers and the evolution of media bull@#$%...

My distaste for Ruth Marcus goes back a while. So I guess I shouldn't have been completely surprised when yet again decided to act as the Chief Villager for a Newspaper run by nothing but Villagers when she wrote her latest (cough-cough) column.

After listing through some of the nasty comments House GOPers were tweeting as the President was speaking to them about reaching a Budget Deal, she quoted the President calmly assessing the situation with George Stephanopoulos:

Obama: “You know — I think whatever I’m for, it’s very hard for a Republican to also be for. I think they always have to be a little bit — you know, maintain some distance.”

One would think after all the Filibustering and insults (some of them actually racist) that have been hurled at this President from the start of his administration, a columnist might react with shock and surprise that the sitting President managed to keep his cool.

Instead, Ruth Marcus offered this:

The president has made this point before, and maybe he’s right. Yet this analysis leaves him in a distinctly unpresidential posture — not leaning in, but holding back.

Excuse me, but...I did not think it was anatomically possible for one's head to get that far up one's...--never mind.

I don't know how to tell Journalists this, because...I really thought they would have covered it in Journalism school, but...it's not your job to balance the argument.

I know you think that's your job. But let's be clear about what your job really is.

Your job is to present both sides of a story...

Your job is not necessarily to lend them equal weight, particularly when they don't deserve it.

Again, you don't elevate both sides into equality.  We don't need you to do that.  In fact, it's a really bad idea if you do do that.

If you're a columnist, as Ruth Marcus is, this is even more tricky.  Why?  Because, a columnist offers nothing but opinion.  They don't do any actual reporting.  They don't go digging around for facts anymore...they've been excused from that particular activity.  In fact, they are paid a substantial salary to say only what they think.  Even if what they think has no basis in reality, as Ruth Marcus clearly demonstrated today.

One would think that some measure of journalistic integrity would matter in a circumstance like this, but again...you'd be wrong.  The Washington Post is more than capable of publishing utter complete bull@#$% so long as it fills column inches.  After all they employ Jennifer Rubin, Marc Thiessen, Robert Samuelson, Richard Cohen...and Ruth Marcus.

(Hey, at least Ezra Klein -- and I know me some Liberals who hate him for some reason -- no idea why -- does actual work to preparing his pieces.)

One would think it would matter to the folks at the Washington Post that their own readers can smell this line of crap a mile off, but we don't matter of the folks at the Washington Post.  Ruth Marcus has proved...once again...that the Villagers are talking only to other Villagers.

Which could explain why most newspapers are in trouble.

We need Newspapers and Magazines and Media in general, advocating for their audience, and not entertaining their damn selves.

For example...if someone...say like the President...presents something that is backed in fact, and his opposition presents something that is cloaked in bull@#$%...we kinda need Media to call out the bull@#$%.

But they're not.

They used to.  But they're not.

I mean it happens...sometimes, but it sure as hell didn't happen today with Ruth Marcus.

Let me quote something a columnist said not too long ago:

Excuse me, but can these people not count to 60? Have they somehow failed to notice that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have not exactly been playing nice? That while the left laments Obama's minor deviations from party orthodoxy, the right has been portraying him, with some success, as an out-of-control socialist?

That was from August 10, 2010. My goodness who wrote such a prescient piece?

C'mon, this is easy. This was Ruth Marcus...in a piece backing Robert Gibbs when he called out the Professional Left.

So what happened?

Apparently, Ruth Marcus...still employed by the Washington Post...has lost the ability...to count.

Ruth Marcus got lazy.  She and the paper needed column inches to fill, and bull@#$% magically transpired.

When you say the President isn't showing leadership after showing in just a few short paragraphs that there's no one who's willing to be lead, we do wonder why the President is to blame, and not the Congress.  And if you can't make that elementary of a call, it calls into question your ability to observe things...or any thing, for that matter.

I mean, I don't meant to tell Ruth Marcus in particular how to do her job, but I figured someone ought to.

Rachel Maddow calls Antonin Scalia a Troll on the Daily Show (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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"These aren't the cuts you're looking for..." (VIDEO)

Here is the President's brief Press Conference on the Sequester:



That's right. He went with Jedi Mind Mend.

I was entertained no end. The rest of the Geek world was not, preferring instead to chastise my President for getting his franchises confused. (Yeah, like that's never happened to them.)

Leave it to the Geek Godather, Leonard freakin' Nimoy to put it all in perspective:

Only a Vulcan mind meld will help with this congress. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) March 1, 2013

Yeah, baby, YEAH.

Also. It seems that the White House has chosen to OWN it (OWN IT, I say!!):

President Obama Speaks on the impact of the Sequester (VIDEO)

Mr. President, it's not fair to compare plans when Governor Romney DOESN'T HAVE ONE... (VIDEO)

It's time for a new economic patriotism. Rooted in the belief that growing our economy begins with a strong, thriving middle class. Read the President's plan. Compare it to Governor R--

--wait a minute, does Governor Romney even HAVE a plan? Last I checked, there were still "details" he had to "work out" with Congress. Details he didn't need to share with the likes of us.

Kinda like his Tax Returns.

What the Federal Reserve did yesterday, in plain english...and why it's good news.

This is Ezra Klein's complete article: Here’s why everyone is so excited about what the Fed did yesterday.

I was going to use a snippet, but when Ezra's on his game, he's on his game, and there's nowhere good to cut, so to explain it all...you've got to read it all:

I want to explain why everyone is so excited about what the Federal Reserve did yesterday. But I want to do it without using the words “quantitative easing,” because those words are almost designed to get you to give up and stop paying attention.

Imagine you got a choice of superpowers. You could be invisible, you could fly, you could be really strong, or you could create unlimited amounts of money. You might well choose the money one. The other ones are cool for a bit, but they’re not all that versatile, and they may well get you into trouble.

The best way to think about the Federal Reserve is that it basically has a superpower. It can create as much money as it wants. Real, American money.

And the Fed doesn’t need anybody’s permission. It’s not like when the president says he wants to do something, like the American Jobs Act, and you have to ask, “What does Congress think?” Or when John Boehner wants to pass something, and you have to ask, “Well, what does Harry Reid think?” Once the Board of Governors decides to move forward, they don’t need 60 votes in the Senate — they just do it. And that makes them incredibly powerful.

But, as Spider Man would say, with great power comes great responsibility. And so the Fed is very cautious in using its powers.

By law, it needs to try to keep unemployment and inflation low. Over the past two years or so, inflation has stayed low, and unemployment has been very, very high. But the Fed has not been doing all that much about it. It’s been hoping the situation would turn around of its own accord, or that Congress and the president would stop bickering and unleash more stimulus — anything so that the Fed didn’t have to further unleash its powers.

But it didn’t happen. And so, on Thursday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed had finally decided to do something about unemployment. Something big. Something that might actually work.

He said it was going to buy hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of government and housing bonds for as long as it takes to get the recovery back on a solid footing, and then keep buying them for as long as it takes to be absolutely certain the recovery will stay on a solid footing.

The way the Fed’s plan works — if it works — is that buying all these bonds will drive down long-term interest rates, which will give businesses and investors more incentive to spend now as opposed to sitting on their money waiting for later. It will make mortgages even cheaper, which should accelerate the housing market’s recovery.

But the other part of the plan, and this part is really important, is that Bernanke just sent a signal to businesses and investors and the market and everyone else that the Fed is going to use its powers in a big, unusual way to get the economy moving. That’s a hugely important statement to make.

Imagine a business trying to decide whether it should hire more workers. The basic question it needs to answer is whether people will be buying a lot more stuff next year than they’re buying this year. If business owners don’t see any good reason to think the economy will improve, then the answer is probably, “No, people aren’t going to be buying more stuff next year,” so there’s no need to hire more workers.

But if they think the recovery is going to come, if they think people will be buying more stuff, then they need the workers. They don’t want to be caught without enough product — then their competitors would get those sales.

The Fed is trying to influence that decision. Fed officials are saying: “We’re going to use all our power to make sure there are people out there buying your stuff. So go hire. Do it now. We’re behind you.”

Or you can think of it this way. The Federal Reserve is kind of like the economy’s tough, older brother. If the economy is having problems with some kids at school, and the tough, older brother seems distant, or uninterested, then the economy’s in trouble.

But if the tough, older brother makes it clear that he’ll be there to back up the economy, come what may, and even says that he’s going to go have a talk with some of these kids tomorrow, then the economy is going to be a lot more confident walking to school from now on. And right now, what the economy needs, more than anything, is confidence.

Now, as some of us learned when we were young, tough, older brothers aren’t invincible. And few economists believe that the Fed can solve our ongoing economic problems on its own. But it can do more to help then it’s doing now, and with the housing market beginning to come back and Europe appearing to stabilize, there’s a mounting argument that the conditions for a recovery are beginning to look pretty good. If there’s a policy dark spot here, it’s that Congress is still a mess, and there’s no clarity as to how they’ll bridge the fiscal cliff, or even if they’ll bridge the fiscal cliff. And then, of course, there’s the fundamental fact of the economy right now, which is that consumers are still digging out of debt and businesses remain skittish. Sometimes, even a big older brother isn’t enough to make you feel better.

Some things you just can't shake away...or "Etch-A-Sketch", if you will.

The GOP's Debt Hypocrisy...

When the Republicans talk about the Debt during their convention, the one thing they're going to leave out is that pesky part about how they're the one's who ran it up.

Boehner's quiet admission that he knows his Caucus is NUTS!

Congress did something halfway sensible today:

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid have reached a short-term spending deal that would remove the possibility of a government shutdown from the politically sensitive fall campaign season, the two announced Tuesday.

Under the agreement, Congress would agree to fund the government for six months when the fiscal year expires Sept. 30, setting agency spending for the year at $1.047 trillion.

A shutdown, believe it or not, would've been bad for all sides.  While I think it would have finished off the GOP once and for all, do we really want who knows how many Federal Employees out on the street just as Halloween is rolling around, with Thanksgiving and the Pre-Christmas Shopping Season to follow?

Rooting for the bad to give you something good is what Republicans do.

Added to that, have you even known Boehner's caucus to negotiate in good faith?  Yeah, me neither.

Still remains to be seen if Uncle Johnny can wrangle up the votes from his side of the aisle. All I know is Harry will deliver his, as will Nancy.

When people say Americans are taxed more than any other country on earth...

Ehhh, not so much...

Mitt Romney in 2002: "I'm going to reduce taxes." (VIDEO)

President Obama on the Payroll Tax Cut Extension (VIDEO)

The President's Speech on his new Budget in Northern Virginia (VIDEO)

So what's it going to be Republicans, your wet dream of destroying a Government Agency or denying the President a victory? (VIDEO)

Here's how the President just tattooed the Republicans (in case you missed it), as explained by Greg Sargent.

[What the President did today] could help enable Democrats to recapture the dynamic that played in the favor of Democrats during the payroll tax cut fight. Obama is co-opting a supposedly traditional Republican argument — government should be made leaner — and forcing Republicans to choose between placing themselves at odds with a core position and allowing an Obama victory on their own turf. During the payroll fight, Republicans struggled to explain their opposition to cutting taxes, relying on shifting justifications that ultimately proved politically untenable.

The GOP pushback is that Obama’s move suggests he is conceding that the Republicans argument has been right along. “After presiding over one of the largest expansions of government in history, and a year after raising the issue in his last State of the Union, it’s interesting to see the President finally acknowledge that Washington is out of control,” Don Stewart, a spokesman for Mitch McConnell, says. But will Republicans support it?

Second, the move could maneuver Republicans into having an argument about process, even as the White House touts specific proposals for getting things done. During the payroll tax cut fight, Republicans ended up arguing that the tax cut shouldn’t be extended for two months because a year-long extension would represent sounder government — even as Dems emerged as the primary advocates for immediate action to cut taxes on 160 million working Americans. Similarly, Repulicans may find themselves opposing this proposal on the grounds that it doesn’t go far enough, while Obama insists on immediate action.

During his speech today, Obama bashed wasteful government; proposed to consolidate six commerce-related agencies into one; and said the proposal was driven by “one mission: helping American businesses to succeed.” He added: “With or without Congress, I’m going to keep at it.”

In other words, this dovetails with Obama’s political strategy of bashing Congress as dysfunctional while continuing to project unilateral action on the economy, in this case, helping small businesses by simplifying government — which, again, is supposedly traditional GOP turf.

President Obama's Speech on the upcoming cuts to the Defense Dept. (VIDEO)

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

"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:

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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.