Caturday: Walking the Dogs

Posted: August 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 51 Comments

Hill and Bill’s Excellent Vacation… h/t Still4Hill

Morning, news junkies!

Big Dawg is looking something DAYUM, isn’t he? Mmmm.

And, Miss Hillary–heroine in a hat plus big goofy smile? Never anything better than that.

Alrighty, so this was my fav political photo of the week. How about yours?

NEWS TO PERUSE with your morning cuppa:

  • The Democrats Prepare for a Post-Election Grand Compromise with the GOP [BAR/Glen Ford] … whee, well, glad we’re all fired up about tribal D’s vs. R’s until November since it makes a huge difference and all.
  • BTW, MONA THE WONK Announcement: after FOUR YEARS of careful consideration and tortured lesser of evils logic, I’ve decided to vote Obama in 2012. Like Michelle O. once said, he’s stinky and snores. So I have to hold my nose… 😉 However, Mitt Romney’s pick of Paul “I’ma eat your Medicare” Ryan was enough to swing my vote. Decisively. I don’t find him to be skeery because he’s Republican. I find it scary and completely bizarre that he is in politics period. Go wield your exacto knife on the play-do, P-Ryan. Leave our social safety net alone. Vouchers is gambling…that is not a safety net.
  • That said, I think the following read from the WSWS a couple weeks ago deserves everybody’s attention regardless of who you are voting for/against…if anybody in DC cares about unemployment, it sure as frackity-frack doesn’t show…. Washington’s bipartisan class-war policy: No jobs, no benefits:

The expiration last week of one of the two federal emergency unemployment benefits programs marks an escalation in the American ruling class’ attack on working people. Idaho, the last state participating in the federal government’s Extended Benefits (EB) program, made its final extended unemployment payment. Across the country, half a million people have been cut off of extended benefits since the start of the year.

Where is that America that I know?

It is still here. I find it in my neighborhood where kids of all backgrounds meet on the playground for an afternoon of basketball. It is here, in the hearts and minds of all those who have stopped me in the street, reached out with love, and lent a moment of their time to learn about this turbaned person in jeans who loves life and loves all people.

I see that America. I love that America.

–Balpreet Kaur, age 19, Ohio State University

Alright, Sky Dancers…You know what to do! Have a Copacetic Caturday and fill up those comments with some good discussin’s 🙂

Texas Judge: Extra Law Enforcement Staff Needed in Case Obama is Reelected

Posted: August 22, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because, open thread, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , | 57 Comments

Judge Tom Head with Texas Gov. Rick Perry

You just can’t make this stuff up. Lubbock County Judge Tom Head appeared on Fox 34 News in Lubbock, TX on Monday night to warn the population of the danger that lies ahead if President Obama wins reelection in November. The threat is so serious that he wants to increase property taxes in order to increase salaries for attorneys in the DA’s office and hire seven more sheriff’s deputies to deal with the possible Obamapocalypse.

Judge Head said he and the county must be prepared for many contingencies, one that he particularly fears, is if President Obama is reelected.

“He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN, and what is going to happen when that happens?,” Head asked.

“I’m thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.

“Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops. I don’t want ’em in Lubbock County. OK. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say ‘you’re not coming in here’.

“And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him, I said ‘you gonna back me’ he said, ‘yeah, I’ll back you’. Well, I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me.”

How on earth does the Stupid Party GOP find these people?

Apparently some people were a bit concerned about the good Judge’s remarks, so today he recorded a rambling video in which he attempted to “clarify” things. According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the Sheriff has no recollection of any conversation with Judge Head about revolution or whatever Head is planning.

Just minutes ago, Sheriff Kelly Rowe said he’d never discussed any of the scenarios described by Head.

The White House media office had no immediate response Wednesday morning to Head’s remarks.

AJ reporter Andrea Sinclair is at the Lubbock County Commissioner meeting, and, Head said his remarks were taken out of context. He said he was referring to a “worst case scenario” if Obama is re-elected.

Sorry, Tom, that dog won’t hunt. Just like your fellow Stupid Party GOP members Todd Akin and Paul Ryan, you said what you said on videotape. We can all judge your remarks and their “context” for ourselves.

Okay. Now it’s a heat wave.

Posted: August 14, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: energy, Environment, just because | Tags: , , | 27 Comments

The interior of Southern California has been slow-roasting, like everybody else in the U. S. of A. It’s so bad, people are being told to use their A/C less, to let their houses go all the way up to 78°F (25°C). The utilities have been moaning about having barely enough power to meet needs and many AC repair companies are totally booked.

They’ve been bewailing the temporary shutdown of the San Onofre nuke like the loss of the last drop of drinking water. (The thing has cracks in hundreds of steam pipes due to design flaws.) It provides 2200 Megawatts. It’s loss is terrible. We’re all dying out here.

A complete load of horsefeathers. I live near two natural gas power stations, and they’re barely ever even on. If it’s as bad as all that, you’d think they’d have to use them, yes? One produces 560 Megawatts, the other 1516MW. But they don’t. Especially the 1516MW one. If I see it running two days out of the year, that’s a lot. Admittedly, I don’t spend my life staring at it, so I might miss a day or two, but not much more than that. The other one seems to run maybe 14 days out of the year.

Then, yesterday I went for a hike and saw this:

view of Pt. Mugu

Nice, you say? What are you complaining about, you say? Well, look at those two wisps coming out of the two power plants. They’re running! They’re producing power!

Ormond Beach Generating Station

Half of it is down right now due to a fire, so it’s only producing about 730MW. (Notice also that line of photochemical smog.)

Mandalay Generating Station

The neat thing about natural gas plants is the utlities get pollution credits for them because they’re so (relatively) clean. So — this is just a wild guess — by not running them, they can use those credits for dirtier plants of theirs. Or sell them to other needy utilities.

Meanwhile, they can weep and wail and gnash their teeth over how we must turn the nukes back on now now now! Or else we might have to turn the A/C all the way to 79°F.

Saturday Reads: Romney Succumbs to Radical Right on VP Pick

Posted: August 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , | 101 Comments

The 2012 Republican presidential ticket joyfully waving goodbye to Medicare and Social Security

Good Morning!

It’s been a long strange night. I wasn’t feeling that great yesterday, so I went to bed early. At 12:30AM, my phone rang. It was Dakinikat with the stunning news that Mitt Romney has chosen the man Charlie Pierce calls “the zombie-eyed granny starver from Wisconsin” as his nominee for Vice President. Let’s get Pierce’s reaction:

Leave it to Willard Romney, international man of principle, to get himself bullied into being bold and independent.

Make no mistake. In his decision to make Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin, his running mate, Romney finally surrendered the tattered remnants of his soul not only to the extreme base of his party, but also to extremist economic policies, and to an extremist view of the country he seeks to lead. This is unimaginable to those of us who lived under Romney’s barely perceptible stewardship of the Commonwealth (God save it!). If he’d even hinted that he agreed with a fraction of a smidgen of a portion of the policies on which Ryan has built his career, Romney would have been hanging from the Sacred Cod by the middle of 2005. And it’s hard not to notice that the way the decision got leaked — in the dead of a Friday night, with the Olympics still going on, after two weeks in which Romney and his campaign had demonstrated all the political skills of a handball — fairly dripped with flopsweat….

Which is not to say this isn’t a shrewd move. In one great swoop, he has recaptured a good portion of the elite political media, which has been crushing on Ryan’s “courage” to take on the “tough choices” — none of which, it should be pointed out, likely will affect Ryan, who’s already got himself an education out of the social safety net he now intends to shred, and certainly will never affect the haircut at the top of the ticket, or his great-grandchildren, for all that — and the coverage of the pick in the middle of the night last night showed that many of our finer chattering heads are already practicing tying the stem of the cherry with their tongues in preparation for covering the new Republican ticket.

In just a little more than two weeks, this ticket will be announced in Florida of all places–the home of millions of Medicare recipients. Yesterday, Romney was complaining about a Democratic superpac ad that implied that his (Romney’s) actions at Bain Capital led to the death of an unemployed man’s wife. Today, Romney signs onto the goal of throwing America’s grandparents into the streets and letting them figure out how to survive with no social safety net.

More reactions:

Fox News: Romney picks Rep. Ryan as running mate, plans to make official at Va. rally.

LA Times: Romney’s VP pick is Paul Ryan, sources say

Washington Post: Romney picks Paul Ryan as running mate

Politico: Paul Ryan veep prospects split GOP.

CNN: Paul Ryan, top GOP voice on fiscal matters.

Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker: LOOKS LIKE RYAN: MITT’S PICK. Lizza posted a lengthy profile of Ryan a few days ago: FUSSBUDGET: How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P.

Well, at least Romney’s tax returns are off the front pages for the moment. The official announcement comes at 9AM. Please add your own reactions and news links in the comments.

Thursday: Poe Boys

Posted: August 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 67 Comments

Click for source: ImgAce

Morning news junkies… I’m filling in for BostonBoomer this morning so she can get a much-deserved and needed break.

So let’s dig in! Starting with…

Let’s Have a Maximum Income, via Gawker:

Rich people across the Western world are anxiously watching France, where president Francois Hollande is vowing to raise the top tax rate—on earnings over $1.2 million a year—to 75 percent. Tres bien, Mr. Hollande. The problem with this otherwise fine idea is that the very rich can simply pack up and move to a more accommodating Western nation with lower taxes and less concern for income inequality, like America. There is, though, a more elegant solution to this: a maximum income.

Lulz! I like the sound of that. Read on.

Meanwhile, via Ezra Klein (h/t Bostonboomer for e-mailing this story to me)… more mendacity from the Mittens campaign:

On Tuesday, the Romney campaign responded to the fire it’s taking from economic analysts by unleashing some artillery of their own. They released a paper by four decorated economists associated with the campaign — Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, John Taylor, and Kevin Hassett — that tried to lend some empirical backing to “The Romney Program for Economic Recovery, Growth, and Jobs.”

Hubbard, Mankiw, Taylor and Hassett make three main points: The first is that this recovery has been terribly slow, even by the standards of post-financial crisis recoveries. The second is that the Obama administration made a grievous error by relying on stimulus. And the third is that Romney’s tax and economic plans would usher in an era of rapid growth that would both be good for the country and provide the boost to revenues and employment necessary to make their numbers work out.

Each of these sections include supporting documents from independent economists. And so I contacted some of the named economists to ask what they thought of the Romney campaign’s interpretation of their research. In every case, they responded with a polite version of Marshall McLuhan’s famous riposte. The Romney campaign, they said, knows little of their work. Or of their policy proposals.

If I’m reading Ezra correctly this morning, then… Even Mankiw wants to disown Mittens?! LOL!

In a similar vein, Mike Konzcal posted this piece over at the Roosevelt Institute blog, What is the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index Really Telling Us?

Conservatives have crafted a measurement that uses their own rhetoric as evidence to support their economic talking points.

Do you want to see a magic trick? It doesn’t involves cards, fire, or anyone levitating. Instead I’m going to show you a set of Republican talking points magically turn into an economic index — an index that Republicans then use to argue for their policies.

Mitt Romney’s economics team of Hubbard, Mankiw, Taylor, and Hassett have rapidly turned around an economic policy sheet titled “The Romney Program for Economic Recovery, Growth, and Jobs.” Matt Yglesias has a post on the issue of sluggish growth and Dylan Matthews has one on their review of the stimulus literature. Brad DeLong takes the deep dive through the entire piece here.

I’m interested in something I haven’t seen people critically discuss enough, and that is the “policy uncertainty index.” The Romney plan argues that “uncertainty over policy – particularly over tax and regulatory policy – limited both the recovery and job creation. One recent study by Scott Baker and Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Steven Davis of the University of Chicago found that this uncertainty reduced GDP by 1.4 percent in 2011 alone, and that restoring pre-crisis levels of uncertainty would add 2.3 million jobs in 19 months.” This appears to be a new talking point for the candidate’s team, as the same language was in a Wall Street Journal editorial by Hubbard over the weekend.

It gets a touch wonkish from there, replete with nifty graphs, so I’d love to hear Dr. Dakinikat’s take on this!

Also, via the Roosevelt Institute blog’s daily roundup for today:

August Isn’t So Stupid This Year (Slate)

Dave Weigel argues that while talk of welfare waivers and Romney’s tax returns may be tiresome, on some level we’re debating real policy issues rather than such pressing summer 2008 questions as whether Obama was more popular than Paris Hilton.

I don’t know about that. Personally this “Romneyhood” vs. “Obamaloney” dialogue really bores the daylights out of me. All I could think when I first saw that is… “Well ROMNEY FUZULI to you, too, Mittens!”

In all seriousness, the current ESOTUS (Empty Suit of the United States) is no less guilty of Lemon Socialism than ‘Romneyhood’ is… the only difference is Romney is so noxious, he’s an insult to lemons. Poor maligned lemons. 😉

Next up…another headline BB sent to me, via Reuters… Komen founder to leave CEO role but stay on in management:

Komen, in announcing the move on Wednesday, also said that President Liz Thompson would leave the Dallas-based organization in September and board members Brenda Lauderback and Linda Law would step down.

The shakeup comes after the world’s biggest breast cancer charity provoked uproar earlier this year over its decision to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, a provider of birth control, abortion and other women’s health services.

Komen, which supports Planned Parenthood’s efforts to provide access to breast-cancer screening, reversed that decision within days and said it would restore the funding.

Interesting. I guess we’ll have to keep watching to see how effective this damage control is. I know every time I see any pink Komen-related thing now, I think of the PP fiasco.

Ok, well I hope that gives us enough to get y’all going in the comments this morning, Sky Dancers. Have at it!

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