Losing Liberals

Posted: August 19, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Democratic Politics, Team Obama, We are so F'd, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: , , , | 24 Comments

artwork by nataliedee.com

There’s an emerging blog discussion on Obama’s dropping poll numbers in the Democratic Party base and the drop of yet another hippie bashing meme by OFA Director Ray Sandoval.  There’s a lot of people that think that the base has no place to go and will return to the fold, but I’ve noticed the increased number of Democratic Congress members that seem to have Obama fatigue.   You may have read BostonBoomer’s post on Maxine Waters who has been out with members of the black caucus in major cities trying to connect the jobless with jobs.

There’s also evidence that other members are equally disenchanted.  I’m not really sure what that will mean over the next year’s election cycle.  I just know that there’s a willingness now to speak up unlike the conspiracy of silence that plagued elected Democratic officials since early 2008.   I’ve got a few examples to share with you.

Here’s an excellent interview with  MA Representative Jim McGovern. The bolded sentence is my nomination for QOTD.

“We need to get the focus back on jobs,” said McGovern. “Here we are at the end of August, and Congress hasn’t done anything about jobs.”

McGovern voted “no” on the debt ceiling compromise, calling it “a catastrophe” that disagreed with both President Obama and the American people’s stance on revenues.

“I didn’t run for Congress to dismantle the New Deal,” said McGovern.

The Massachusetts Rep is a loyal supporter of the president, but feels that the current political climate in the country calls for bolder leadership.

“The president needs to fight back,” he said.

Congressman Pete DeFazio says that Obama “lacks the will to fight” and that  may cost him Oregon. DeFazio says that his boldest defense of the President recently sums up to it could have been worse.  That’s hardly a resounding endorsement of bold leadership.

In his Eugene office Wednesday, Defazio accused the President of lacking the will to fight for the promises he made to get elected.

“Fight? I don’t think it’s a word in his vocabulary,” said the Springfield Democrat, who specifically cited Obama’s lack of follow-through in promises to restore Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

“He repeatedly said that. Then the Republicans telegraphed to him they were going to use a fake crisis over the debt limit in order to muscle some major spending reductions or other things on to him. And that was in December. And what happens? Suddenly he flip flops and concedes everything to the Republicans.”

Asked whether he thought the President had a shot at re-election, Defazio was skeptical.

“At this point it pretty much depends on how far out there the Republican nominee is. You know with a respectable–someone who is a little bit toward the middle of the road–Republican nominee, he’s going to have a very tough time getting re-elected,” said DeFazio.

He’s also not convinced the President will do well in Oregon.

“I believe Oregon is very much in play. I mean we are one of the harder hit states in the union, particularly my part of the state. I’ve just done six town hall meetings, have seven to go but people are shaking their heads and saying ‘I don’t know if I’d vote for him again.’” Defazio said.

Asked if he was surprised, the congressman shrugged.

“Not at all,” DeFazio said. “One guy asked me, ‘Give me 25 words what he’s about and what he’s done for me.’ I’m like, ‘It could have been worse.’”

So, those folks that were gaga over “No Drama Obama”  have suddenly found that translates into “No Guts and No Glory”.  Chuck Hobbs–a Florida Trial lawyer and writer for Politics365–has some interesting analysis on the thesis that President Obama is losing support from progressives.

Curiously, the president’s focus soon shifted from job creation to passing a sweeping health reform measure. What passed, known as the Affordable Care Act, was viewed by many progressives as a shell of the long desired single payer system in that the current act does more to provide incentives to existing insurance companies than containing costs or providing greater benefits to Americans.

Still, if most progressives are willing to concede that some form of universal care is better than none, few are as accommodating for other perceived missteps by the Obama administration. Chief among these include the president’s reticence to advocate government sponsored economic stimulation with respect to jobs—a modern day “New Deal” similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s public works programs. Others were concerned with the president’s escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan and willingness to attack Libya despite the fact that Libya’s civil war did not directly implicate any U.S. interests. Other progressives lament the fact that the president has taken a seemingly nuanced approach on the issue of gay marriage.

These concerns pale in comparison to progressives fevered pitch from the recent debt ceiling debate, one in which Tea Party conservatives’ unwillingness to compromise drove the president closer to the ideological right with respect to tax cuts.

The fact that no new revenue sources were created particularly vexed perennial third party challenger Ralph Nader, who now calls for a primary challenger to Obama in 2012.  Nader recently stated that he “would guess that the chances of there being a challenge to Obama in the primary are almost 100 percent.”

Nader also averred “when (Obama) surrendered the continuation of tax cuts for the rich last December, the least he could have gotten was the debt ceiling increased. He didn’t even do that. So he set himself up for this hostage situation by the Republicans and it’s his own fault. And the country and the workers are paying the price.”

Obama’s advisers are trying to position the President as the calm voice in Washington that seeks compromise and stays above the fray.  He’s got some room with that posture while the Republican primary contenders eat each other alive for the position of who can pander most successfully to the crazy right. It seems clear to me that Obama will never place himself in the position of pandering to the left or center left.  His strategy is appears to follow DeFazio’s characterization. Hey Vote for me! It could’ve been worse.

My thought is that line of reasoning will not hold water as the economy continues to crumble, joblessness remains high–especially among minorities and young people who are a core constituency of the President, and Republicans solidify behind a candidate.  Will Democratic voters sit this election out now that it’s unlikely to be viewed as historic?  Let me quote one more Democratic Congressman and examine a recent Obama policy morph.  This is from Luis Guitterez on Obama’s lost pledge to Latinos.

To understand why I chose to participate with others in an act of peaceful civil disobedience over President Obama’s record-setting pace of immigrant deportations, you need to go back to 12 July 2008. In San Diego, then Senator – and Democratic candidate for president – Barack Obama’s spoke to the annual national conference of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s largest Latino civil rights organisation. He told the mostly Latino audience:

When communities are terrorised by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working and we need to change it.

He received thunderous applause and went on to promise to address immigration reform to protect immigrants from deportation in his first year in office, and pledged he would not walk away even if it was politically difficult to keep moving forward. He won the election with an overwhelming and unprecedented 67% of the Latino vote – which had expanded by 2 million new voters since 2004 – and won key states like Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada (and, therefore, the White House) on the strength of the Latino vote. Indeed, the slogan adopted by his campaign, “Yes We Can”, is an adaptation of the iconic chant of the Mexican American farm labor movement of the 1960s, “Si Se Puede,” led by César Chávez.

Flash forward to now and Barack Obama‘s record on immigration as president does not match the rhetoric or the huge expectations he created in 2008. A million people have been deported by President Obama – approximately, 1,100 per day; most of them Latinos – far more than his predecessor George W Bush or any American president. Without being prodded by Congress, he expanded the use of the military at the border with Mexico, mandated the use of an electronic employment eligibility system for all firms doing business with the government and, most controversially, expanded a programme misnamed “secure communities” that enlists state and local law enforcement in federal immigration matters. Such programmes erode trust between immigrants and their local police because reporting a crime or domestic abuse could lead to deportation (which has, indeed, happened). When the governors of New York, Massachusetts and Obama’s own State of Illinois – solidly Democratic Obama territory – tried to withdraw from the program, the president told them participation by their states, counties and cities is mandatory.

The response to this has been interesting.  US Today has labelled the Obama deportation policy as “Smart Politics”.

President Obama’s new policy on deporting illegal immigrants won’t just help those immigrants without criminal records. It could help Obama as well.

The policy, announced by the Department of Homeland Security Thursday, places priority on deporting criminal aliens and other priority cases. Those who arrived in the United States as children, received college educations or served in the military will be less likely to get deported.

The decision is sure to be reviewed by Congress. In particular, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, argues the administration is overstepping its authority by picking and choosing among those who entered the country illegally.

But one thing seems clear: The move will help Obama among Hispanics, many of whom have long argued that he was being unnecessarily tough on deportation policy.

This is clearly another example of a White House policy that triangulates rather than shows any bold vision. This does appear to be a White House that plays 11th dimensional chess with itself and then loses.  So, my question of the day is how many folks will be willing to show up and vote for the President based on “it could’ve been worse”?

Friday Reads

Posted: August 19, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, John Birch Society in Charge, morning reads, Team Obama | 15 Comments

Good Morning!

Well, another campaign day, another choice set of lies out there in the face of the public.  Let’s see.  Michelle Bachmann thinks we’re all frightened of the rising power of the Soviet Union.  Has she suddenly done the time warp or did she just never read a newspaper back in the day and some how forgot about that entire Boris Yeltsin, Mikhael Gorbachev, and  fall of the Berlin Wall thing?  Kinda makes you worry about her poor homeschooled children, doesn’t it?

Rick Perry seems to think that Texas illegally teaches the biblical creation myth along with actual science.  Steven Benen had a wildly funny tongue-in-cheek up wondering aloud if Perry actually has any idea about the age of the world after he answered this little boy’s question in New Hampshire.   Seems Perry doesn’t know his biology, his geology or his US Constitution either.

ABC News has a video up today showing Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry answering a question from a young boy in New Hampshire. “How old do you think the Earth is?” the kid said. Given Perry’s larger worldview, it seems like a reasonable question. The Texas governor replied, “I don’t have any idea; I know it’s pretty old. So, it goes back a long, long way.”

We can hope Perry doesn’t think 6,000 years is “pretty old.”

At this point, the boy’s mother pushed him to ask Perry about evolution. The candidate explained:

“Your mom is asking about evolution. You know, that’s a theory that’s out there; it’s got some gaps in it. In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools — because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

This is important for a couple of reasons. First, Perry may have no idea what goes on in Texas’ public schools, but if they’re teaching “both creationism and evolution,” they’re violating the law. It’s not even a gray area — the Supreme Court has already struck down a law that called for “balanced treatment for creation-science and evolution-science in public school instruction,” concluding that the law violated the separation of church and state. Teaching religion in science class is illegal under the First Amendment.

Some one should ask Perry if he believes in the Theory of Gravity.  I’m thinking his hair may not. John Huntsman, the Republican underdog candidate, actually tweeted this yesterday: ‘Call me crazy,’ I believe in evolution, global warming.  He may not be crazy, but there obviously are a lot of people out there voting in Republican primaries that sure are which is why his campaign is pretty dead in the water.  Evidently fact denial is part of conservative bona fides these days.

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman took to Twitter Thursday to offer his support for evolution.

Huntsman made the tweet shortly after Texas Gov. Rick Perry offered comments that cast doubt on evolution — his comments can be interpreted as criticism of Perry.

“To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy,” tweeted Huntsman, the former ambassador to China.

Perry has also raised questions about whether humans are contributing to global warming.

Huntsman’s tweet will raise questions about whether he has the conservative bona fides to win the Republican presidential nomination. Huntsman has carved out a niche in the primary fight as a centrist, but it is unclear whether GOP voters are looking for that in a candidate this year.

So, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a jobs plan that actually is a budget deficit reduction plan in disguise.  I’m just getting so cynical these days that I”m ready to move to the Channel Islands and pledge allegiance to HRH Queen Elizabeth.  At least the Brit monarchs these days read books and go to university.

The jobs package that President Obama plans to unveil shortly after Labor Day could include tens of billions of dollars to renovate thousands of dilapidated public schools and a tax break to encourage businesses to hire new workers, according to people familiar with White House deliberations.

As aides work to put together the proposal, they are also hammering out a companion plan to reduce federal budget deficits over the next decade, which Obama would share with the 12-member congressional “super committee” charged with finding long-term fixes for the growing national debt.

The deficit reduction plan would rely on some of the ideas Obama worked on in private negotiations with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) this summer, aides said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a proposal that is still taking shape.

The two-phase plan would probably require Obama to argue for spending more money in the short term while reducing the federal deficit over a longer period. Many economists support that combination, saying cuts in spending should wait until the economy is stronger. But political strategists say it has been difficult to communicate that idea to voters.

I’d rather not live in a country where policy decisions are based on if  ideas considered too “difficult to communicate” to voters personally.  Given that Michelle Bachman thinks that the Soviet Union still exists, Rick Perry isn’t aware the constitution forbids teaching specific religious doctrines in Public Schools, and John Huntsmen has to tweet to people that he’s not one of the “crazy people”,  I’ll take small wealthy, monarchy–like Monaco–for $1000 Alex.

Okay, I’ve decided that Science News and education is a priority now.  Here’s a few items to consider.  NASA is trying to figure out how to predict space weather.  Hope it’s easier than predicting earth weather.

NASA scientists for the first time can track the effects of a solar storm on Earth, offering new advancements in our ability to predict space weather and how it will impact our satellites, emergency systems, power grid, air traffic control equipment, and more.

New observations from NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft have allowed researchers to observe the sun throwing off immense clouds of material, see how the material interacts with solar wind, and monitor the result as it hurtles toward Earth’s magnetosphere.

The result: a first-ever view, end-to-end and in three dimensions, of the impact of a solar storm on Earth.

“With stereoscopic telescopes, we are actually witnessing the solar wind and solar storm blowing all the way from sun to Earth,” said Madhulika Guhathakurta, STEREO program scientist, during a press conference at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., today.

Here’s another kewl thing from NASA:  Mapping Antarctic Ice in Motion. Don’t tell Rick Perry, it’s more of those scientist trying to confuse us about climate change and global warming!

Put the arguments over how fast Antarctic ice is melting to one side for the moment. The latest study of the southern continent, by a group of scientists led by Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, shows how fast the ice rivers are moving and where they are going.

The map of ice in motion, which traces parts of the eastern Antarctic region that have previously been hard to see, offers a new and powerful tool for the study of the dynamics of ice melting into the southern seas.

The data used in the map was obtained from satellites in polar orbit. Dr. Rignot said in an interview that 3,000 different orbital tracks were studied, then combined into a mosaic of the continent.

The study was published on Thursday in Science Express. The work was done in conjunction with NASA, which said in a press release that the map, showing glaciers moving from the deep interior to its coast, “will be critical for tracking future sea-level increases from climate change.”

One last thing and I’ll turn the thread over to you for you to share what you’re reading today.  Roman artifacts are being used to study how better nuclear storage waste receptacles might last over time.

Scientists are experimenting with 1,800-year-old glass to better understand how nuclear waste storage will hold up for millennia to come.

Long ago a ship set sail in the Adriatic sea, possibly heading toward the ancient seaport of Aquileia. But it never made it. For 1,800 years the ship’s wreckage sat on the sea floor, exposed to the elements.

Denis Strachan, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory fellow, traveled to Italy last summer in search of the corroded glass to study how modern-day glass will hold up when storing nuclear waste. As a fan cools his lab at in Richland, Wash., he sounds almost as excited about the history as the science.

“These are experiments done by our ancient fathers for us – free.”

Modern scientists wanted to find out:

  • How much corrosion happened over the last 1,800 years
  • How water reacted with the glass
  • What the ancient glass turned into

Senior scientist Joseph Ryan holds up a blue piece of glass found at the bottom of the sea. Most likely it’s a part of a goblet and its handle. The corrosion looks iridescent, and there’s not much of it.

“You can still see on this material, all of the neat little ridges and decorations that are present on this glass, and its been buried for 1,800 years in just sea water – not really the world’s best repository situation.”

Ryan says they can use the chemistry behind the unintentionally durable Roman glass to make sure what’s used to hold nuclear waste will not fail.

Alright then!  Tag you’re it!  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?  Please share!!!

Fox “News” Tackles Women’s Health

Posted: August 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, Reproductive Health, Surreality, Team Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

I’m so glad Think Progress watches Fox News so I don’t have to! Apparently the TV voice of right wing craziness has been in an uproar this week because the Obama administration finally did something positive for women.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that health insurers will be required to cover contraception and other reproductive health care services without additional cost sharing, accepting most of the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations. The administration did add an additional caveat that would allow “religious institutions that offer insurance to their employees the choice of whether or not to cover contraception services.” “This regulation is modeled on the most common accommodation for churches available in the majority of the 28 states that already require insurance companies to cover contraception,” the agency notes. The services will include:

– well-woman visits;
– screening for gestational diabetes;
– human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older;
– sexually-transmitted infection counseling;
– human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling;
– FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling;
– breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling; and
– domestic violence screening and counseling.

This decision was based on recommendations by scientists at the Institute of Medicine.

But that isn’t good enough for Fox “News,” which invited a so-called “expert” (actually a fanatical wingnut), Sandy Rios of Family Pac Federal, to debate the decision with Jehmu Greene, former president of the Women’s Media Center.

Greene offered the facts that support greater access to birth control. Namely, “50 percent of pregnancies in this country are unintended pregnancies” –the leading reason why women seek abortions — which costs the U.S. over $11 billion a year. Noting that contraception not only allows women to space out their pregnancies and commit to parenting, but also reduces the number of abortions, Greene determined the new policy to be a “text-book definition of win-win.”

Fox’s anti-birth control “expert,” Family PAC Federal Vice President Sandy Rios, however, found her own reasons to lambast the policy as “ridiculous.” Telling Greene that she lives in “la la land,” Rios offered the following “arguments” against the new policy and a woman’s right to use birth control, which are so ludicrous they’re worth listing:

– “Is the White House out of their mind? Does the West Wing not know what the left wing is doing? We’re $14 trillion in debt and now we’re going to cover birth control, breast pumps, counseling for abuse? Are we going to do pedicures and manicures as well?”

Watch it:

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According to Rios, providing counseling for women who have been beaten by their partners is analogous to paying for manicures and pedicures? WTF?!

But that’s not the worst of it. Jemu Greene also appeared on Sean Hannity’s show to debate the issue. According to Hannity, providing birth control for women is an outrage, but paying for Viagra for men is OK, because it’s a “medical problem.”

Piling on to the conservative apoplexia over the Obama administration’s recent ruling that insurance companies should cover birth control without co-pays, Fox News host Sean Hannity slammed the policy last night for encouraging “screwing around,” but defended coverage of Viagra. Taking a bold stance again reason, Hannity said, “I don’t care about the scientists” who recommended the move and insisted that the birth control is “not a women’s health issue.” Asked how he felt about insurance companies covering male enhancement medication, Hannity strongly defended the practice, saying, “That is a medical problem!”

Check it out:

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I’m speechless.

Is Valerie Jarrett Really as Simple-Minded as She Seems?

Posted: August 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Surreality, Team Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Yesterday Special Adviser to the President for intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement Valerie Jarrett contributed a blog to the Huffington Post entitled Why I’m Proud to Be Part of President Obama’s Team.

In the piece, she alternates reminiscences of her relationship with Barack and Michelle Obama with little homilies describing her feelings about her former protegee and now boss. Honestly, this woman comes across as about as politically sophisticated as an eighth-grader.

She begins by describing how she met the Obamas, and then shares her first uninspiring homily:

Today, President Obama is managing our nation’s challenges with the courage, wisdom, and compassion that I’ve seen time and time again over our two decades of friendship.

Really? She offers no specific examples of Obama’s “courage, wisdom, and compassion,” so I have no idea what she is referring to here.

Next Jarrett explains that her friend Barack always had a “remarkable clarity of vision, and an abiding faith in the power of ordinary individuals to do extraordinary things.” He grew up with people of other cultures, so he learned how to bring people together–or something. I think that’s her point.

That belief has been one of the driving forces behind President Obama’s career. Since his time as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side, he has always held firm to his principles, but has also understood the importance of working towards the art of the possible. He knows that true leaders never let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

What do you suppose these “principles” are that Obama has “held firm to?” Jarrett doesn’t say. She certainly can mean that he has delivered on his promises, because he’s broken just about every one of them–except for his promise to “reform” Social Security.

The president has also always believed that a leader’s job is to act on behalf of the people he serves, not to score political points. Every day, he receives letters and emails from Americans who are doing everything in their power to solve the tremendous challenges they face. As long as President Obama is in the White House, he will listen to those Americans, and they will have a voice here in Washington. The president will never stop fighting on their behalf.

Do these letters and e-mails come from Wall Street insiders? Surely Jarrett cannot believe that Obama has listened to the concerns of poor, working-class, or middle-class Americans. Presumably, she is not a stupid person. She has a law degree and and undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University.

Mr. Obama “is determined to change the tone” in Washington, she tells us. Apparently As an example of this, she relates a little parable about Obama welcoming Ruby Bridges the to the White House. Ruby Bridges was a little girl whose parents volunteered her to help integrate the New Orleans school system in 1960. She was “the first African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South,” according to Wikipedia.

Ruby Bridges in 1960

And why was this White House visit so significant in demonstrating Obama’s great leadership skills?

The president told Ruby that were it not for her bravery, he might not be in the White House today.

That moment was a reminder that in my lifetime, we have made progress my parents and grandparents could barely have imagined. Through acts of courage large and small, Americans have chosen unity over division.

And besides, the Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby surrounded by Federal Marshals is now “on display outside the Oval Office!” {Gasp!}

People like Ruby “inspire the President,” Jarrett tells us. And Jarrett is inspired because after Obama’s speech last Monday

thousands upon thousands of citizens answered the president’s call, and proudly voiced their support for a balanced approach – not just to our deficits, but to our politics as a whole.

But they didn’t get a “balanced approach.” They got cuts to programs that affect the most needy Americans as well as the middle class and no increases in revenues. So what is Jarrett’s point here? Does she really believe this garbage? Does she expect people to read this article and not laugh at her? Is the woman really as simple-minded as she seems?

I’m not sure what Valerie Jarrett actually does in her job. My impression is that she is a highly paid “friend” who hangs around with Obama and flatters him. But perhaps “public engagement” in her job title translates to “propaganda minister?” If so, she’s not very good at her job. A child could see through her facile lies.

Thursday Reads: A Poverty Tour, Confidence Fairies, A-Rod, D.B. Cooper, and Wingnut Censors

Posted: August 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Crime, Democratic Politics, poverty, religion, Republican politics, Surreality, Team Obama, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

Good Morning!! Let me get a sip of my breakfast tea, and then I’ll share what I found in the news today.

After doing his level best to wreck the U.S. economy, President Obama headed to Chicago to celebrate his birthday and rake in some campaign donations.

Taking a brief hometown respite Wednesday night, President Barack Obama used a 50th birthday bash in Uptown to raise re-election money from a friendly crowd as he sought to recharge a presidency showing signs of scars from Washington’s partisan battles.

The president told supporters at the Aragon Entertainment Center that the nation doesn’t have time to “play these partisan games.”

“I hope we can avoid another self-inflicted wound like we saw over the last couple weeks,” Obama said of the recent debt-ceiling gridlock.

Although Obama doesn’t turn 50 until Thursday, his visit symbolized presidentially and politically a need to turn the corner following weeks of bruising debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling and cutting the country’s deficit.

Awww, poor guy. Screwing the poor, the elderly, baby boomers, and the working- and middle-classes must be really exhausting.

Meanwhile, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are heading up a “poverty tour”

to highlight what they see as deficiencies in the Obama’s administration and to force the president and Congress to pay more attention to poor people who have been hit hardest by the recession.

Smiley called the legislation, signed by the president, “a declaration of war on the poor.”

“I don’t understand how the president could agree to a deal that does not extend unemployment benefits, does not close a single corporate loophole and doesn’t raise the taxes on the rich,” said Smiley. “The poor are being rendered more and more invisible in this country. Nobody, not the president, not the Republicans in Congress, is speaking to the truth of the suffering of everyday people.”

Paul Krugman was on Keith Olbermann’s show last night. I keep forgetting to watch that! Krugman discussed a number of things related to the debt ceiling bill, including Newt Gingrich’s remark that the Obama’s is “the Krugman Presidency.” It is to laugh!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Today, Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney said there won’t be a double-dip recession and the economy is going to grow.

He blamed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, higher energy prices, default worries in Europe and recently resolved uncertainty over raising America’s borrowing limit. Carney said, “We believe the economy will continue to grow.”

Al-righty then! I guess we have nothing to worry about.

At his blog, Krugman responded that “hope is not a plan.”

Of course there’s a threat. Larry Summers puts the odds at one in three; I might be slightly more optimistic, but the risk is very real. Who, exactly, is at the White House who knows better?

And think about the politics here. For two years the White House has been determinedly cheerful, always declaring that the recovery was on track, that its policies were working fine. And all it did was squander its credibility. Maybe admitting the truth, saying that in fact we hadn’t done nearly enough, would not have helped get useful legislation through Congress. But at least it would have conveyed the message that the WH was living in the same reality as ordinary workers.

Now they’re doing it again. To what purpose? Do they think the markets will be reassured? Do they think consumers will be reassured? At this point, after the “summer of recovery” came and went a whole year ago?

Apparently, that is what they think. Via Digby, Tim Geithner, who seems to be the person Obama listens to most on economic issues, strongly believes in the “confidence fairy.” He must also be the source of Jay Carney’s belief that we won’t have another recession, because that’s what Geithner told George Stepanopoulos a couple of days ago.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But don’t you think that any deficit reduction now will — will hurt the attempts of the economy to recover?

TIM GEITHNER: You know, I think the — basic reality we live with and, you know, part of governing is recognize we live with — we don’t have unlimited resources, and we inherited and are left with unsustainable deficits long term. And the president understands that for the sake of the economy long-term it’s very important we demonstrate to the American people, to people around the world that we can get our arms around this and start go back to living’ within our means.

Now, we want to do that very carefully so we create room for the economy to grow and we have the resources necessary to invest in things that are going to be very important to the future like education, like infrastructure, like incentives for private investment. And to do that, it is absolutely essential to lock in these long term savings. Now — the president was very strong on this and made sure that we were not going to accept spending cuts that would damage the prospects for near term recovery. Now, with this behind us, and we get this —

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So this won’t cost us jobs?

TIM GEITHNER: No, it will not. Now … if we put this behind us then we can turn back to the important challenge of trying to find ways to make sure that we do everything we can to get more people back to work, strengthen our growth. And we’ll have more ability to do that now with people more confident and we can start to get our arms around the long-term problems.

WTF?! Is this guy for real? As Krugman said, “hope is not a plan,” but they don’t seem to have anything else.

At The Nation, George Zornick asks a very good question: Is it time to downgrade the ratings agencies?

…by almost all accounts inside the beltway, a downgrade in the federal government’s credit rating would be catastrophic. But a closer look at who issues these ratings, how they do it, and the real-world impact of these ratings tells a different story.

The first clue that these ratings might not be highly calibrated, serious indicators of creditworthiness can be found in the 2008 economic collapse. The financial products created by Wall Street that were full of toxic mortgage securities were all blessed with gold-star ratings as safe investments from the country’s three main credit ratings agencies, Moody’s, Fitch and Standard and Poor’s.

These products were so awful as to destroy Lehman Brothers, threaten many other trading firms, and plunge the economy into recession, but the ratings agencies consistently told investors they were safe. As William Greider has noted here, this essentially made the rating agencies “unindicted co-conspirators” in the collapse.

Were these agencies just bad at their jobs? Maybe, but Greider offers another more sinister theory: since the banks pay the rating agencies to examine their financial products, a harmful rating would persuade the banks to just shop elsewhere for a more favorable outcome. “This is an outrageous conflict of interest at the very heart of the financial system,” Greider writes.

Overpaid New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez is in trouble again, this time for illegal gambling. Baseball officials opened an investigation after

Star Magazine reported that Rodriguez “played in an underground, illegal poker game where cocaine was openly used, and even organized his own high-stakes game, which ended with thugs threatening players.”

Under the rules that govern baseball players, Rodriguez will have to truthfully answer baseball’s questions. If he acknowledges that he played in underground games or if officials uncover evidence that he did so, he could face a suspension.

The report Wednesday came a month after Major League Baseball opened its own investigation into Rodriguez’s ties to gambling. The investigation was prompted by a Star Magazine report in June that said Rodriguez had participated in a high-stakes illegal poker game with the actors Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

Hmmm…he was playing with Red Sox fans Affleck and Damon. I wonder who talked to Star Mag? I also learned on Google that A-Rod is dating actress Cameron Diaz. Boy is she making a big mistake.

Here’s an update on the D.B Cooper story I wrote about in the Tuesday Reads: My uncle was D.B. Cooper, Oklahoma woman claims It sounds crazy, but apparently the FBI believe this woman’s story.

To Marla Cooper of Oklahoma, her uncle was D.B. Cooper — except she knew him as Uncle L.D. She believes he died in 1999.

“I saw my uncle plotting a scheme,” Cooper told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin of what she said she remembers witnessing as an eight-year-old girl four decades ago.

Cooper said she was with two uncles at her grandma’s house around Thanksgiving time.

“I was with them while they were plotting it. I didn’t really know what was going on,” Cooper said. “Afterwards on Thanksgiving Day, I saw them return and I heard them discussing what they had done with my father. I have very vivid memories of it.”

Her claim might be cause for healthy speculation, especially 40 years after the fact, but two sources close to the investigation have told CNN that Marla Cooper’s tip led to the FBI reviving the case and for the past year the agency has been actively working the lead.

She says her uncle returned home badly injured and was treated at a VA hospital. Then he disappeared and she never saw him again. Her family made her swear she would never talk about what had happened.

Finally, from Think Progress, here’s an update from the annals of wingnut craziness: MO High School Bans ‘SlaughterHouse Five’ From Curriculum, Library Because Its Principles Are Contrary To The Bible

On Monday at the Republic, MO school board meeting, four Republic School Board members reviewed a year-old complaint that three books are inappropriate reading material for high school children. In a 4-0 vote, the members decided to ax two of the three books from the high school curriculum and the library shelves: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was spared. The resident who filed the original complaint targeted these three books because “they teach principles contrary to the Bible”

Wesley Scroggins, a Republic resident, challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible.

“I congratulate them for doing what’s right and removing the two books,” said Scroggins, who didn’t attend the board meeting. “It’s unfortunate they chose to keep the other book.”

Horrors! Contrary to the Bible? We can’t have that! You know, sometimes I’m very grateful to live in a relatively civilized place like Boston. This is one of those times.

On that note, I’m going to get another cup of tea and then check out what you all are reading and blogging about. Please post your links in the comments.

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