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

The President calls for Democrats and Republicans to come together on a budget that cuts wasteful spending without sacrificing job creating investments in education, innovation, and infrastructure.

Rachel Maddow asks "What's next? Hire Dog The Bounty Hunter to go get them wayward Democrats?"

Apparently...

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

The Story of the Citizens United Case, now with animation! (VIDEO)

I've never heard of "The Story of Stuff" before this, but...you can bet I'll be paying attention to them from now on. This was good stuff.

Now I'm going after MoveOn? What the hell kind of Friday is this?

I got this Email from MoveOn (a solicitation for funds, of course) that read:

Dear MoveOn member,

Republican politicians in Wisconsin have gone mad with power.

Yesterday, the state Senate president issued arrest warrants for the brave Democratic state senators who left Wisconsin to stop the attacks on workers. And Republicans have locked down the Capitol building, even denying access to firefighters responding to an emergency call.

Here's my problem. There's nothing factually wrong with the opening of that letter. The hyperbole might hook you if you...you know...haven't been paying attention to what's going on in Wisconsin. And let's be honest, Liberals have been paying attention.

Yeah, the State Senate is calling for the Democrats arrest, and something was voted on to that effect.

But here's a couple things MoveOn left out, because reminding you of these facts don't make for good fundraising.

One, the Senate unanimously voted on a resolution to arrest the fleeing Democrats. A resolution is not a law. It does not have the power of law. Only a Law is a Law. A resolution is a way for a Legislative body to say, in effect, we really, really, really feel strongly about this...but can't do nuthin' about it.

For the State Senate to pass a law, there needs to be a quorum...also known as minimum number of Senators in attendance. If you recall, that's kinda the reason the Democrats went on the run in the first place.

Two, the head of the Wisconin Police Union isn't so sure such a law (if it were passed) would be Constitutional:

"It's unclear to me on what constitutional authority Senate Republicans think law enforcement officers can take state lawmakers who have not committed a crime into custody," James Palmer, the head of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, told me by phone moments ago.

The GOP proposal would not allow for the arrest of the missing Dems, but would allow for lawmakers to be taken into custody by the Senate sergeant-at-arms if they don't return to the capitol by today at 4 p.m.

"I don't see how a sergeant-at-arms would have that authority," said Palmer, whose union represents all municipal police officers. "I don't see how any individual, law enforcement or otherwise, has the authority to detain another individual if there's no probable cause to suggest that he committed any crime."

Palmer's union endorsed Governor Walker's opponent in the gubernatorial election. But one local paper, the Wisconsin State Journal, also raised the possibility today that the move may be unconstiutional.

So good luck with that, State Senate!

Three. You can look at what happened with the Firefighters being denied access to the State Capitol as totalitarian overreach, or you can look at it as I look at it...as a lawsuit waiting to happen.

If Scott Walker is hell bent on keeping protestors out of the State Capitol (something already in violation of court order and the State Constitution), he better pray that no one gets seriously hurt during his hamfisted rule. If someone, a Legislator say, has a heart attack in the Capitol, and is denied care by Walker's edict, then Walker, and the State are going to get sued for an amount of money that's going to make their current budget shortfall look like chicken-feed in comparison.

That may be why a Judge told Walker to back off and open up the Capitol this morning.

Also, having Police roughing up a Democratic Assemblyman going into the Capitol to get his clothes doesn't help your look.

Listen, I respect MoveOn and what they do, but we don't need bull@#$% hyperbole. Leave that to the teabaggers. Facts are plenty for Liberals/Progressives.

All they had to do was write an email, saying basically. Look, we're trying to get some of the State Senators recalled, and we need your financial help to do it (something they eventually got around to saying)

TPM: Actual excellent news from Ohio's Union battles...

Ohio, I expect you to get out there and sign, sign, sign:

As the Ohio state House prepares to take up the controversial collective bargaining and union rights provisions contained in the just-passed state Senate Bill 5, union supporters and Democrats are looking ahead to a battle that will put the legislation in the hands of people they say are on their side: the voters of Ohio.

Though they plan to fight SB 5 tooth-and-nail as it works its way through the Republican-controlled House, leaders of the SB 5 opposition tell TPM that they don't expect to win there. There are 59 Republicans in the House and just 40 Democrats, meaning there's little chance for a repeat of the drama seen in the Senate, where SB 5 passed by just one vote.

But, thanks to the eccentricities of Ohio law, passage in the House doesn't mean SB 5 is guaranteed to go into effect. Though they more than likely can't stop it in the legislature, the opposition can potentially block its implementation by promising to take it on at the ballot box. That means the fight over SB 5 could extend for months -- maybe even all the way to November, 2012.

Union leaders and Democrats have already begun shifting their focus to a referendum fight, which would require union supporters to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures in the days following an expected signing of SB 5 by Gov. John Kasich (R).


Once that's done, the law could be placed on hold (meaning it wouldn't go into effect at all) while Ohio waits to see what voters have to say about SB 5. And that's a fight the Democrats say they can win.

But the best news, that this will be decided in November of 2012?  Just when I started to worry about Ohio going going Republican in 2012, this happens.

Right in the middle of the President's re-elect, energized and pissed off Union Voters going to the ballot box to stuff SB 5 back in Kasich's face...oh and by the way, pulling the lever for Obama at the same time.

(Still, just like Wisconsin, I'm not thrilled with Ohio voters for putting Kasich in, in the first place.  Again, this didn't have to happen.)

As I said...actual excellent news.

I'm going to take a moment, and bash my fellow Liberals in Wisconsin...but just for a moment.

This has just been contrarian March, hasn't it?  First off, I've got to admit that Dr. Paul Krugman (king of all things economic and numerical) has made a solid political observation.

A quick note on polling and voting: as more and more polls come out showing that the public does not, in fact, hate public workers and their unions, there’s been a stock answer — namely, that the real poll took place in November, so who cares what a thousand or so people say now.

Aside from the fact that this reveals a complete failure to understand the statistics of polling, what it really gets wrong is what the election represented. Voters were not, in fact, asked to vote on what Republican governors like Scott Walker are now trying to do; in a real sense what we’re seeing is a case of bait and switch.

And here again, I find myself flashing back to the Bush years. In 2004 Bush won a national election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists; as soon as the election was done, he declared that this gave him a mandate to … privatize Social Security. Not so much, it turned out.

The one thing I've got to say is that as much as I stand with my Union Brothers and Sisters in Wisconsin, I'm also mighty pissed at the voters of Wisconsin.

Why?  They let this freak, Scott Walker, get into office in the first place because they were "trying to send a message" to President Obama that they were pissed about the Economy.

(Oh, and for record, Milwaukee (especially you, Sherry)...you're excused from this. You knew what this freak was like.  You did your best to never let him see the inside of the Governor's office except with a tour guide.)

Politicians always view their mandates in the affirmative. The next time a Politician admits: "Yeah, I know I won by four points, but the voters were really turned off my opponent and voted for me as a protest" will be the first time.

Everything, even decisions won by a handful of votes is automatically become a "mandate" and a green light to do what they want.

Perhaps you might recall something I wrote back in September:

...voting in Congressional Democrats, as lame as they are, are not Barack Obama's reward for doing a good job. They are not points accumulating in some political video game you're playing in your head. You are not, as you deluded jack-offs seem to think, sending any kind of a message this way. Either you want a Liberal or Progressive Agenda to succeed or you don't. If you do, you first vote for the best candidate in the primaries. You can fall in love all you want during the primaries. You can vote for the most progressive, green, uber-Liberal man or woman you want.

But when the General Election happens, you fall in @#$%ing line.

Hopefully, your dream Candidate has made it to the General Election as the Democratic Nominee, but if he or she hasn't, then guess what?: the people have spoken however lame that may be. And you better get on board, because you the opposition is never going to give your ideas the time of day. Better a Blanche Lincoln, as worthless a Senate Candidate as she may be than whatever neo-Teabagger wingnut that's running against her.

But Liberals never figure that out until its waaaay too late.

Well, it's March now, and watching what's going on in Wisconsin, it's waaaay too late...again.

Betcha wish you voted, but nooooo.  You just had to send a protest vote. You managed to lose one of the more genuinely committed Liberals in the nation, one Russ Feingold. You decided to stay home.

So how's this all working out for you?

Fingers crossed, I still think we're gonna win this thing in Wisconsin...but I wanted to be on the record: it didn't have to be this way. 

Thomas Ricks' six handy tips to remember before imposing a No-Fly Zone

Thomas Ricks (author of Fiasco) has some helpful hints to those (like me) who were (notice I'm using the past tense) advocating for a no-fly zone:

1. Imposing a no-fly zone is an act of war. For example, it would require attacking Qaddafi's air defense systems-not just anti-aircraft guns and missile batteries, but also radar and communications systems. We may also need some places out in the desert to base helicopters to pick up downed fliers. So, first question: Do we want to go to war with Qaddafi?

2. Hmmm, another American war in an Arab state -- what's not to like?

3. How long are we willing to continue this state of war? What if we engage in an act of war, and he prevails against the rebels? Do we continue to fight him, escalate -- or just slink away? And what do we do about aircrews taken prisoner?

4. And if we are going to go to war with his government, why not just try to finish the job quickly and conduct air strikes against him and his infrastructure? In this sense, a no-fly zone is a half measure, which generally is a bad idea in war. Why risk going to war and losing? That is, if we are willing to do air strikes, why not go the whole way and use ground troops now to go in and topple a teetering regime? I actually would prefer this option.

5. See what I mean?

6. No, the Iraqi no-fly zones are not a good precedent to cite. I actually went out and looked at the operation of the northern no-fly zone in October of 2000. I came away thinking that one reason that no American aircraft were shot down in the Iraqi no-fly zones was because Saddam Hussein really did not want to-that is, he did not want to provoke America. The anti-aircraft shots that were taken were wide on purpose. A better parallel might be Serbia, which (aided by a smart Hungarian national who now is a baker) managed to down an F-117 stealth fighter aircraft in March 1999 with an SA-3 anti-aircraft missile.

As General Mattis once said, if you're going to take Vienna, take f---ing Vienna.

Tip of the hat to Andrew Sullivan for first catching this.

Also explains why the administration hasn't exactly been leaping onto this idea with any sort of gusto.

TPM: Rep. Ron Paul: "Education is Not a Right" (VIDEO)

You can vote for who you want to, but this is who you're dealing with:

No one has a right to anyone's wealth, I don't have a right to come to you and say my poor kid needs 500 dollars for an education, an education is not a right, medical care is not a right.

-Ron Paul

Today

Republican in Wisconsin tells (most of the) actual truth about what's going on (VIDEO)

Great catch by Andrew Sullivan.



This guy seems to know what time it is, laying in to the State Senate Leader and the Governor, like he did. Still, this guy won't committ to shooting the bill down on principle. One must wonder at the end of the day what good is he.

UPDATE: 5:20pm Pacific: Also, "let's tackle this budget, but not raise taxes"? As much respect as I want to show this guy, how seriously can I take him when he says that.

He is a Republican, after all.

And now comes the part where I correct the correction, which itself was corrected...

Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going on anymore.

W.H. not ruling out attack on Libya

-- This was Carney’s response when he was asked if the White House is considering an attack on Libya: “We are actively considering a variety of options. We have not ruled any options out.”

The one problem I have with specific conservatives like Scott Walker and Newt Ginrich, it's not that I find their ideas appalling (which of course I do), its just their certainty that their ideas are the only ideas worth having, and therefore debate with them is pointless.

I don't want to be that guy.

As much as it's mildly embarrassing to correct a posting here or there, I'd rather be the type of blogger who looks you in your virtual eye and shrugs "I dunno", rather than make something up to make myself look good. If I take a guess, you'll know its a freaking guess.

And if I don't know, I'm gonna tell you...as I'm telling you now...I don't know.

Not that I don't appreciate MoveOn.org, but...

I got this in the mail (email) today:

The Wisconsin 14--the brave Democratic state senators who left the state to stop the Republican attacks on workers--are under increasing pressure to return to Wisconsin. And as soon as just one does, Republicans will be able to jam through their terrible bill.

Unfortunately, there have been credible reports over the last 24 hours that this is imminent.

There was an petition, which I signed, showing my support for the Wisconsin 14, but I knew better. How did I know better?

Well, there's this:

TPM just spoke to Wisconsin Democratic state Sen. Chris Larson, one of the fugitive Dems who has left the state in order to block the three-fifths quorum needed for a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's anti-public employee union proposals, regarding the state Senate GOP's newly-passed fines of $100 per day for the absent Dems. And the way Larson tells it, the fines don't faze him and his fellow Democrats.

"They've become increasingly desperate with these petty things that they're throwing out there," Larson said. "The next thing they're gonna throw out is we're gonna have to say 'Mother, may I' before anybody can talk."

And more importantly, this:

"Well, we'll have to see when we go back," said Larson. "We'll go over it with some lawyers. The fact is, it's giving - it's not making us think about it twice. We're focused on preserving workers' rights, preserving the way of life in Wisconsin without these huge cuts to rights. That's what we're focused on.

"If they want to throw out fines, if they want to call us names and if they want to take over our staff, they're doing everything they can to ignore what the real issue is, and that's that they're going too far with their power grab. The public is crying foul and calling them out on their power grab, and they're just ignoring it."

He also added: "What they do to us is of little consequence, compared to what they're doing to themselves right now."

Umm, does it sound to you like their return is "imminent"???

Nate and the Bonddad talk Oil, the Recovery, and the President's Re-Election...

First we have Nate's piece from this morning:

The price of oil is on the rise — above $100 a barrel in overnight markets — while President Obama’s approval ratings may be on the decline.

So far any change in the president’s standing has been modest, and it would be premature to conclude that higher gas prices are the cause. But if they continue to rise, what sort of threat might they pose to his re-election prospects?

There are two things we need to consider. First are the direct effects: do higher gas prices, by themselves, tend to significantly damage the president’s standing? Then there are the indirect effects: the way that higher fuel prices could ricochet onto the economic recovery, and impact variables like G.D.P. growth and inflation that have been shown to correlate with a president’s re-election chances.

Ultimately, Nate said there’s not a lot of evidence that oil prices are all that important for the President's re-election chances.

But what about the greater economy? For that, we turn to the Bonddad:

I believe the evidence is clear: the U.S. economy is in the middle of a recovery. We've had six straight quarters of GDP growth, a solid manufacturing sector and a recovering service sector. Other countries are growing, which is giving strong support to U.S. exports. PCEs are now higher on an inflation adjusted basis than pre-recession levels. The two laggards are employment (which is typical as it is a lagging indicator) and housing (which will be a problem area for the next year at least). So, will the current spike in oil prices derail the recovery?

I don't believe we are there yet for several reasons. First, the events in the oil market are only a week old. (although they seem to have gone on far longer). Second, I think the overall economic recovery now has legs -- the recovery is no longer fueled by government spending and inventory restocking but by broader based foreign and domestic demand. As previously mentioned, PCEs are up and increasing; retail sales (a smaller subset of this data) are also doing well. Businesses are investing and commercial real estate is coming back. While the increase in demand is still new, it is there. A broader economic recovery implies one that is harder to slow down by external shocks.

"To prepare the full range of options..." or not.

This blog maintains a sensibility roughly akin to one of my favorite TV Shows: Anthony Bourdain's No Resevations (only with Politics, instead of Food).

Like the Travel Channel star, I try to put our mistakes up there for all to see.

So you might recall me getting all beligerent and saying this:

What...did I say?

The United States is moving naval and air forces, including an aircraft carrier, into the Mediterranean Sea near Libya, U.S. officials said Monday, as the Obama administration and its allies consider how to respond to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's brutal efforts to suppress a widespread rebellion among civilians and army troops.

Yeah. About that...

I picked up a copy of the Guardian (ahem...scrolled through my RSS feed) and saw this:

Cameron backtracks on Libya no-fly zone plan as US distances itself 

David Cameron's suggestion of establishing no-fly zone over Libya and arming rebels shot down by US and France

Britain has backtracked from its belligerent military stance over Libya after the Obama administration publicly distanced itself from David Cameron's suggestion that Nato should establish a no-fly zone over the country and that rebel forces should be armed.

As senior British military sources expressed concern that Downing Street appeared to be overlooking the dangers of being sucked into a long and potentially dangerous operation, the prime minister said Britain would go no further than contacting the rebel forces at this stage.

Mea freakin' culpa on that one.

Also, last night's Haiti season premiere was pretty damn good. Depressing as all get out, but good and informative.

"To prepare the full range of options..." II

What...did I say?

The United States is moving naval and air forces, including an aircraft carrier, into the Mediterranean Sea near Libya, U.S. officials said Monday, as the Obama administration and its allies consider how to respond to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's brutal efforts to suppress a widespread rebellion among civilians and army troops.

The U.S. decision comes as Gadhafi appeared to be making a concerted effort to retake control of Zawiyah, a town about 30 miles west of Tripoli that has been in rebel hands since last week. Two people reached separately by phone said heavy fighting had broken out in the early evening as militias loyal to Gadhafi attacked from both the east and the west.

U.S. officials said no decision had been made about how the U.S. forces would be used, but that one option under consideration is the imposition of a no-fly zone designed to prevent Gadhafi from using aircraft as he fought the rebels.

That was from McClatchy.

And according to the BBC, it looks like we're going from thinking about it, to planning it:

Britain is working with its allies on a plan to establish a military no-fly zone over Libya, says David Cameron.

The prime minister said the threat of "further appalling steps" being taken by Col Muammar Gaddafi to oppress his own people was behind the talks.

He said he did not rule out "the use of military assets" in Libya and said the "murderous regime" must end.

Rare is the step we take without the Brits. There's a reason its the "Special Relationship".

The Fireside Chat for February 26th, 2011 (VIDEO)

The President discusses the examples he’s seen across the country of how we can win the future, urging Congress to heed these examples in the budget -- to tighten our belts without eliminating investments in innovation, education and infrastructure.

Jon Stewart's (latest) Interview with Austan Goolsbee (VIDEO)

With Fort McHenry's continuing Goolsebee Coverage.

The Daily Show - Austan Goolsbee
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

There doesn't seem to be an unedited version of this Interview. (You might notice a heavy edit near the beginning of the segment).

Also, was it just me, was Jon a wee more skeptical in this interview than in previous ones. Things are looking up, Jon...just so you know.

And did Jon put the deficit on Obama?? What was that???

Where Rachel Maddow kicks the crap out of Politifact (because she had to) (VIDEO)

Wow.

I tend to really like Politifact and tend to not like Rachel so much (even though she's an ideological colleague). But watching this segment where Rachel was right and Politifact was wrong, wrong, wrong was horrifying:

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

The Politifact stuff begins about 6:20 in the video.

Methinks John Nichols is just getting warmed up, and serious trouble may lay ahead for Scott Walker (AUDIO)

Because he's pissed off...and curious.

Yesterday, John Nichols of the Nation Magazine dropped a phone call to the Randi Rhodes show to talk about how Scott Walker may have committed a serious ethics violation in a State that has, in his words, the "toughest ethics Laws in the country":



Whoops.

Here's the opening bit from Mr. Nichols Nation piece that was mentioned:

When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker discussed strategies to lay off state employees for political purposes, to coordinate supposedly “independent” political expenditures to aid legislatures who support his budget repair bill and to place agent provocateurs on the streets of Madison in order to disrupt peaceful demonstrations, he committed what the former attorney general of Wisconsin says could turn out to be serious ethics, election law and labor violations.

While much of the attention to the “prank” call that the governor took from a blogger who identified himself as billionaire David Koch [1] has focused on the bizarre, at times comic, character of the discussion between a blogger posing [2] as a powerful political player on the right and a governor whose budget repaid bill has sparked mass demonstrations in Wisconsin communities and a national outcry, the state’s former chief law-enforcement officer described the governor’s statements as “deeply troubling” and suggested that they would require inquiry and investigation by watchdog agencies.

“There clearly are potential ethics violations, and there are potential election-law violations and there are a lot of what look to me like labor-law violations,” said Peg Lautenschlager [3], a Democrat who served as Wisconsin’s attorney general after serving for many years as a US Attorney. “I think that the ethics violations are something the [state] Government Accountability Board should look into because they are considerable. He is on tape talking with someone who he thinks is the funder of an independent political action committee to purchase advertising to benefit Republican legislators who are nervous about taking votes on legislation he sees as critical to his political success.”

Lautenschlager, a former legislator who has known Walker for many years and who has worked with many of the unions involved in the current dispute, says: “One of the things I find most problematic in all of this is the governor’s casual talk about using outside troublemakers to stir up trouble on the streets, and the fact that he only dismissed the idea because it might cause a political problem for him.”

You can find the rest here. (It's not behind a paywall, but don't be surprised if they ask you for your Email and zip code).

I've got to say, reading the piece, Nichols didn't write much more than was in the interview. Sometimes, you listen to a journalist on the TeeVee or the Radio, and hear about what they're working on, and you go in expecting a universe's worth of difference between what he or she wrote, and what they said...

...and there wasn't a universe's worth of difference.

That being said, one gets the distinct feeling that Mr. Nichols is just getting warmed up.

The original Faux David Koch call is here:

"Remember this the next time you hear some Republican bellyaching about why government should be run more like a business..."

Former Clinton Administration Economist, and currently University of California Professor, Brad DeLong, spotted this bit of Steve Pearlstein (of the Washington Post) wisdom:

Back when I was working at Inc. magazine in the mid-1980s, we loved nothing better when approaching a public-sector issue than to ask how the private sector would handle it. Faced with the situation in Wisconsin, we would have called up Tom Peters or Peter Drucker and posed the example of a new chief executive brought in by the shareholders (i.e., the voters) to rescue a company suffering from operating losses (budget deficit) and declining sales (jobs). Invariably, they would have recommended sitting down with employees, explaining the short-and long-term economic challenges and working with them to improve productivity and product quality in a way that benefits both shareholders and employees.

Now compare that with how Wisconsin's new chief executive handled the situation: Impose an across-the-board pay cut and tell employees neither they nor their representative will ever again have a say in how things will be run or get a pay raise in excess of inflation. A great way to start things off with the staff, don't you think? Remember that the next time you hear some Republican bellyaching at the Rotary lunch about why government should be run more like a business...

"To prepare the full range of options..." (VIDEO)

This is not the President saying it's "go" time, rather it's the President saying "I'm trying to determine whether or not it's "go" time".

When it comes to turning to Mercenaries from Chad, and using Air Power on demonstrators, I hope the Colonel's memory hasn't failed him.  There's are things America can do about that...and it can involve the user of cruise missiles.

Okay, now a D.C. Court has upheld HCR. You know what that means?

...absolutely nothing.

Still goin' to the Supreme Court, where Anthony Kennedy (and probably Anthony Kennedy alone will decide its fate).

Still the decision by Gladys Kessler was welcome news.

Why I still have very mixed-to-bad feelings about Michelle Rhee.

For every article about Michelle Rhee that I save in Evernote that's positive, there's at least one that's negative. In my gut, for me personally, I think she's a little too fascinated with herself.  (A chronic case of Ed Schultz disease, and in this case it's not a TV Show that's gone to her head, but a whole movie).

I think one of the points in this Slate piece summarized this doubt nicely:

The fact that Rhee is a hard-working Ivy League graduate makes the elite press respect her as one of their own. And Rhee's flair for the dramatic makes her irresistible. In his well-written and highly favorable biography, The Bee Eater, Richard Whitmire recounts that as a teacher in Baltimore, Rhee grabbed the attention of her students one day when she swatted a bee flying around the classroom and promptly swallowed it. As a chancellor, Rhee once told a film crew, "I'm going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?"

If she's not careful (and Michelle Rhee often isn't), she can come off as..."Hey, if we just treat these brown kids rougher, they'll do better with less money!"

Why?  Because you say so?

I don't think Teacher's Unions are to blame for what's happening in Education.  I think it boils down to what usually ails progress in America, our fellow Americans.

We still keep falling for this bull@#$% about a free lunch.  We demand first class Government, with Third World Tax Rates.  We want the best, as long as we don't have to pay for it...ever.  We want to do things on the cheap, and are somehow shocked (shocked I tell you) that the kiddies grades and test scores are suffering.

Only we are that myopic, and Michelle Rhee didn't help.

At the same time, I think that Michelle Rhee's right about the problems we face.  I do think its too hard to fire problem Teachers.  I personally don't have problem with merit-based pay, but if we're going to do that, we really need to start paying Teachers like Doctors or Lawyers (Public Universities do it at the collegiate level).  And the notion of a Teacher spending even a fraction of their own meager pay to cover for supplies or books is obscene.

Still, I thought this paragraph really encapsulated my doubts about her, or at the very least, the rhetoric that blasts Teacher's Unions:

Most education researchers, though, recognize that Rhee's simple vision of heroic teachers saving American education is a fantasy, and that her dramatic, often authoritarian, style is ill-suited for education. If the ability to fire bad teachers and pay great teachers more were the key missing ingredient in education reform, why haven't charter schools, 88% of which are nonunionized and have that flexibility, lit the education world on fire? Why did the nation's most comprehensive study of charter schools, conducted by Stanford University researchers and sponsored by pro-charter foundations, conclude that charters outperformed regular public schools only 17 percent of the time, and actually did significantly worse 37 percent of the time? Why don't Southern states, which have weak teachers' unions, or none at all, outperform other parts of the country?

Someone might want to tell the Republicans that the "apology tour" never happened

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post took a moment (or more than a moment) to go over the "Apology Tour" meme the right is circulating. His conclusion?:

The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts, especially if his full quotes are viewed in context.

Obama often was trying to draw a rhetorical distinction between his policies and that of President Bush, a common practice when the presidency changes parties. The shift in policies, in fact, might have been more dramatic from Clinton to Bush than from Bush to Obama, given how Obama has largely maintained Bush's approach to fighting terrorism.

In other cases, Obama's quotes have been selectively trimmed for political purposes. Or they were not much different than sentiments expressed by Bush or his secretary of state. Republicans may certainly disagree with Obama's handling of foreign policy or particular policies he has pursued, but they should not invent a storyline that does not appear to exist.

Note to GOP speechwriters and campaign ad makers: The apology tour never happened.

Four Pinocchios

Four Pinocchios...the equivalent of Pants-On-Fire from Polifact??

"Screw Us and We Multiply"

David Weigel has a collection of 11 Anti-Tea Party/Anti-Koch Brothers signs at his Slate.com site.  They're pretty damn good.  My favorite is of the Union Thug in pink.  The site is available here.

John-of-Orange is counting on you being stoopid. Do your country a favor. Don't be.

Okay. This from Reuters:

Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner said on Tuesday that his chamber would be willing to pass a short-term, spending-cut bill to avoid a shutdown of the U.S. government.

And if you stuck to that, you'd say "yay" no Government shut-down.  The man who blends in with the furniture has compromised!  Boehner,you're my hero!

Which is why you really need to read Newspaper stories to the end. Because in the very next paragraph it kinda spoils things:

In a statement, Boehner said if the Democratic-led Senate refuses to vote on the spending-cut bill passed by the House on Saturday, the Republican-controlled House "will pass a short-term bill to keep the government running -- one that also cuts spending."

The House-passed bill would fund the government through September 30, but with $61 billion in spending cuts that Democrats denounce as excessive.

Huh?

Does anyone remember my posting from last week where John-of-Orange said:

House Speaker John Boehner today ruled out a short term extension of current levels of government funding, raising the prospect of a government shutdown.

The House tonight or tomorrow is expected to pass funding for the government through the rest of the year. But both chambers of Congress are out next week for President's Day recess. The current funding expires March 4th. Which means that in the five days Congress is back the week after next, the Senate must pass it's version the continuing resolution (CR) -- they're unlikely to accept the House bill as it's written with more than $100 billion in cuts -- and kick it back to the House. Then, if the House doesn't accept the Senate version, a compromise must be wrought and passed by both chambers. In the world of budgets, achieving this in five days is a lightening speed unlikely to be achieved. Democrats had been counting on a temporary extension of current funding while a deal is negotiated for the rest of the year, but Boehner's refusal today to give the process any more time forces Dems, and some Senate Republicans, to either accept deeper cuts than they'd like or face a government shutdown.

Wait-wait-wait. Lemme get this straight.

Last week, John-of-Orange says we won't accept a continuing resolution, so you're going to have to accept our budget with cuts Democrats (the majority in the Senate) don't like.

Only now, John-of-Orange is saying Fine! Fine! You win, we'll go ahead and pass a continuing resolution...with a but of cuts Democrats (the majority in the Senate) don't like.


I may not have gone to Law School or anything, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a compromise.

And now, Scott Walker stands (just about) alone...

Via Talking Points Memo. First Mitch Daniels of Indiana (whose Dems have also left the state), now Rick Scott of Flordia have decided that letting the Unions be is a pretty good idea.

And by the way, the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader (a Republican, duh) has said he's not going along with Walker's end-around budget trick to force his Union Busting bill through.

Walker's running out of friends.

Bondad: Consumer Confidence is up, but there's reason to be a little careful.

There's some good news about Consumer Confidence, but Bonddad sounds a cautious note at the end:

The number is still pretty low by historical standards, so I'd be cautious to read too much into this move. In addition, with gas prices going up (and today's price spike) I think this number will come under strong downward pressure in the near future.

So, are the Republicans already overreaching?

Ezra asked this question this morning. Allow me to paraphrase if only slightly:

[In the case of Wisconsin], Republicans have chosen a hardline and are refusing significant compromise, even at the risk of terrible consequences. Will the public turn on them for overreach? Applaud their strength and conviction? Or not really care one way or the other, at least by the time the next election rolls around?

Truth is, we don't have an answer to this question, and won't until November of 2012. But there's a new national poll from the USA Today on the Wisconsin situation...and let me put it this way, that ain't applause Governor Walker's hearing:

The public strongly opposes laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions as a way to ease state financial troubles, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

The poll found that 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to one being considered in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.

Again, that's a national poll.

Ezra Klein: Unions, the counterbalance to Corporate Power

From Wisconsin is about power, not money:

America's various governmental entities are looking for ways to avoid defaulting on their debt - or at least defaulting on their debt to the powerful. That addendum is important, because one of the strategies that's emerging is to default on debt to the less powerful, the people who don't have the power to wreck our economy.

This is a crucial fact about the economy, and one often underplayed by economists: power matters. It's worth more, in many cases, than money. And that's what's really at issue in Wisconsin. It's why Gov. Scott Walker is uninterested in taking concessions from the unions on wages and benefits if they don't come alongside concessions on collective bargaining. What he wants isn't a change in the balance of payments. It's a change in the balance of power.

The deal Wisconsin made with its state employees was simple: Accept lower wages than you could get in the private sector now in return for better pensions and health-care benefits when you retire. Now Walker wants to renege on that deal.

Rather than stiff the banks, in other words, he wants to stiff the teachers - but the crucial twist he's added, the one that's sent tens of thousands of workers into the streets, is that he wants to make sure they can't fight back once he does it.

The reason you can't stiff bondholders is that they can make a state or country regret reneging on the deals they've made. They can increase borrowing costs far into the future, slowing economic growth and, through the resulting economic pain, throwing politicians out of office. That gives them power. An ordinary teacher does not have access to such artillery. Unless, of course, she's part of a union.

Unions - through collective bargaining, strikes and other means - give workers power. They make reneging on contracts with their members painful. They also make negotiations less lopsided.

They're not perfect, of course. They sometimes negotiate bad deals, or misbehave, or hand good money over to bad people, or put their short-term interests ahead of the public's long-term interests. But then, so do corporations and politicians.

But their power matters for more than just debt repayment. For all their faults, unions tend to see their constituents as not just their own members, but the "working class," broadly defined. That's why you'll find labor's fingerprints on everything from the two-day weekend to Medicare to the Civil Rights Act of 1965 - none of which require you to flash a union card before you can benefit from them. They act -- quite self-consciously -- as a counterbalance to corporate power.

There's more to this column of course, and I encourage you to go and read it, but this was the meat of the idea, in my mind.

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

The President speaks from the Intel campus in Oregon about educating our kids for the jobs of tomorrow so we can make sure America wins the future:



Sorry for the delay. It was because of the three day weekend.

MSNBC: The Physics of American Politics

Are we waking a sleeping giant? (Lord knows, y'all slept through November):

The situation in Wisconsin is also another reminder that Newton's third law of motion -- for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction -- applies to American politics. When George W. Bush, after winning re-election, tried to partially privatize Social Security in early 2005, he woke up a despondent Democratic base. When Barack Obama, at the height of his popularity, decided to take on health care, the Tea Party and an energized GOP rose to combat it. And now the physics of politics is playing out in Wisconsin, where Democrats and organized labor are resisting new Gov. Scott Walker's (R) effort to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights. The question to ponder in Wisconsin -- as well as in the battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida, or in the Capitol Hill fight over Planned Parenthood -- is whether these combative efforts end up energizing Democrats as we head into 2012. After all, there is probably not a more unifying force than being out of power.

Where I say something nice about...a Republican?!?

It happens.

Rarely.

Let me take a moment to speak in praise of Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ).

I remember him from his periodic appearances with Bill Maher, he's definitely a Conservative, and I hope he loses his upcoming Senate race to replace John Kyl.

But there's some indication that if Jeff Flake were to win, he wouldn't be that bad.  There's something honorable about the man.  Take his three quotes from this week.  The first was when he was asked about possibly running against Gabrielle Giffords for Kyl's Senate Seat:

"The most wonderful thing in the world would be to have her make a Senate run."

Now, that was wasn't empty boilerplate about Giffords of the tragedy that befell her. That wasn't a generic "we'll see what happens". That was a unapologetic "My God, my friend and colleague from the House would be better and whole and thus...that would be the most wonderful thing in the world."

A couple days later, he was asked about (yawn) the President's Birth Certificate.  But quel suprise!

Responding to a question Thursday on CNN about a recent poll that found a majority of Republican primary voters don't believe President Obama was born in the U.S., Flake said he didn't believe the findings.

"Well, I have a hard time believing that poll," Flake said. "I think that most people understand and accept the reality. The reality is that, yes, he was born in the United States."

And wait, it gets better. When talking about the GOP's proposed spending cuts he said:

We’re proposing $100 billion in cuts — kind of. It’s a little funny math, as it always is here. But it’s a pretty significant cut to non-defense discretionary [spending]. But that’s a rounding error when it comes to the overall budget and deficit. It represents one-fifteenth of the current deficit that we’re running.

This one is a little less than good news in that, he sees the cuts being proposed by the GOP as nothing more than a flea on a Lion, and that any cuts he'd propose would be far, far more drastic...which isn't good news...

...but at least he's honest about the worthlessness of what the GOP is trying to do.

I have to admit, I have no idea about his Tea-Party background (I'd bet he's sympathetic), but if we can rely on him to be this straightforward and honest, he wouldn't be a bad Senator.  If nothing else, I would hope that a General Election campaign between Flake and Giffords (should she recover and choose to run) might be a model of civility where the people of Arizona might actually gain just from the debate.

Still, just to be sure, get ready to scratch some checks for Giffords for Senate in 2012, okay?

Where my respect for Andrew Sullivan and Joe Klein is bleeding away..

You can read these crapfests from uber-Villager Joe Klein and Deficit-Sorched-Earther Andrew Sullivan if you want. I won't stop you. Their pieces both show they haven't a clue as to why the Public Employee Unions are upset, and fighting back as hard as they are.

To do that, they would have had to take five minutes, and read Ezra Klein's piece:

Walker proposes that the right to collectively bargain be taken away from most -- but not all -- state and local workers. Who's left out? "Local law enforcement and fire employees, and state troopers and inspectors would be exempt from these changes." As Harold Meyerson notes, these are also the unions that happened to be more supportive of Walker in the last election. Funny, that.

Walker tries to sell the change in collective bargaining as modest. "State and local employees could continue to bargain for base pay, they would not be able to bargain over other compensation measures." But that's not really true. Read down a bit further and you'll find that "total wage increases could not exceed a cap based on the consumer price index (CPI) unless approved by referendum." In other words, they couldn't bargain for wages to rise faster than inflation. So, in reality, they can't bargain for wages and they can't bargain over other forms of compensation. They just can't bargain.

The proposal doesn't stop there, though. "Contracts would be limited to one year and wages would be frozen until the new contract is settled. Collective bargaining units are required to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union. Employers would be prohibited from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining units would not be required to pay dues." These rules have nothing to do with pension costs or even bargaining. They're just about weakening unions: They make it harder for unions to collect dues from members, to negotiate stable contracts or to survive a bad year.

It's one thing to disagree with the Public Employee's Unions stance. At least there, I'll just think you're a heartless bastard. but at least you've looked at the issue, and taken a stand.

But for Klein and Sullivan foist this level of bull@#$% on the American public, when you have a platform, shows not only that they didn't do their homework, they didn't give a @#$^ about doing it.

My readership of both these men is starting to come into question.

UPDATE: 2:41pm Pacific: Andrew's Readers (at least) let him have it.

Why the hell is MSNBC of all networks playing games with the President's remarks?

I'm a Liberal, but I can't stand Ed Schultz.

Sorry, I know that's sacrilege in some parts.

My problem is Ed let his TV Career go to his head. He likes to grandstand. (Don't believe me? Just ask Randi Rhodes about the One Nation Rally...where she volunteered her services in any capacity...yet wasn't allowed onstage because it was Ed's show.)

Now there's this thing where he "demanded" a response from the White House and got it the next day.

Only thing is, MSNBC selectively edited what the President said, and allowed Ed to...yes...grandstand again...about how this is all an attack against Unions, and the President needs to say more about that.

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

But guess what, Ed? HE DID SAY JUST THAT!!!!



I don't know what the hell kind of games MSNBC is playing, but this is the kind of crap I expect from Fox News. If Ed's ego needs this much massaging, maybe he needs to find another line of work.

UPDATE: 10:16am Pacific: The President's complete interview can be found here.

John of Orange just guaranteed there's going to be a Government Shutdown.

From Jay Newton-Small:

House Speaker John Boehner today ruled out a short term extension of current levels of government funding, raising the prospect of a government shutdown.

The House tonight or tomorrow is expected to pass funding for the government through the rest of the year. But both chambers of Congress are out next week for President's Day recess. The current funding expires March 4th. Which means that in the five days Congress is back the week after next, the Senate must pass it's version the continuing resolution (CR) -- they're unlikely to accept the House bill as it's written with more than $100 billion in cuts -- and kick it back to the House. Then, if the House doesn't accept the Senate version, a compromise must be wrought and passed by both chambers. In the world of budgets, achieving this in five days is a lightening speed unlikely to be achieved. Democrats had been counting on a temporary extension of current funding while a deal is negotiated for the rest of the year, but Boehner's refusal today to give the process any more time forces Dems, and some Senate Republicans, to either accept deeper cuts than they'd like or face a government shutdown.

In other words (and paraphrasing Harry Reid) John Boenher doesn't have control of his conference.

Rachel asks the question on everyone's mind... How good at his job is John Boehner? (VIDEO)

Yeah. Turns out...not so much:

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

"John Boehner is no Nancy Pelosi..."

Ezra punched out an...let's just say an amendment to his appearance to Rachel's show.  He reiterated a number of his points that he made with Rachel, but he didn't come down as hard on John-of-Orange as Rachel did.

Growth numbers like these means one thing...

The Federal Reserve (which is evil, just ask Ron Paul) released some interesting data today:

The Federal Reserve revealed Wednesday that its policy makers had substantially upgraded their forecasts for how much the United States economy will grow this year, even though they expect that unemployment will remain painfully high for some time.

The core projections of top Fed officials now call for growth of 3.4 percent to 3.9 percent this year, up from the previous forecast of 3 percent to 3.6 percent, released in November.

It's not all rainbows and sunshine at Bernanke's shop, but remember...Jobs are the last thing to come back after a Recession.  But this is really, really good news.  Growth numbers like this, coupled with a unemployment numbers headed downward means that the President is going to be re-elected.

The Recession's over. Growth is on the way back. The Jobs are next...

...at the very least, the Business Community is running out of excuses.

We're all...and remain...Keynesians...for now, and forever... (VIDEO)

I've posted this video before (about this time last year, as it turns out), but heck, it's been an Econ heavy day today...and Randi spent a lot of time talking about "Austrian Economics" on her show today, so why not watch it again! Enjoy!

Washington's no better than a stopped clock, thus it has to work twice as hard to be right even twice a day...

Andrew Sullivan (still on my nerves, though he has dialed it down a bit) went to those ultra-fair bastions of Journalistic integrity at the Murdoch Street Journal, and dug out this little nugget of information:

Mr. Obama's budget also assumes annual economic growth of more than 4% from 2012-2014. That's far more robust than anything this recovery has produced so far, and it is at least a percentage point higher than most private economists or the Congressional Budget Office predict.

Andrew, like all Debt-fetishists would, freaked.

And once again, we turn to Jonathan Chait to put that notion in its place:

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is criticizing the Obama administration's budget for, among other things, using economic estimates from the Office of management and Budget that are more optimistic than those put forth by the Congressional Budget Office. Andrew Sullivan calls this "mendacity and delusion." What's interesting here is that this question, esoteric as it may sound, was the flashpoint of the Clinton-Gingrich budget showdown.

Republicans insisted that any budget agreement use CBO's more pessimistic projections, which Republicans called "real numbers." Indeed, hard as it may be to understand now, the GOP demand that both sides attain a balanced budget based on "real numbers" was a major impetus for the government shutdown.

...

So, which prediction turned out to be correct? Well, the CBO's prediction of 2.3% annual growth through 2002 turned out to be too pessimistic. OMB's prediction of 2.5% growth turned out to be... too pessimistic. The actual result was 3.5% growth. The deficit disappeared with much less fiscal pain than anybody predicted would be needed.

"Wonks have a preference for the bold plan, the single solution, the sweeping stroke. [Problem is, wonks] don't tend to get much done."

Mentioned ever so briefly in a post from yesterday, this is the most frequent complaint amongst my ideological colleagues (and folks like Sullivan). The President isn't doing enough. He needs to fight. He needs to lead more.  Blah-blah-the @#$%-blah...

Change the record already...

Here, Ezra goes into far more detail about the White House's thinking than I ever could:

The Obama administration's theory of policymaking amid divided government is a frustrating one. What most people want from the president is to lead. And leading, in this case, means giving a speech, getting behind some unpopular ideas, trying to change public opinion. It means acting like Jed Bartlet in the final five minutes of an episode of "The West Wing." "What are the next 10 words in your budget?" Obama is supposed to ask the Republicans after delivering his bout of tough fiscal medicine. "Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next 10 words. How are we going to do it? Give me 10 after that, I'll drop out of the race right now."

But the White House has come to the conclusion that that type of leadership doesn't work. It believes that the quickest way to kill a controversial proposal in a polarized political system is to have the president endorse it. Once a high-profile proposal is associated with the White House, Republicans (correctly) view its passage as a threat to their political fortunes. That's why the Obama administration didn't endorse a payroll tax holiday until after the election, when it emerged as part of the tax deal. Endorsing it before the election would've "poisoned the well," one administration official told me after. Republicans would have had to attack it, and that would have made it impossible for them to endorse it later.

Greenstein sees a similar theory at work in the budget. "I don't think Obama could’ve been clearer that he wants a bipartisan commission on Social Security like they had in the early '80s," he says. "But if you look at what came out of that commission, if those items had been in Reagan's budget the previous February, they would've been dead in 30 days."

Obama echoed this argument at his news conference Tuesday. "If you look at the history of how these deals get done," he said, "typically it’s not because there’s an Obama plan out there; it’s because Democrats and Republicans are both committed to tackling this issue in a serious way."

And are Democrats and Republicans committed to tackling this issues in a serious way? I guess we'll find out. "We're going to be in discussions over the next several months," Obama continued. "This is going to be a negotiation process."

The most serious work being done is in the Senate, where Mark Warner (D-Va.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are meeting regularly to create legislation based off the Fiscal Commission's final report. In theory, that's the sort of project Obama is looking for: a negotiation between sitting senators of both parties. I asked Warner about this today. Should the White House have put its shoulder behind his process? "We're not at the point where the president should get involved yet," he replied.

Wonks -- myself included -- have a preference for the bold plan, the single solution, the sweeping stroke. Slow and incremental just isn't how people who care about policy tend to think. They want to solve problems, not make a bit of progress on them. And from that perspective, the budget was a huge disappointment. That's particularly true when compared to the Fiscal Commission's report, which took on the military, entitlements and tax expenditures. Love it or hate it, it was, at the least, ambitious. And policy types like ambitious.

But policy types don't tend to get much done. And although this administration has been enormously frustrating, what with its preference to let Congress take the lead, to draw few lines in the sand and to let the process play itself out, it's gotten a lot done. Much more than its critics would've expected at the beginning of any particular policy campaign the White House has kicked off. "Let’s face it," Obama said at his news conference Tuesday, "you guys are pretty impatient. If something doesn’t happen today, then the assumption is it’s just not going to happen. Right? I’ve had this conversation for that last two years about every single issue that we worked on, whether it was health care or 'don't ask, don't tell.' "

The President's "downfield blocking" Press Conference for Feb. 15, 2011 (VIDEO)

Thomas Ricks' note of warning to Al-Qaeda.

This from the author of Fiasco, a warning for Al-Qaeda:

If I were an al Qaeda bigwig, events in Egypt would worry me -- in two weeks, those crowds have brought more change to the Arab world than AQ ever did.

Jonathan Chait tells Liberals they should be okay with this Budget, believe it or not.

Food for thought from Why Obama's Budget Is OK:

Changing people's minds about government is hard. People support most actual programs, but they think foreign aid constitutes a huge part of the budget and you can generate mass savings by eliminating waste and bureaucracy. They've believed those things for a long time.

What's more, I actually see the administration's budget gambit as a subtle attempt to change peoples' minds. The administration is loudly publicizing the fact that it's cutting programs it thinks are necessary. The message, sometimes made explicit, is that the budget actually does not contain a lot of waste. It's filled with programs that have survived many previous rounds of belt-tightening for a reason. If you want to cut the budget, you have to cut useful and necessary things.

I don't think this will have a big effect. But I do think Obama is trying, in a passive-aggressive way, to do what liberals have demanded. He's explaining to the public that the free-ride view of budget cutting -- we can cut our way out of the deficit by eliminating waste and spending that only benefits foreigners -- is wrong. Obviously, having a budget in deficit during a period of mass unemployment and a GOP-led House immune to macroeconomic reason is a bad hand. I think ultimately Obama is playing it reasonably well.

Andrew Sullivan can never, EVER be trusted on the Debt: Any sacrifice you're willing to make is good enough for him.

One of the difficult things in reading a lot of political writing is the amount of information you have to save in your mental rolodex about people.  One of the things I do when I read Paul Krugman is that I know going in that his numbers will always on target.  (He is, after all, a Nobel Laureate in Economics).  Does he know what he's talking about when it comes to Politics?  Ehhh, not so much.

In fact, look at today.  He said this:

The failure of the stimulus that never happened has become conventional wisdom — which is what I feared would happen, two years ago, when I was tearing my hair out over the inadequacy of the original plan. 

Yes, I know, it’s argued that Obama couldn’t have gotten anything more. I don’t really want to revisit all of that; my point here is simply that everyone is drawing the wrong lesson. Fiscal policy didn’t fail; it wasn’t tried.

Again, is Dr. Krugman right? Was the Stimulus too small? Yeah. (These would be the numbers of which I spoke.)

Dr. Krugman is also right to acknowledge that nothing higher in price could have passed the Congress, yet he doesn't want to talk about that...or any possible solutions to that massive roadblock. No, it's always the same: Obama should lead more.

Andrew Sullivan is no different in this regard.  I believe he's a genuine Conservative, unlike the breed we have now in the Republican Party.  But like most conservatives, he's got a serious debt fetish, bordering on obsessive.  He is genuinely correct that the long term debt is a problem, but seems to be willing to engage in a fiscal scorched earth policy in order to do it.  I find this particularly easy for a man who wasn't born here, or raised here to say give up the things you associate with making your country great in order to satisfy my demand for debt control

Mr. Sullivan.  Go @#$% yourself.

It's real easy to send America into another Depression when you're secure in your job, and don't have to worry about the rent getting paid at all.  But hey, any sacrifice you're willing to make is good enough for him.  We're going to grow our way out of this hole, unless I start hearing what sacrifices you're willing to make to your bottom line to get it done?  Willing to give up you and lover's Mortgage Interest Deduction?  Didn't think so.

He speaks on the debt with the zealotry of the newly converted. He hates the Social Safety net.  He's convinced that it did in his native England, and is convinced it will happen here:

To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama's cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America's fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.

Honestly, go @#$% yourself Andrew.

I actually found that paragraph more than a little offensive. I feel quite capable in my own political judgments and don't need to be called a dupe or stupid in the process. It may be at times I don't agree with you, is the line I remember most from Page 11 of Audacity of Hope. Apparently, Andrew hasn't read it either. If he has that admonition wasn't good enough for him.

Forunately, we have people like Jonathan Chait to smack him around:

Andrew Sullivan is back from his absence and in incredibly high dudgeon over the Obama administration's failure to propose a more austere budget. Andrew concedes that any such proposal would fail and exact huge political damage upon Obama but somehow thinks it's unconscionable Obama didn't do it anyway.

...

Why would proposing something that gets shot down not be not only useful but an absolute moral obligation? I don't really get it. It seems like the smart play is to first win the budget showdown and try to beat some sanity into the Republicans, who can't possibly compromise right now, and then either cut a deal or (preferably) just let the GOP kill the entire Bush tax cuts for you, which would more or less take care of the medium-term deficit problem.

No, Jonathan. Don't you understand? It's the standard problem people have with this President. Either he does it the way they want him to do it, word for word, line by line, or he's a completely and utter failure, fraud, cynic or liar. Pick your poison.

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

The President previews his budget, explaining that it will help the government live within its means, while still investing to make sure America wins the future:

Before you let Conservatives bull@#$% you into thinking the CBO said that Health Care Reform will cost jobs

Read this piece from Ezra:

The short version is this: If you make health-care insurance cheaper and make it harder for insurance companies to deny people coverage, then a certain number of people who would like to leave the labor force but can't afford or access health-care insurance without their job will stop working.

To understand why, imagine a 62-year-old woman who works for IBM and beat breast cancer 10 years ago. She wants to retire. She has the money to retire. But no one will sell her health care under the status quo. Under the health-reform law, she can buy health care in an exchange because insurers can't turn her away due to her history of breast cancer. So she'll retire. Or imagine a 50-year-old single mother who wants to home-school her developmentally disabled child but can't quit her job because they'll lose health care. The subsidies and the protections in the Affordable Care Act will give her the option to stop working for awhile, while under the old system she'd need to stick with her job to keep her family's health-care coverage. That's how health-care reform can reduce the labor supply. If either case counts as a destroyed job, then so does my winning the lottery and moving to Scotland in search of the perfect glass of whiskey.

“This is the power of human dignity, and it can never be denied..." (VIDEO)

From the prepared remarks:

...above all, we saw a new generation emerge -- a generation that uses their own creativity and talent and technology to call for a government that represented their hopes and not their fears; a government that is responsive to their boundless aspirations. One Egyptian put it simply: Most people have discovered in the last few days…that they are worth something, and this cannot be taken away from them anymore, ever.

This is the power of human dignity, and it can never be denied. Egyptians have inspired us, and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence. For in Egypt, it was the moral force of nonviolence -- not terrorism, not mindless killing -- but nonviolence, moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.

White Board: Goolsbee on the National Wireless Initiative (VIDEO)

Goolsbee speaks to the propeller head in us all:



In this White House White Board Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains the National Wireless Initiative, which will help America win the future by building a 21st Century infrastructure.

Saying Farewell to Robert Gibbs (VIDEO)

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

Fare-thee-well, Robert Gibbs...

See you in Grant Park, in 2012.

President Obama's speech on the National Wireless Initiative (VIDEO)

President Obama discusses the National Wireless Initiative in Marquette, MI, a proposal will help America win the future by building a 21st Century infrastructure.

President Obama Addresses U.S. Chamber of Commerce (VIDEO)

The President's Interview with Billo during the Superbowl Pre-Game Show (VIDEO)

...if you can stomach it.



Interrupt much, Billo?

It's amazing that even in a moment of geninue gratitude, Bill O'Reilly makes it sound like Fox News is the only thing that matters in the universe.