The Perfect Solution

The AP has an interesting article about how some Republican Governers are breaking with their GOP counterparts in Congress and are advocating for quick passage of President Obama's economic stimulus plan. Now because states have to balance their budgets year to year it would seem that these Governers supporting the money to states in the spending provisions of the stimulus bill would be a no brainer, yet its not as simple as that. Some excerpts from the article:

NEW YORK – Most Republican governors have broken with their GOP colleagues in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama's economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care.

Their state treasuries drained by the financial crisis, governors would welcome the money from Capitol Hill, where GOP lawmakers are more skeptical of Obama's spending priorities.
The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, planned to meet in Washington this weekend with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other senators to press for her state's share of the package.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist worked the phones last week with members of his state's congressional delegation, including House Republicans. Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, the Republican vice chairman of the National Governors Association, planned to be in Washington on Monday to urge the Senate to approve the plan.

"As the executive of a state experiencing budget challenges, Gov. Douglas has a different perspective on the situation than congressional Republicans," said Douglas' deputy chief of staff, Dennise Casey.

Now the views represented by Governers Palin, Crist, and Douglas make perfect sense when you realize that without federal assistance many states will have to both cut jobs in the public sector like teachers, police officers, and firefighters and also probably raise taxes in one form or another which is of course verboten when it comes to Republican orthodoxy. So like I said this doesn't seem like all that big of a surprise. But then you see some idiotic and totally hypocritical quotes from some other Republican Governers like these...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a former member of the House, said he would accept the stimulus money but would have voted against the bill if he were still in Congress. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said he wasn't sure whether he would accept the approximately $3 billion his state would be in line for.

"Yes, we need some help and we appreciate the help," Barbour said in an interview. "But I don't know about the details and the strings attached to tell you if I'll take all of it or not."

The most outspoken critic has been South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who has warned for months of a steep spike in inflation and a severely weakened dollar if Obama's plan passed. His state is on track to receive $2.1 billion of the stimulus money; Sanford has not yet said whether he would accept it.

"It's incumbent on me as one of the nation's governors to speak out against what I believe is ultimately incredibly harmful to the economy, to taxpayers and to the worth of the U.S. dollar," Sanford said in an interview. "This plan is a huge mistake and is going to prolong and deepen this recession."

Just as a reminder Governer Sanford is the same jackass who waited to the very last minute to ask for a federal loan to extend unemployment benefits at a time when his state was one of the hardest hit by the recession and had one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. He effectively was paying Russian Roulette with his consituents' livelyhood all to score political points and burnish his conservative creds. That he blinked in the end was almost a foregone conclusion. But how many times will the voters of South Carolina put up with the kind of stress he put them through by waiting till the last minute?

I would have to say that if I ever found myself in agreement with a moronic jackass like Governer Sanford I would definitely have to review my opinion. There was one more GOP goverener expressing his reluctance to accept the stimulus money as well.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is widely viewed as a potential presidential contender in 2012, said governors have little choice but to accept the relief being offered. "States have to balance their budgets," he said. "So if we're going to go down this path, we are entitled to ask for our share of the money."

But Pawlenty expressed reservations about the cost of the plan and its impact on the federal deficit, which has already grown to over $1 trillion.

"I'm quite concerned about the federal government spending money it doesn't have," Pawlenty said. "We're on an unsustainable path of deficit spending and borrowing."

I want to go back to Bobby "The Exorcist" Jindal for a moment. Did you notice that this hypocrite said he would accept the money if the bill goes through but if he was still in Congress he would have voted against the bill? I just have to know, does that make any kind of sense to anyone but him?

Now it has been pointed out elsewhere and I want to repeat it here, this notion that the Republicans keep putting forth that we need to be thinking about the debt we are leaving our children and grandchildren is missing one major truth. What about what doing nothing does to our children and grandchildren today? What about the children and grandchildren who are being thrown out of their homes everyday? What about the children and grandchildren who are missing meals everyday because Mom and Dad have lost their jobs? What about the children and grandchildren who go without doctors and dentists visits because their parents no longer have their employer based healthcare? Those children and grandchildren deserve our consideration also.

So I have what I think is a pretty good solution. I propose that every governer who opposes the economic stimulus bill on prinicple should come out in the next week and publically pledge to refuse any funds set aside for their state in the package. The flip side of that would be if any Goverener wanted to accept the funds in the economic stimulus package should have to sign a petition to be presented to Congress asking them to pass the bill in order to be eligible for those funds. Now this isn't extortion or pay to play before I see some Blago analogies. This is about standing up for your principles if you really have any. If Governers Jindal, Barbour, Sandford and Pawlenty really want to prove they are fiscal conservatives then they should have no problem at all refusing the funds. I mean hell according to the GOP, tax cuts cure all of an economy's ills anyway. Let them fix their state's budgets as they see fit and show the rest of us how it is done.

The reason why this would be a viable solution is because if you eliminate money set aside for populous states like Mississippi, Lousianna, and Texas you will remove a huge chunk of change in the stimulus bill. Thats money that can now be reallocated to other states or other infrastructure projects or that money can just be stripped from the bill which would lower the financial burden on future generations which seems to all of a sudden be the most important consideration of the Republicans in Congress.

But lets be for real here, the only thing my solution would do would be to shine a light on the hypocrisy of the Republican Party yet again. There isn't a single one of those wingnuts who would dare publically disavow the federal assistance in the stiumulus bill because it would be political suicide. But right now they have cover to say all kinds of reckless bullshit because they know they don't really have to vote for the bill so they can give classic Orwellian doublespeak like Jindal saying they wouldn't vote for the bill but they would "have to" accept it. Nah, you don't have to accept it at all. Stick to your conservative roots Jindal and even though you have totally screwed Louisianna's budget with your ill advised tax cuts, just say no to goverenment handouts and solve your state's problems all on your own.

Well thats my solution for getting this economic stimulus bill passed. Either you will get enough money stripped out of the bill from the states refusing the money to presumably make it palatable to enough conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans to get it passed, OR you will get unanimous support for the bill from even the craziest of Republican Governers which will put just enough pressure on the Senate to get the bill passed. Smells like a win win situation to me....What say you???

And just a little cherry on top I would like to provide you with video of the Villagers looking back on their arguments for and against Bill Clinton's economic vision in 1992/1993. Enjoy



Notice that even after having been proven thoroughly and unequivically wrong about his economic prognostications in the 90s the Prince of Darkness is still screaming "tax cuts" just like every other reality challenged wingnut. Hopefully people are waking up to the fraud that has been perpetrated for years on them by the Republican Party.

(h/t C n L)

The Chessmaster Strikes Again.

MSNBC has an article up about a just released NYTimes poll which reveals that most Americans not only approve of Barack Obama but are also willing to be patient with him and give him time to implement his agenda. Please feel free to check out the poll, I for one am all polled out at this point. We get it, they like him, blah blah blah. But I just HAD to excerpt this lady's quotes to illustrate my point again about how Obama is moving the goal posts under everyone's noses. Check out how this Republican lady explains why she answered the poll the way she did.

“I think those of us who voted for McCain are going to be a lot happier with Obama than the people who voted for him,” Valerie Schlink, 46, a Republican from Valparaiso, Ind., said in an interview after participating in the poll. “A lot of the things he said he would do, like pulling out the troops in 16 months and giving tax cuts to those who make under $200,000, I think he now sees are going to be a lot tougher than he thought and that the proper thing to do is stay more towards the middle and ease our way into whatever has to be done. It can’t all be accomplished immediately.”

The ridiculous pot shot she takes at us "dirty hippies" she takes in the beginning aside, notice the two examples she pointed to as to why people who voted for McCain are going to be happy with Obama.

1. The 16 month timetable for withdrawal in Iraq

2. Tax cuts for everyone making under $200,000.

Ahem, maybe she hadn't noticed but the Status of Forces Agreement already has a timetable in it that we have to abide by and the Iraqi's have the ability to actually make us leave earlier with the referendum their citizens are going to vote on this spring. To put it bluntly nothing has changed. If anything America will be getting out of Iraq faster than before.

As to the tax cuts uhmmm what did she think was in Obama's stimulus plan that he submitted to Congress last week?

Man I have to tell you, I am not one for over hyping someone but this guy is killing em right now. Next thing you know he is going to have wingnuts saying universal healthcare ain't so bad after all! LOL

Now my fellow liberals and progressives keep this in mind the next time you are ready to fly off the handle about something President Obama "might" do. Sometimes you just have to work the refs a little and he definitely seems to know how to win the game.

More Media Lies About Obama: Inauguration Edition

I can admit that I was inclined to believe the press reports that President Elect Barack Obama was set to break the record for costs of an Inauguration. I didn't really read to much into it. My thinking is over time we always end up paying more for things. But then the reports came out that the price tag was over $100 million and that was supposedly 4 times what Bush's innauguration cost. Honestly, although I should know better, I never thought about whether or not the media was lying. The story was reported by so many different sources that I just ASSumed it was right. I wasn't exactly mortified by the numbers but I did think there was a chance that it might reflect badly on Obama that in a time of economic crisis, that kind of green was being spent on swearing him in. And sure enough the WingNuts were having a field day with the story.

But as I said in an earlier post today, our new media goes a long way in terms of helping to dispel false stories like this one so that Democrats aren't railroaded like they would have been in the past. This time MediaMatters.org does the honors:

Did you hear that "some are saying" Barack Obama's inauguration will cost "$160 million," which is $100 million more than George W. Bush's last swearing-in? That's the tale the crew at Fox & Friends was telling on January 15. "Why does the thing have to cost so much?" demanded co-host Gretchen Carlson. "I don't get it. George Bush spent $42.3 million and that was just four years ago." She wondered why Obama needed "another $100 million" for his celebration.

The Fox News crew wasn't alone. The Internet and cable news were filled with chatter about the jaw-dropping (and unsubstantiated) number suddenly attached to Obama's swearing-in. But the sloppy reporting and online gossip about the price tag illustrated what happens when journalists don't do their job and online partisans take advantage of that kind of work.

It also highlighted the type of news you can generate when making blatantly false comparisons. In this case, it was the cost of the Obama and Bush inaugurations. The connection was unfair because the Obama figure of $160 million that got repeated in the press included security costs associated with the massive event. But the Bush tab of $42 million left out those enormous costs. Talk about stacking the deck.

snip

Unfortunately, that didn't matter. At least not to conservative partisans who grabbed onto the Daily Mail story (via Drudge) and announced a blatant hypocrisy existed within the press because, they claimed, four years earlier, reporters and liberal pundits raised questions about the cost of Bush's inauguration, but suddenly were mum about Obama's, even though at $160 million, it was going to cost nearly four times as much as Bush's bash. (Actually, it wasn't just liberals or the press raising questions about the Bush inauguration; a strong majority of Americans wished Bush, during a time of war, had scaled back the glitz for his second swearing-in.)

Online, the inauguration condemnations were swift and fierce. The cost of "Obama's upcoming celebration" was "dwarfing" any previous swearing-in expenses and was climbing into "the $100 millions," claimed right-wing weblog The Jawa Report, which relied on the Daily Mail for its misinformation.

The unsubstantiated $160 million figure was also picked up and repeated on MSNBC, where news anchors spent all of January 14 announcing Obama's inauguration was going to cost "$160 million." The eye-popping dollar figure was accepted as fact, even though nobody in the press could actually explain where that number had come from. Plus, MSNBC suggested the $160 million tab just covered parties and activities, not the larger security costs.

snip

Here's why using the $160 million number and comparing it with Bush's 2005 costs represented a classic apples-and-oranges assessment: For years, the press routinely referred to the cost of presidential inaugurations by calculating how much money was spent on the swearing-in and the social activities surrounding that. The cost of the inauguration's security was virtually never factored into the final tab, as reported by the press. For instance, here's The Washington Post from January 20, 2005, addressing the Bush bash:

The $40 million does not include the cost of a web of security, including everything from 7,000 troops to volunteer police officers from far away, to some of the most sophisticated detection and protection equipment

snip

The question for the press then becomes: How much did the government spend on security for Bush's 2005 inauguration? How much did it cost for the wartime administration's unprecedented move to turn the nation's capital into something akin to an armed fortress, with snipers on rooftops, planes flying overhead, Humvee-mounted anti-aircraft missiles dotting the city, and manholes cemented shut?

Back in January 2005, that figure was impossible to come by. "U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last week that he was unable to estimate security costs for the inauguration," The Washington Times reported. The cross-town Washington Post also had no luck in 2005 finding out the cost of security: "[Government] spokesmen said they could not provide an estimate of what the inauguration will cost the federal government."

However, buried in a recent New York Times article published one week before the controversy erupted over the cost of Obama's inauguration, the newspaper reported that in 2005, "the federal government and the District of Columbia spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony, cleanup and for a holiday for federal workers" [emphasis added].

You read that correctly. The federal government spent $115 million dollars for the 2005 inauguration. Keep in mind, that $115 million price tag was separate from the money Bush backers bundled to put on the inauguration festivities. For that, they raised $42 million. So the bottom line for Bush's 2005 inauguration, including the cost of security? That's right, $157 million.

Now undoubtedly over the next 4 years there will be negative press written about President Obama that is true and there is no getting around that. But I would advise you that when you do read one of those negative articles to go to sites like MediaMatters just to make sure the story is on the up and up before you decide how you feel about it.

Conservative Vs Wingnut: The PWNING

I have been hearing a lot lately about the difference between a true conservative and a neocon (aka wingnut). From my understanding basically they both vote Republican but the former has actual princples while the later is more of a cheerleader in all situations. Well evidently the "real" conservatives have just about had enough of the neocons and its about to be all out war. Paul Mulshine, one or the "real" conservatives", evidently has no time for posers like Glenn Reynolds.

The more I look at what passes punditry on the Internet, the more I realize that a great number of the self-appointed pundits are mere parasites. Their relationship to real journalists is that of a tick to a dog.

The fattest, most engorged tick of them all is Glenn Reynolds, the self-proclaimed "Instapundit."

As the name implies, Reynolds endorses the theory that in the era of the Internet anyone can provide political commentary instantly, i.e. without benefit of reflection, experience or knowledge.

OUCH. But wait it gets better!

The other day Reynolds had a post in which he blasted media outlets for cutting back coverage of the Iraq War. I first learned of it on Instaputz, a site devoted to documenting the idiocies of Instapundit.

Here's what Reynolds wrote in its entirety: "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: TV News Winds Down Operations on Iraq War. Hey, they got Obama elected. Why stick around and maybe report stuff that doesn't fit the narrative?"

The pose Reynolds adopts is that of the conservative commentator taking shots at the liberal media. Unfortunately, he's not a conservative. He has not the slightest idea of how we conservatives view the Iraq War. And we view it as a misguided exercise in liberal do-gooder, internationalism.

Body blow, body blow but wait here comes the haymaker...

But that's not what really ticks me off about this particular parasite. Reynolds has made a career of criticizing real journalists who risk their lives reporting from the Mideast. And he has also made a career of arguing that amateurs like himself can perform the job of journalists.

To which I say: Get off your fat ass, Glenn, and go cover the war. If you think you can make a better war correspondent than, say, Tom Ricks of the Washington Post, well just hop on a plane and prove it.

Man and here I thought liberals and progressives were the masters of flame wars. Now Glenn Reynolds is truly an asshole and the Instaputz site does a great job of documenting some of the more wingnutty statements of his but it just has so much more effect when you know he is getting PWNED by someone he would normally call a comrade. I can only hope that Reynolds responds so that we can keep this flame war going indefinitely.

Wall Street Journal Is Now Wing Nut Central

I just so happened to catch this story over at the Wall Street Journal about how supposedly the Chicago Tribune caused the premature arrest of Rod Blagojevich. As the story goes some ever present "unnamed sources" claim that the Tribune had been asked to put a hold on a story that ran December 5th detailing how Blago's phones were being tapped by the Feds. The story is chocked full of all manner of assumptions and aspersions against the Times and it ends thusly.

Had it not been for the Tribune’s Dec. 5 story, the meeting Blagojevich’s brother was arranging might have proceeded. Mr. Blagojevich is quoted as citing the story, in the affidavit, then calling off the meeting. At a minimum, the FBI’s recorders would have been rolling when he reported back. The feds also probably would have tried to bug the session live, or at least to tail the participants and secretly film or photograph them. That’s what feds do. Jurors love video.

Now there was a time not long ago that paragraphs such as the one quoted would have been seen as below the standards of the WSJ. But that day is no more. Ever since Rupert Murdock bought them out, they have moved considerably towards their seeming goal to become the far right mouth piece of print media. Its sad really because once a publication loses the respect of the average reader its rare that they ever get it back. But I am a firm believer that you can tell a lot about the quality and direction of a publication by the stuff you find in the comments section. So let me provide a few excerpts for your voyeuristic pleasure.

Why waste time writing about this. Obama can do whatever he wants. Please, write more stories about his puppies and how he likes to play basketball. Obama is Untouchable. He can buy houses with other peoples money and say it was a “bone headed” thing to do and ‘journalists’ could care less.

Please, this is all just another ‘distraction’. We don’t have to know these details. Can’t you just have Obama be Obama? If this kind of stuff is so important now, why didn’t the MSM look into Mr. Obama’s upbringing in the cauldron of Chicago machine politics, and how a nobody like him rose to State senator, US senator, and President-elect in just a few years with no tangible achievements, and assumed to be pure as the driven snow?

Someone at the Tribune must have tipped off the targets of this investigation (inside the BHO campaign), then , getting their orders to spill the beans, they released the story to force Fitz’s hand and/or warn Blago

This is an intro to a presidential term of Chicago “Daley” mafia politics run by an “untouchable” expert, B.H. Obama, that will infect every corner of USA. Get ready folks!

At least Bush wasn’t a crook.

Why didn’t our messiah, Obama, bring “change” to Ilinois and Chicago before trying to bring it to the USA and the world?

The Chicago Tribune and especially it’s editor are treasonous. They are protecting the empty suit conman, Obama. Barry is an unqualified, ineligible liar, and I doubt he’ll even make it to president, as the American people are about to demand that he show his birth certificate, which he has hired three law firms to avoid.

Not exactly the kind of readership most would normally associate with the WSJ, no?

The irony, of course, is that Sam Zell has been a major financial donor to Republican causes. But hey why let the facts get in the way of wingnut outrage right?

So great job Rupert,you are right on track in your quest to turn the Wall Street Journal into the FoxNews of print media. How about buying PBS next and giving Andy Martin his own show?