By the way, Chris Matthews had a Busy night, too (VIDEO)

First his bit with Eugene Robinson and uber-villager Howard Fineman:

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And then his dissection of the winners and losers with David Corn and Josh Marshall:

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Lawrence's Busy Night...Part 3 (Racists from Moldova Edition)

It was almost unfair, but...

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Lawrence's Busy Night...Part 2 (David Remnick Interview)

"We need to call this by it's proper name: Race Baiting."

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Lawrence's Busy Night...Part 1

This was mentioned a lot over the last 24 hours, and bears repeating. Lawrence absolutely destroyed last night. I still think he's got bits of Trump and NBC/Universal Entertainment Exec in his teeth.

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But keep in mind, last I heard, Lawrence has a Pilot in development at HBO. Now, I don't think he's going anywhere, but at the same time, he's not afraid to get fired by NBC/Universal either. Thus we get brave television.

Bob Schieffer calls it Racism (VIDEO)

Good for him. Never knew he had it in him.



Then again, a lot of us have been on this page since...2008.

"That these folks are truly irrational in Washington..." (VIDEO)

Lawrence with Andrew Ross Sorkin. And yes, they're talking about Teabaggers.

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A key way to look at the Birther Question going forward...

Call it a racism test (courtesy Jonathan Chait):

The interesting question to me is whether Republican leaders start responding to questions about Obama's birth as a question of settled fact rather than a murky controversy upon which the only evidence to go on is Obama's claims.

Greg Sargent agrees, and thinks that so far, the Republican Rights is failing:

Now that President Obama has released his long-form birth certificate, here’s the question: Will leading conservatives and Republicans step up, place the blame for birtherism where it belongs, and call on the birthers among them to stop the nonsense once and for all?

There are birther bills being introduced in state legislatures across the country. Will leading conservatives and Republicans unequivocally denounce these efforts?

Some Republicans are already falling short of this basic test of decency. In a statement this morning, RNC chairman Reince Priebus declared that birtherism is a ”distraction,” but he also hinted — without saying so openly — that Obama has been subtly egging on the controversy on when he should be more focused on the economy. Priebus, recall, recently had a private conversation with Donald Trump in which he conspicuously did not ask him to can the birther talk.

Newt Gingrich actually blamed Obama this morning for the delay in the release, and hinted that we should still harbor doubts about Obama’s citizenship. “Why did it take so long?” Gingrich asked. “The whole thing is strange.”

How to argue with a Birther (not that you're going to win)...courtesy the President (VIDEO)

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I got to be honest, I don't think he should have done this. I don't think elevating Donald "Racist" Trump is a good idea.

Erza disagrees:

There’s only one explanation that makes sense to me in light of this morning’s events: The Obama administration wants Donald Trump to be the GOP’s nominee in 2012, and this is their effort to strengthen him in the primary. Of course, that explanation violates my axiom that almost nothing in Washington is really a complicated plan and almost everything is a rushed decision made by tired people with insufficient information.

My favorite part of the President's off-the-cuff remarks, highlighted in the video above?

Now, this issue has been going on for two, two and a half years now. I think it started during the campaign. And I have to say that over the last two and a half years I have watched with bemusement, I have been puzzled at the degree to which this thing just kept on going.

We've had every official in Hawaii, Democrat and Republican, every news outlet that has investigated this confirm that, yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii August 4th, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital. We've posted the certification that is given by the state of Hawaii on the Internet for everybody to see. People have provided affidavits that they, in fact, have seen this birth certificate.

And yet this thing just keeps on going.

Now, normally, I would not comment on something like this, because, obviously, there's a lot of stuff swirling in the press at any given day and I've got other things to do.

But two weeks ago, when the Republican House had put forward a budget that will have huge consequences potentially to the country, and when I gave a speech about my budget and how I felt that we needed to invest in education and infrastructure and making sure that we had a strong safety net for our seniors even as we were closing the deficit, during that entire week, the dominant news story wasn't about these huge, monumental choices that we're going to have to make as a nation, it was about my birth certificate. And that was true on most of the news outlets that were represented here.

And so I just want to make a larger point here. We've got some enormous challenges out there. There are a lot of folks out there who are still looking for work. Everybody is still suffering under high gas prices. We're going to have to make a series of very difficult decisions about how we invest in our future, but also get a hold of our deficit and our debt -- how do we do that in a balanced way.

And this is going to generate huge and serious debates, important debates. And there are going to be some fierce disagreements. And that's good; that's how democracy is supposed to work.

And I'm confident that the American people and America's political leaders can come together in a bipartisan way and solve these problems. We always have.

But we're not going to be able to do it if we are distracted. We're not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other.

We're not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.

Or put another way:

How to argue with a Birther (not that you're going to win)...courtesy CNN (VIDEO)

I'm sure you remember George Stephanopoulos's interview with Donald Trump last week, where he asked Trump about the alledged investigations that Trump has going on in Hawaii about the President's Birth Certificate.

Trump did not respond well (wait till about 1:30 in).



That's probably because Jon Stewart more accurately displayed what's really going on with Trump's money right now (wait till about 50 seconds into the video):

The Daily Show - Tales of Principled Behavior - Obama Birth Certificate Mystery
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Anyway, an actual credible news organization, CNN, decided to launch their own, definitive investigation into the matter. Not Fox, not MSNBC, supposedly neutral CNN.

Well, here it is.



Note that they dragged out a committed Republican, someone who worked for the former Republican Governor of Hawaii, to say flat-out...he was born in Hawaii.

They also have a printed story on their website by Gary Truchman. His conclusion can be found in the first sentence of the story:

A new CNN investigation reveals what most analysts have been saying since the "birther" controversy erupted during the 2008 presidential campaign: Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Period.

A couple of salient facts to remember the next time to come into contact with one of these racists. (I was going to correct myself and call them birthers, but...you know...what's the point? Let's just call 'em what they are, and be done with it.)

Here are the hard facts as presented in Mr. Truchman's piece:

Dr. Chiyome Fukino, a former director of the Hawaii Department of Health and a Republican, told CNN in her most extensive comments to date that she has "no doubt" Obama was born in the state.

Obama's 2008 campaign produced a certification of live birth, a document legally accepted as confirmation of a birth and routinely used for official purposes. Fukino went one step further, taking advantage of a state law that allows certain public officials to examine a person's actual birth certificate if there is a "direct and tangible interest."


The president's certificate, she said, is stored in a vault in the building that houses the Department of Health. Ironically, unlike the certificate of live birth, it is no longer accepted for official usage.

Obama's certificate is "absolutely authentic," she said. "He was absolutely born here in the state of Hawaii."

...

To see what happens when someone born in Hawaii requests a birth certificate, CNN asked a current resident of the state -- Stig Waidelich -- if he could get a copy of the document.

Waidelich was born hours after Obama in August 1961. Like Obama, Waidelich's birth was announced at the time in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper.

Waidelich, like Obama in 2008, was given a certification of live birth in response to his request.

Could Obama's 1961 birth announcement in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin be a fake? Some conspiracy theorists say yes. Longtime Honolulu newspaper reporter Dan Nakaso says no.

"It's not possible," Nakaso said. "Under the system that existed back then, there was no avenue for people to submit information that way. ... The information came directly from the state Department of Health."


Indeed, as CNN confirmed, all birth announcements at the time came directly from hospital birth records.

...

Could Obama, a self-proclaimed Christian, be preventing the distribution of copies of the original birth certificate because it identifies him as a Muslim?

Fukino says no. The original certificate includes no mention of the president's religion. And indeed, other original certificates from that time don't mention faith.

Obama could file a Freedom of Information Act request to view his original birth certificate and make copies. But at this point, the White House maintains, nothing will satisfy the doubters.

...

Rick Smethurst, a 2008 John McCain voter who now lives in Obama's childhood home in Hawaii, counts himself among the doubters. He said he wants to find someone who saw Obama immediately after the president was born.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie said he did. Abercrombie, a Democrat, was friendly with Ann Dunham, Obama's mother, and remembers celebrating the birth.

"Of course, we had no idea at the time that the future president of the United States was that little boy, that little baby," Abercrombie recalled. But "we are very, very happy ... that took place."

Professor Alice Dewey of the University of Hawaii was a faculty adviser to Dunham and also knew the future president when he was a child. She called the controversy "funny." She said there is "no way" Obama wasn't born in the state.

Dewey remembered a conversation in which Dunham compared the birth of Obama with that of his sister, Maya, who was born overseas.

"She said, 'When I had Maya, it was a lot of more difficult because Indonesia doesn't believe in painkillers while you're giving birth. ... Of course, in the United States, giving birth to Barry (Obama's childhood nickname) was quite different and much more comfortable,' " Dewey recalled.

Waidelich's mother, Monika, said she believes she saw Obama in Honolulu's Kapi'olani Medical Center next to her son in 1961.

"In those days, there were hardly any other black babies," she said.

The hospital wouldn't show patient records from 1961, but the state's African-American population was less than 1% at the time.

Translation: The future President stood out in a crowd, even in Hawaii.

The Senator from Massey Energy (i.e., West Virginia)...is an idiot.

I seem to remember saying (warning) y'all about what a bad Senator Joe Manchin (??-WV) might be. I think I called him another Ben Nelson (??-NB), that he was a complete and total whore for Massey Energy, and that he was holding 2.1 Million Americans hostage to serve his political ambitions.

Now this:

Today, Machin will formally endorse a Republican proposal for strict new spending caps, saying it would be "irresponsible" not to. He joins the Senate GOP, independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), and Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), which suggests the measure, generally known as the CAP Act, now has the support of a Senate majority, or at least close to it. There's even some talk it will be included as part of a "compromise" on the debt ceiling.

To date, the proposal hasn't gotten much attention, but it's important to understand how dangerous this is. Ezra Klein, who's arguably even more cautious in his rhetoric than I am, recently described the spending cap idea as "completely insane."

Spending caps are bad policy, and the McCaskill-Corker spending cap -- which holds spending to 21.5 percent of GDP, or three percentage points lower than it is right now -- is a badly designed spending cap. But beyond all that, it's laughable to posit it as a compromise: It's arguably the most radically conservative reform that could be made to the federal budget. More extreme, by far, than Paul Ryan's plan.

Start with the shell game at the core of this discussion: We're worried about the debt ceiling but talking about a spending cap. This works just fine if you hew to the conservative conceit that "we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem." But that applause line is just an effort to deny the contribution tax cuts have made to the deficit and keep tax increases from being part of a solution. If you think we have a debt problem -- and that's what being upset about raising the debt ceiling implies -- then do something about the debt. The "trigger" proposal the White House included in is budget, for instance, is tied to the debt, not to spending or taxes.

Of course, to the Republicans, that's a feature, not a bug. The virtue of a spending cap is that by focusing on only one contributor to debt, it admits only one solution to it: spending cuts. Savage ones. The Corker-McCaskill proposal is so aggressive that there are years when even Paul Ryan's budget, with all its fantastical assumptions and hard caps, wouldn't qualify. "You put McCaskill-Corker into law," says Bob Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "and progressive policy is dead for the next quarter-century."

Not that Lieberman and McCaskill are helping.  McCaskill is about to become the former Senator from Missouri, and Lieberman is well...Lieberman.

You wait. This scumbag will be campaigning for the Republican Nominee come 2012.

Obama 2012 Strategy Briefing (VIDEO)

In case you missed Jim Messina's Campaign Email this morning:



I think David was a little smoother in his presentation, but the data's all the same.  This was a good presentation, and now I know what we need to do.

What's interesting to me is, for a guy who is constantly accused of decrying the Grassroots, he spent an awful lot of time talking up the Grassroots.

What does that mean to me? That a lot of his decrying the Grassroots was manufactured by a media hypestorm. That he probably shares a lot of fustration that I have with those of my shared ideological bent (i.e., that some Liberals understand how things work and don't work in Washington, and others -- Firedoglake anyone? -- live in perpetual fantasyland.)

The Fireside Chat for April 23th, 2011 (VIDEO)

The President lays out his plans to address rising gas prices over the short and the long term, from a new task force to root out fraud and manipulation in the oil markets to investments in a clean energy economy.

The "base" of the Republican Party... (VIDEO)

First caught by David Weigel...and pretty damn scary.

The President's Town Hall at Annandale, VA. (VIDEO)

Fingers crossed I'll be attending something like this Tomorrow:

What happened with Standard and Poor's yesterday... (VIDEO)

Via Ezra:

Standard & Poor’s didn’t downgrade America’s AAA credit today. What they did is subtler: They attached a “negative outlook” to our AAA credit. That means they upgraded the chance of a future downgrade. So if you ask the S&P’s Magic 8 Ball whether America will be triple-A in five years and then give it a shake, it now says “don’t count on it” rather than “you can rely on it” (all answers taken from this list of actual Magic 8 Ball replies).

I’ve seen some observers react to the S&P’s decision by saying that the rating agency blew the subprime crisis and thus there’s no reason we need to listen to it now. But that seems shortsighted. S&P’s concerns are perfectly reasonable. The company believes “there is a material risk that U.S. policy makers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium-and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013. If you don’t agree with that, you’re not paying enough attention. At this point, the rating agency only puts the chances of a downgrade at one in three — which strikes me as, if anything, a little low.

Matt Yglesias, as Andrew pointed out first, yawns:

You should almost certainly ignore this: “Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service has lowered its long-term outlook for the United States’ sovereign debt to ‘Negative’ from ‘Stable’ due to risks from the country’s growing deficit.”

The thing about the United States of America is that we’re not an obscure country. Nor is our sovereign debt an obscure financial instrument. No major investor is going to be outsourcing his research on the desirability of American bonds to the S&P ratings service.

But fellow Lib, Kevin Drum sez:

I agree with [what Matt Ygelsias said] completely, and I've made a similar comment in the past. And yet.....

And yet, there's something to think about here. One of the reasons I take our medium and long-term deficit fairly seriously, even though current financial indicators suggest the market is unconcerned, is that financial indicators can turn around in a flash. There are limits to how far a big country like the United States can get from fundamentals, but we're still susceptible to the kinds of mob emotion that power both bubbles and bank runs. And the thing is, there's never any telling what might spark such a turnaround. One day everything is fine. Then Bill Gross announces that he's no longer thrilled about holding treasuries. The next day S&P makes some negative noises. A day after that the Chinese government cuts back on treasury purchases. Then an auction of 10-year bonds is slightly soft, and suddenly everyone panics.


This most likely won't happen. Certainly not anytime soon, given the underlying fundamentals of the American and global economies. Still, it could happen in the near future, and there's no telling what might set it off. So in that sense, this kind of announcement from S&P actually is meaningful. Maybe not today. But a similar announcement someday might be. It's true that major investors don't outsource their opinion on U.S. treasuries to S&aP, but even major investors can get nervous if enough people start telling them they're being idiots. Sometimes perceptions are as important as reality.

Krugman crushed the media:

I think the financial press is being even denser than usual on this one. If S&P warns that US bonds might not be safe, and the price of those bonds rises, you really have to wonder how anyone can write with a straight face that this warning caused other market movements. And it’s much worse to have this implausible theory reported as a settled fact.

Here's a little of what Ezra referred to as "short-sightedness" from Melissa Harris Perry:

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Dr. Harris-Perry is a PhD in Political Science from (grrrrr) Duke, so though she teaches African-American studies at Princeton, she can speak a little authoritatively on subjects like Political Strategy and Communication, and even the President's handling of the Budget. At the same time, I would have preferred an actual Economist on the panel talking about the S&P, and the closest thing we had last night on the The Last Word...was Lawrence himself.

"It's about to get h-h-hot in here..." (VIDEO)

I'm sure you've seen this ad already today, but it's too fun not to post:

Only a local Texas TV Reporter can make President Obama this mad... (VIDEO)

As an RTVF Major, I can tell the cheats and the dodges used in any piece of film. For example, if say...you were a douchebag interviewer from a local TV Station from Texas, who got a seven minute sit down with the President of the freakin' United States, and said reporter were to spend most of the interview paraphrasing what the President said...then you edited the hell out of the interview to a ridiculous degree.

Swear to god, there's more voice-over from the Reporter than back and forth with the Commander in Chief.

You can see it through the course of the interview, the President getting madder and madder. (He tell is that his smile fades away, and his answers get very short and clipped.)

Just watch, at the end there the President quietly asks that next time, he be allowed to finish his answers. And of course, the douchebag makes sure he leaves it in.



It's true the President ummms and aahhs a lot. That's because he doesn't like to speak without thinking through his answer first. Unfortunately, the President will eat up a lot of your allotted time doing that. So I'll admit some editing is necessary, but the degree to which this guy took the scissors to the tape bordered on unprofessional.

The Fireside Chat for April 16th, 2011 (VIDEO)

The President discusses his plan for our fiscal future, a comprehensive and balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years.

No offense, Jon, but... (VIDEO)

This wasn't a bad segment...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Slashdance - Democratic Deficit Reduction Plan
www.thedailyshow.com
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...but, just so you know, Jon:

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can’t afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

I'm sorry, but this kinda sounds like he's raising taxes to me.

Randi Rhodes Interview with David Cay Johnston (VIDEO)

Because we talk Economics at this blog:

Please Keith Ellison! Don't Hurt 'em! (VIDEO)

And yes, that was an M.C. Hammer reference:

President Obama's Open Mic Moment (AUDIO)

I never know what's up with CBS Feeds. I apologize if it looks weird. However if you click on the far left (hee-hee!) of the image, about in the middle (where it says WS VIDEO) it still plays.



Somehow, I doubt this was as accidental as Huffington AOL is suggesting.

Oh...and Rick Ungar took a shot at the Professional Left, too...

In case you couldn't tell already, I loved this article by Rick Ungar.

Remember, this man not only writes for Forbes Magazine (not exactly a Liberal bastion), lives in SoCal (okay, that is a Liberal Bastion...outside of Orange County and parts of Northridge), but used to run Marvel Entertainment:

It is not the conservative attacks that concern me. I’m far more focused on the progressives who are already expressing their disappointment over Obama’s failure to re-introduce the public option as a way of cutting health care costs or believe the President was just too darn rational in his proposals – thus leaving what they believe to be too little negotiating room for the battles to come.

This from an article entitled “Obama’s Speech Another Meaningless Line In the Sand” by Justin Krebs, co-founder and director of Living Liberally, a progressive non-profit.

We liberals are finally learning what conservatives have said all along: Ignore the President’s pretty speeches and judge him by his actions.

Of course, liberals and conservatives are judging from two very different directions. While criticism from the Right sees him as a socialist-leaning bleeding-heart, we on the Left wish he were what the Tea Party accuses him of. Instead, we see a President that continues to adopt conservative frames, extend Republican wars (and start one of his own), and buy into the advice of a coterie of Wall Street executives. The proud progressive we wanted to elect never put single-payer healthcare on the table, hasn’t fought for meaningful mortgage reform and didn’t draw a line in the sand when it came to allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire.

Well, he did draw a line in the sand… but seems to think of it as his starting line for compromise, which is how the Bush-era give-away to our wealthiest citizens continued while Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House.

What progressives like Mr. Krebs consistently forget is that Obama has another virtue in addition to character – he knows how to add.

The President can manage to work out that, if he is to get anything done, he has to get a vote through the House of Representatives where the vote totals are stacked against him.

So, you ask, why didn’t he get his way when the Democrats controlled both houses in Congress?

Because the President can also add to 60- the number of votes he needs to accomplish anything in the Senate where the filibuster results in minority rule. All it takes is 41 ‘nays’ and the best-laid progressive plans go down the drain.

If you recall, there was a point in time when the President had 58 Democratic votes plus 2 independents in the Senate, giving him the appearance of being ‘filibuster-proof.”

However, he also had a few Blue Dog Democrats who knew that a vote with Obama was a nail in the coffin containing their own political futures. Which do you imagine was always destined to win out? Obama’s progressive plans or a Senator’s career?

The president has only one way to get something done– go directly to the people in the hope that they will have the good sense to support his rational approach and ask them to push their elected representatives to do the same. I think we can all agree that “rational” is not something the President can expect in Congress without outside pressure from the voters.

Yesterday, Barack Obama took his arguments directly to the people. Now, let’s see if the Congressional Republicans and progressives alike care to listen to the result.

By the way, Living Liberally...THANKS FOR SHOWING UP IN NOVEMBER, you really @#$^ing helped.

Not only did the President rip into Paul Ryan...he did it to his face...

From Rick Ungar:

What did it for me in Obama’s plan to get the nation’s finances in order was that the President took his stand against the GOP effort to take away the soul of this nation while staring directly into the eyes of Rep. Paul Ryan- the architect of the document that would remake this country in the mold of third world nations where there are rich people and poor people with nobody in the middle.

Unlike the taunts, personal insults and barbs that Ryan and his companions lob at the president on a daily basis from the safety of a television studio, Obama took the route that requires character.

He did it to Ryan’s face.

The President invited the Wisconsin congressman, and a few of his congressional confederates, to attend the speech, placed them right up front and proceeded to call these people out for the hegemony they would visit on millions of Americans to benefit their wealthy political patrons with a trillion more in tax cuts.

Character.

Randi Rhodes: The Paul Ryan Medicare Ad (AUDIO)

Thanks, Duffy! (He's the voice in the ad):

"The Country We Believe In..." (VIDEO)

The complete text can be found here.

Jonathan Cohn:

1. That was a clear, unambiguous, morally grounded defense of the welfare state--as strong and stirring as I've seen from this president.

2. Obama made the case for more revenue, which is the biggest political challenge Democrats face when they talk about deficit reduction. And he sounded more determined than before to block extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. That's promising.

3. My two biggest misgivings are on policy: Obama called for more taxes on the wealthy, not the middle class, and wants an imbalanced approach that favors spending reductions over revenue increases. This was my fear about hewing to the guidelines set by the Bowles-Simpson Commission, particularly if this merely the opening bid of a negotiation.

4. The new health care reforms sound very good upon initial inspection--and, particularly when added to cost controls already in the Affordable Care Act, this is far more serious than what Paul Ryan and the Republicans have in mind. And if Obama is more serious about controlling health care costs, then he's more serious about reducing deficits overall.

5. Did I mention how much I liked the rhetoric? At the level of broad principle, this was the speech I wanted to hear.

Jonathan Chait:

In his budget speech today, Obama attempted to square the circle in two ways. First, he nodded at the Bowles-Simpson approach without endorsing it explicitly or in detail. This turns it into an approach whose basic contours he can ultimately support, but not a negotiating position. And second, he beat Ryan and the Republicans to a bloody pulp.

Greg Sargent:

For some time now, a bunch of us have been wondering when — or whether — Obama would step up and make a strong case for an expansive vision of Democratic governance. With Republicans iniatiating what may be the most consequential argument over the proper role of government in decades — a debate over the legacy of the great liberal achievements of the 20th Century — we’ve all been wondering whether Obama would respond with a level of ambition and seriousness of purpose that he’s shown when taking on other big arguments.

By this standard — in rhetorical terms — it’s fair to say Obama delivered. Sure, the speech had flaws, trafficking a bit in the usual positioning between two allegedly equivalent extremes. And speeches are the easy part: Obama’s words jarred against recent actions, and what Obama actually does in the months to come will be what either ratifies today’s promises or renders them meaningless. But Obama did offer perhaps the most ambitious defense he may have ever attempted of American liberalism and of what it means to be a Democrat.

Even Andrew Sullivan:

I'm not sure how major an impact this midday speech will have - simply because it will be highly limited in its audience. But it was classic Obama - a center left approach to a center-right conviction: that the debt is unsustainable; that we all have to make sacrifices; that defense-cutting, reducing the cost of healthcare; and tax reform are integral to this possibility.

And it looks as if he will indeed use the debt ceiling moment to push some version of this through. I didn't get the sense from this speech that he was only planning to do this in his second term. And surely, after the cold shock of the Ryan plan, his less draconian vision for the vulnerable will be popular in the middle. The least persuasive part of the GOP proposal is its refusal to ask anything from the top one percent in this crisis. Obama saw this, and went for it.

Steve Benen to Liberals. Chill the @#$% out until tomorrow...

Steve says it best:

To be sure, if Obama takes the stage tomorrow and embraces Simpson/Bowles as his own, I'll be severely unhappy. I wasn't a fan of the fiscal commission -- which, by the way, never had enough support to actually endorse the Simpson/Bowles plan -- and think this would be a horrible place for Democrats to start talks on long-term debt reduction.

But here's the thing: I rather doubt the Simpson/Bowles plan will be Obama's plan. It seems far more likely to me that the president will present a very different vision, and make it seem as if it's the Simpson/Bowles plan.

Indeed, just this morning, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who has solid progressive credentials, spoke at the Center for American Progress, and slammed Paul Ryan's House GOP plan. Van Hollen added, however, that Simpson/Bowles offers a "basic approach ... which is to look at both sides of the deficit equation, that is revenue and spending" that can serve as "an important starting point."

That intensified the freak-out -- Look! Van Hollen is endorsing Simpson/Bowles, too! -- but it shouldn't have. All the Maryland Democrat was talking about was the "basic approach" of Simpson/Bowles, because it included a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. Van Hollen is endorsing looking at both sides of the ledger, which is the standard Democratic line.

Ezra added this afternoon that his White House sources are saying the president's won't "primarily be an endorsement of Simpson-Bowles," and "this will make more sense tomorrow."

To make a short story long, I'm suggesting we put the apoplexy on hold for 24 hours.

Donald Trump. Addicted to the most addictive substance in the known universe...

From the Murdoch Street Journal. Celebrate good times:

Donald Trump will “probably” run as an independent candidate for U.S. President in 2012 if he does not receive the Republican party’s nomination, he told the Wall Street Journal in a video interview on Monday.

“I hate what’s happening to the country,” said Mr. Trump, a real estate tycoon and host of the NBC show “Celebrity Apprentice.” He will not formally make a decision until June, however, when this season of his television show is over. “I can’t run during the airing of that show,” Mr. Trump said, “I’m not allowed to.” But he said he would make an announcement “by June” and his candidacy looks increasingly likely.

Mr. Trump’s candidacy would complicate matters for the GOP as it looks to front someone who can unite the fractious party and mount a serious challenge to President Obama’s reelection bid. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll recently found Mr. Trump tied for second place with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee among likely voters in a GOP primary. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who moved a step closer to formally declaring his own candidacy Monday, is still the frontrunner, though not by a wide margin.

“I think the Republicans are very concerned that I [may] run as an independent,” Mr. Trump said. His support is highest among the conservative wing of the party, not least because he is among the so-called “birthers” who doubt that President Obama in fact was born in the U.S. “It’s a very important issue,” Mr. Trump said of demanding that President Obama show his birth certificate, which has separately been reviewed by the media and deemed legitimate. “I’m not ashamed of having raised that issue.”

“I am very conservative,” said Mr. Trump. “The concern is if I don’t win [the GOP primary] will I run as an independent, and I think the answer is probably yes.” Mr. Trump said he thought he “could possibly win as an independent,” adding, “I’m not doing it for any other reason. I like winning.”

Lawrence has been saying for a while that Trump isn't running because all he wants to do is promote his TeeVee show. But, I have long believed that the single most addictive substance in the known Universe isn't Cocaine, it isn't Crack or Weed...it's Klieg Lights (these are the spotlights used in Film and TV Production), in other words its fame.

What if Lawrence is wrong?  What if Trump started off as a joke candidacy, a way to boost ratings for The Apprentice?  And all of the sudden, he looked at the polling showing him shooting up the ranks, and said to himself: "Wait, I think they [the Base of the GOP] want me to do this.  What if I can do it?"

Of course, do we need to mention the fact that Liberals won't be flocking to Mr. Trump's banner anytime soon.  And Mr. Trump is quite capable of putting on a show of excess and ridiculousness that would put Sarah Palin to shame.  If Romney is the nominee, and Trump runs as an indepenent...and you say complete and utter Electoral Blowout for the President?

The Cos' just about sums up my attitude on Donald Trump...and kicks the crap out of him in the process (VIDEO)

Trump's response (for what its worth) is as follows:

The other day on The Today Show, right after I was interviewed by Meredith Vieira, a terrific person and reporter, I happened to watch Bill Cosby who was on at the end of the show. While I have never been a fan of Cosby’s, I had always assumed he liked or respected me because every time I met him—the last time at the David Letterman show where I preceded him as a guest—he was always so nice, saying “let’s get together”—asking me out to dinner, and being polite to the point of offering to buy me a suit because he has a “great tailor.”

In any event, as I watched the show, the subject of Donald Trump came up. I was surprised to hear him blabber, somewhat incoherently “you run or shut up.” The hatred was pouring out of his eyes when he said this. As I am sure he must know I cannot run until this season of Celebrity Apprentice ends. I know that he has taken a lot of heat over the years in that he seems to be talking down to the people he’s talking to and purportedly trying to help. Actually, based on the way he acted, things are not looking too good for Cosby.

I wish he would be more honest, and if he doesn’t want me to run because he’s obviously an Obama fan, he should state the reasons and not come into my “green room” in front of numerous witnesses and treat me like his best friend, only to denigrate me when I’m not around.

Yeah, maybe the reason Cosby is ripping the @#$% out of you is you're using racism to promote your craptastic TeeVee show, and as a black man, he resents it.

Hell, as a black man, I resent it.  You're a race-baiter Trump.  Deal with it.

Also, I got to ask, why is it whenever Trump says or writes something, he complements the person in such a way as to suggest that the person's only value come from Trump's pronouncement of it?

How the President did the best he could with a bad hand...and how Congress are really like dogs.

At the end of the day, it was probably the best deal we could have come up with, given the circumstances. Liberal Bloggers castigating the deal: Jonathan Chait, Ezra, E.J. Dionne all think this was a shitty deal. They also conveniently leave out the fact that we didn’t show up in November, and thus it was an inevitability that the Conservatives were going to get some things they wanted.

At the end of the day, the poor women of D.C. got screwed. But the thing is, they’re always getting screwed. Once you've lived in the area, you know that's the case.  As long as D.C. Statehood isn’t on the table, some shitkicker from Kentucky is going to be able to do his will on the majority black, soon-to-be-majority Latino/Hispanic city of Washington.

Like with Libya, I want to hear what Liberal Bloggers wanted the President to do instead. Oh yes, I forgot, shutdown.

Granted, the Republicans would have taken the brunt of the blame, and that always gives me joy. Then again... I wasn’t that afraid of a shutdown, because I could afford to be.

I don’t know about you, but the only shutdown I’ve been through has been at a distance.  I’ve never had a job, been told not to report to that job, only to spend my hours and days wondering if I’m going to get back pay for the work I’m not doing.

At the same time, I would remind Liberal Bloggers hailing the deal, and the President as just the smartest guy ever in making such a “brilliant” deal, you are way overstating the case in the other direction. Budget cuts take Goverment Spending out of the Economy, just as we can least afford to have it happen.  Fingers crossed, we survive despite these cuts, never because of them.

Face it, we gave President a bad hand. He may have played the best he could, but it was still a shit sandwich, and he’s only taking a bite because too many of y’all (Democrats, Liberals, Progressives) didn’t show up in November.

The funny thing is these Republicans fervently believe (and here comes yet another in a long line of fallacies of Conservative thinking) that eliminating the funds for a program, eliminates the need for the program. “There, we’ve eliminated Federal funding for Abortions. No one will ever have an Abortion ever again. Problem solved.”

Yeah, it doesn’t quite work like that. What’s going to happen to the poor women of D.C. is that they’re going to cross the border into Maryland, and overstress that system and those State and Federal funds. But hey, Boehner gets to go back and tell his constituents he screwed (or in his mind, saved) poor black women in D.C.

The good news seems to be that Americans are happy with the deal, in that they are generally happy when Congress gets something (i.e., anything) done. They are generally disposed to approve when Congress does its job, not in a “Hooray, we love this deal” kind of a way, more of the way a Dog Owner approves of his pet doing his business in the yard instead of the house. “Nice, Congress. Gooood Congress…”

And we only have two more of these fights to go this year alone. Can’t wait.



Ehhhh, I'm not as enthusiastic as Mr. Scott is.

My personal hope is that the President goes the Rock Obama and basically dares the GOP to torpedo the Debt Ceiling Limit.



But the President may feel a personal responsibility to the Greater Economy to not let that happen. At the same time, the GOP, thinking only of their electoral prospects for 2012, may be anxious to risk a total Economic Collapse. After all, what do they care is the shit hits the fan while Obama’s in charge.

Right now, the next Liberal Freak out is going to be over the President’s Plan to control the deficit on Wednesday. Already I’m seeing folk pull their hair out over what he might say, and how its already wrong.

The best overall take came from Conservative Andrew Sullivan. (Since he’s responded favorably to Paul Ryan’s plan, I can no longer take him seriously…thus I will be emphasizing his essential conservatism at every possible chance):

So Obama starts off this critical part of his first term by appearing to be above the fray and yet committed to compromise. Via Biden, he calls the GOP's bluff, draws a line in spending cuts for 2011, and exposes the draconian spending reductions that the GOP's no tax increase pledge requires. He comes back with a bid to tax millionaires, offers spending cuts that would be far more sophisticated and targeted away from investment than the GOP, and pledges to put his own proposals forward as early as this week.

Of course, for a blogger like me, you face a choice. Simply trust the guy and spin for him, or voice skepticism, outrage and disappointment and get played along with the GOP. But, of course, I don't mind getting played. Because I want this president to succeed - and such success requires root-and-branch spending and tax reform.

He seems to be getting there - in that highly unsatisfying but politically shrewd way of his. So now we will have the Ryan plan and the Obama plan. Guess which one independent voters will like more?

Surprise Surprise (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for April 9th, 2011 (VIDEO)

The President discusses the importance of the bipartisan budget agreement that represents both a significant investment in the United States' future - and the largest annual spending cut in our history.

President Obama's Statement on the Budget Agreement (VIDEO)

President Obama addresses the bipartisan agreement on the national budget from the Blue Room of the White House.

Rachel Maddow sez "People who take Paul Ryan seriously, shouldn't be taken seriously..." (VIDEO)

Seriously, stop with the Smoochy-Smoochy.

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

Yeah, sure. She blew it on the GITMO story, but she's right here.

From our "That Was Fast" Department...George Allen strikes again...

Via Think Progress. Ugh.

Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who is running again for Senate in 2012, was called out in Twitter on Tuesday night for repeatedly questioning NBC4 anchor-reporter Craig Melvin about his nonexistent sports career. The Washington Post’s Tom Jackman reported on Allen’s apparent stereotyping of Melvin:

NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin’s Twitter account Tuesday night: “For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,”what position did you play?” I did not a play a sport.”

The President's Town Hall Meeting on Energy and the possible Shutdown from Fairless Hills, PA (VIDEO)

Haven't gotten one of these in a while...

Randi Rhodes' Interview with Rick Ungar of Forbes Magazine... (AUDIO)

Rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers:



To see some of Rick's material, click here.

I can't take Andrew Sullivan (@dailydish) seriously anymore...on the deficit or anything else.

It's like I said before. Andrew Sullivan can never be trusted on the debt.  In this matter, he is an intellectual fraud.  He will only tolerate one opinion (his own), and no others.  So in this matter I have no use for him.

But because the toxin of that idea is spreading to the rest of his ideas, I'm starting to question if he's someone worth reading at all.

After reading how Democrats were already ripping into Ryan's Budget Plan, Andrew wrote this:

We have a serious and flawed plan to get the debt under control - and the Democrats' immediate response is to go into total opposition. The president has been more muted in his response. But the onus is on him now to provide a plan that matches the impact on the budget that Ryans' does, with different emphases.

So where is that plan? Or does the president have none?

I'm sorry, but Ryan's plan projects 2.8% Unemployement in 2021. If you take a Budget Plan with a figure like that seriously, I'm sorry, but you can't be taken seriously.

Then again, if Andrew had spent a little more time looking on the Internets, he would have found where the President's plan was...with Kent Conrad, you know...the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and the place where most likely, any long term, deficit reducing Budget Deal would originate:

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad is holding back the Senate Democrats’ budget plan to give a bipartisan group of senators more time to strike a deal on a long-term deficit-reduction proposal.

Conrad (D-N.D.) is one of the “Gang of Six” negotiators working on a budget deal based on the recommendations of President Obama’s debt commission. The group hopes to put the debt commission’s proposals into legislation that could win a vote from Congress.

If the group fails to reach a deal, Conrad said he might include portions of its work in his budget proposal.

“I’ve prepared several different budget resolutions,” Conrad said. “I’m trying to give the Group of Six effort every chance.”

Conrad said he has not made a final decision on whether to use the Senate Democratic budget proposal to advance the recommendations of the fiscal commission.

Conrad made clear on Tuesday, however, that he would not advance Medicare overhaul such as that proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) or former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Alice Rivlin, a former Democratic White House budget director.

I'm really getting tired of Sullivan's bullshit deficit scolding.  I'm also tired of his tendency to leap before he's looked.  (Betcha wish you had this one back...or maybe you don't).

On Deficits, he doesn't get to tell me what level of pain is acceptable. He hasn't been in this country long enough to wag his finger about deficits at any citizen.  More to the point, the people he's supported in the past are the ones who spent us into this position.

For him to get high and mighty on the spending is as vile, and as typical and anything any other Republican has coughed up the last ten years.

Of course, it's more important to me that Goolsebee is a Mac User...

Let's not play games. This Tax Cut Calculator is an important thing to learn about, but seeing that 15-inch MacBook Pro is somehow reassuring.

If you don't mention Congress in your pushback of the President, @Maddow, then you are lying to us

Per yesterday:

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

If you have piece about Obama's retreat on GITMO, you are of course free to blast the President.  That is your right.

However, if you don't mention Congress's responsibility in this, you are lying to us, and wasting our time.

Anybody who slams the President over GITMO, and leaves out Congress, isn't worth your time. That includes you, Keith

It's a pity, because Keith did make an attempt at fairness by slamming New York, but he forgot to mention Congress's complicity in this decision, and that's a big deal.



It's not like Keith is under a Network's time constraints. He could have put it in there. It's not like he had a Producer saying "Hey, we have to trim five seconds off Worst Persons". So, the only excuses for Keith were that either he didn't want it in there, or he forgot.

Either way, bad call.

A sentence you're going to LOVE reading if you support Unions...

You know there's a Judicial Election in Wisconsin for the State Supreme Court, right?

You know that one of Scott Walker's buddies has been running (and has been in biiig trouble recently for some comments he made).

So what sentence would you like to read if you're hoping for Walker to get his @#$ kicked today?

Howzabout?:

"We're expecting the equivalent of a regular presidential election," Horvath said in regards to the Madison polling place. "Seventy-five to eighty percent is what we are guessing."

(Political) Eaaaaaarrrrrrthhquake.

The President's surprise appearance at today's WH Press Briefing (VIDEO)

From Talking Points Memo:

President Obama strongly scolded congressional Republicans on their failure so far to reach a budget compromise that would avert a government shutdown by the end of the week, instructing them to start acting like "grown-ups" and to stop playing political games.

"We don't have time for games," he told reporters during a rare appearance in the White House briefing room. "We don't have time to score political points."

Obama, who met with Republican and Democratic leaders at the White House Tuesday, said he would make himself available to meet again Wednesday and Thursday if lawmakers cannot come to some consensus today. He also criticized Republicans for saying they don't agree to the $33 billion in cuts that Democrats have agreed to and for including extraneous politically motivated policy riders.

"What we can't do is have a my way or the highway approach to this problem," he said. "If we start applying that approach, that we can't get 110 percent of everything we want, than we're not going to get anything done this year."

"And I said, No..." (VIDEO)

The basic play is the Republicans and Democrats have hashed out a figure of around $33 Billion in cuts. It would be the largest single cut of the Federal Budget in U.S. History, even if we're talking 1-4% of the total budget.

The problem isn't the figure. The problem is three-fold.

One, the Democrats want that number to be at least somewhat temporary, i.e. when they win Congress next time, they don't want to have to pas another law in order to get those cuts restored. Boehner is saying no.

Two, I'm pretty sure Boehner is okay with the $33 Billion number, but his caucus isn't...particularly the incoming Tea-Party Freshmen. They're demanding all of their cuts from H.R. 1, things that the Senate is never going to pass.

Three, Boehner is demanding all his noxious, toxic riders, like the NPR and Planned Parenthood defunding. Democrats are balking at that.

In the end, there is no resolution in sight to any of these problems. The House seems fixed on its solutions, seeming to forget that identical bills must pass the GOP-led House and the Democratic-led Senate. A compromise MUST be in the offing for anything to pass. (That means, we're not going to get everything we want either, fellow Libruls.) But the House GOP is in no mood to compromise, and may actually want a Shutdown. Boehner is cornered. He knows what damage a shutdown will do to both parties (but his in particular). Still, if he doesn't go to balls-to-the-wall to show he fought the White House every step of the way, he'll be ousted as Speaker...and Lord knows, his being Speaker is the most important thing right now, isn't it?

So the GOP's solution? Pass another Continuing Resolution, with 12 Billion in cuts (half a trillion annualized).

Actually, it's not a solution, its a way for the GOP to say "look, we didn't shut down the Government". It's a similiar trick to the one they pulled in 1995.

Apparently, what happened in this video is happened this morning, with Barack Obama playing the role of Jed Bartlett.

He said, no.



Remember, that episode aired about eight years ago.

A little perspective on GITMO always helps...as Democrats allow us to cower in fear in the face of Terrorism

Well, we got the announcement that shocked absolutely no one:

Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will be prosecuted in a military commission, a decision that reverses the Obama administration’s long-held goal of bringing the men to trial in federal court as part of its overall strategy of closing the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the decision during an afternoon news conference. He blamed barriers thrown up by Congress for the administration’s abandonment of one of its signature goals.

Holder called Congress’s intervention “unwise and unwarranted” and said he continues to believe that the case could have been tried in federal court in Manhattan or, as an alternative he proposed, in upstate New York. He said the Obama administration would continue to work for repeal of the restrictions Congress imposed and would prosecute other terrorism cases in federal courts.

But he said he decided that prosecution should go ahead in a military tribunal because the restrictions were unlikely to be repealed any time soon and because the families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have already waited too long for justice, which he said is “long overdue.”

You thought I was talking something else, weren't you?

Reverses. Really?

The Post makes it sound like the Administration up and changed its mind. Steve Benen speaks about what really happened:

The Attorney General "changed his mind" after Congress "imposed a series of restrictions"? That's a bit like saying I changed my mind about getting up after I was tied to my chair.

Holder told reporters this afternoon that his original decision was still the right one, but blamed Congress for "tying our hands."

He happens to be right. Even today, Holder wants to do the right thing, and so does President Obama. And yet, Gitmo is open today, and KSM will be subjected to a military commission in the near future, not because of an administration that backed down in the face of far-right whining, but because congressional Republicans orchestrated a massive, choreographed freak-out, and scared the bejesus out of congressional Democrats. Together, they limited the White House's options to, in effect, not having any choice at all.

There's plenty of room for criticism of the administration, but those slamming Obama for "breaking his word" on this are blaming the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

And Andrew Sullivan (gasp!):

The decision to try KSM in a military tribunal is as sad as keeping Gitmo open. He has, of course, been hemmed in by an irrational, panicked Congress. Maybe a civil trial would be impossible because of the torture inflicted on KSM by the last administration.

Of course, Chuck Schumer disappointed the hell out of me:

Chuck Schumer, New York’s senior Democratic senator, expressed relief that the trial would not take place in his home state. He said the move to put the 9/11 plotter through a military commission at Guantanamo Bay will allow him to get the “ultimate penalty,” and he said the decision is the “final nail in the coffin” of the “wrong-headed idea” to try Mohammed in New York.

“I have always said that the perpetrators of this horrible crime should get the ultimate penalty, and I believe this proposal by the administration can make that happen,” Schumer said in a statement.

Granted, Chuck is just out there representing his State, but I'll never call him a statesman. He's pandering to the baseless fears of New Yorkers. We have prosecuted Terrorists in this country, and jailed them int his country. 9/11 is no different.

Let me say that again: 9/11 is no different.

We could handle it then, we can handle it now.

Instead of standing up to Terrorism, like we imagine we do, we've caved to it, and a lot of Senators (like Charles Schumer) have enabled that cave.

The Fireside Chat for April 2nd, 2011 (VIDEO)

Live from Landover, Maryland. And I think I know about where this place is...