Live Blog: SOTU 2011

Posted: January 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Surreality, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 106 Comments

Just how bad will it be? Document the atrocities as you watch and/or listen to the State of the Union Address tonight. I don’t know how much of it I can stand to watch–I may check in and out.

The one thing that has me slightly interested is watching Boehner’s reactions. Will he burst into tears? That would be fun. You can watch the live stream of C-span’s coverage of the SOTU here, beginning at 8PM.

At least someone talked some sense into our Reagan-adoring President. He’s decided not to call for cuts in Social Security and Medicare–not that that will stop him from approving them. But it must have dawned on him that he might need at least a few middle class and elderly votes to get reelection next year.

But there is plenty of stupid in the speech according to multiple advance reports. Remember the dopey “nonsecurity” spending freeze Obama proposed awhile back? Well he still wants a freeze, only now he’s going to make it for five years instead of just three. {sigh….}

At Open Left, Paul Rosenberg reacts:

He may not be ready to gut Social Security just yet, but he has definitively jettisoned 70 years of economic history. Government no longer steps in to spend money when consumer demand fails. Instead, government works hard to make matters even worse. With state and local budgets once again being cut across the country, there will clearly be net decreases in government spending as far as the eye can see. Herbert Hoover would be so proud!

[….]

Why has 70 years of macro-economic history and understanding been tossed out the window, in favor of returning to the darkness of pre-macro ignorance? This is a variant of the question that Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman have been asking in anguish for many moons now. Why has a rage to punish the poor, and even the middle class completely taken over and displaced the commonsense interest in preserving the basic stability of the economy through as quick a recovery as possible?

I don’t know….because he’s stupid? Or maybe just evil? Whatever the reason, we’re headed for more hard times.

At FDL, David Dayen writes about The Triumph of Austerity and the Abandoning of the Unemployed

An economy with 9.4% topline unemployment is sick. This is not a time to deal with a sick patient by planning a regimen for diet and exercise five years from now. The patient needs immediate help, and he’s not even going to hear soothing words to that effect from anyone in the political class, let alone get the medicine needed.

In the process, this pre-emptive bow to the austerity hysterics, at least in the short term, may be good for poll numbers but terrible for the long-term economy.

Let’s face it. This man couldn’t care less about Americans being out of work, losing their homes, and falling into poverty.

What can we do to make this bearable? Let’s look for little bits of humor and/or surreality. If you have ideas for drinking games, feel free to propose them (I don’t drink, but don’t mind a contact high).

Once the speech is over, there could be some laughs in the Republican responses. Crazy-ass Ayn Rand fan Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) is giving the official response. MSNBC has a preview. Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, one of the people to blame for the horrendous Obama presidency, has a few things to say about Ryan.

Ryan is an Ayn Rand-quoting zealot, one of the Republican Party’s self-styled “Young Guns.” He’s spent his adult life inside the Beltway, on the political right, with no experience in the world of business, labor, the executive branch or the private sector. Incubated in a right-wing think tank, writing speeches for Jack Kemp and William Bennett, he was elected to Congress at age 28. Ryan became the most loyal of loyal foot soldiers in the Congress presided over by Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert, a fact Ryan now glosses over as he describes those Congresses as “corrupt.”

Ryan has been dubbed a Republican “thinker” by national reporters desperate to find someone they can praise in a party that was extreme before the Tea Partyers came to town. But, in fact, his rhetoric is a barely varnished echo of the ravings of Glenn Beck. He accuses Obama of a “treacherous plan,” saying that Democrats have a “hardcore-left agenda,” and claims that Democrats are steering the country “very far left, very fast” – a direction he describes as “completely antithetical to what this country is about.”

This sort of rhetoric, once scorned as sophomoric at best, is now common currency on the Republican right. While Ryan will be careful to avoid such language in the GOP response to the State of the Union, he’ll reveal his ideological zealotry in the policies he will propose.

Most of those policies will come from Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a budget manifesto published last year that The Post’s Ezra Klein aptly described as “nothing short of violent.”

Yep, the guy’s a complete wingnut, but van den Heuval is also permanently discredited as a representative of liberal thought.

And that’s not all, CNN will broadcast an alternative Tea Party response to the SOTU by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota).

{hysterical laughter}

Paul Ryan may be a wingnut, but Bachmann is truly insane. Surely her speech will be good for a few laughs even in these dark times. According to CNN’s Political Ticker,

Her themes tonight will be “making sure Congress is not spending more than its taking in,” “no tax increases” and the importance of “acting within the bounds of the Constitution.”

Hmmm…I never knew that Congress actually handled money.

Greg Sargent provides CNN’s rationalizations for airing Bachmann’s speech.

CNN, which is taking some criticism from both sides for agreeing to air Michele Bachmann’s response to Obama’s speech tonight, sends over a statement justifying the move:

“The Tea Party has become a major force in American politics and within the Republican Party. Hearing the Tea Party’s perspective on the State of the Union is something we believe CNN’s viewers will be interested in hearing and we are happy to include this perspective as one of many in tonight’s coverage.”

Hmmm…I was going to suggest that maybe CNN’s decision to air her speech just might be driven by a desire to curry favor with the Tea Party. This statement doesn’t do much to suggest otherwise.

The Tea Party is now one of two major opposition parties in our three-party system. Who knew?

If only we had smarter politicians and a less embarrassing media! Oh well…let’s make the most of it. I look forward to reading your reactions.

Countdown to SOTU

Posted: January 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Republican presidential politics, SCOTUS, SOTU, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

We’re going to be live blogging the SOTU address to night so be sure to join us.   However, dribs and drabs of SOTU preview are hitting the media channels already.  It’s probably good to do a round up of them before we settle in with our popcorn and disappointment.

ABC’s Jake Tapper is part of the White House entourage. Here’s a list of things he has that will be covered tonight by President Obama.

Pursuing a path of deficit reduction and government reform, President Obama will tonight in his State of the Union address call for a ban on earmarks and he will propose a five year budget freeze on non-security related discretionary spending, ABC News has learned.

The proposals come as the president prepares to tackle the deficit and debt and as he faces a House of Representatives in Republican hands, many of whose members include those affiliated with the Tea Party who may be willing to embrace both moves.

The president will propose some new spending in certain areas that address the speech’s theme of “How We Win the Future”: innovation, education and infrastructure. But those increases will be proposed within the context of a proposed partial budget freeze.

In other words, the President’s State of the Union address will embrace the politically expedient while denying the obvious.  Our country has a severe lack of critical mass of buyers with incomes to support their own discretionary spending.  We also have levels of unacceptable unemployment all over this country which means less taxes and more outlays.  To not specifically address what we know from 70 years of economic theory directly and continue living in a Reagan-like stupor over what really drives things like jobs and GDP growth is just morally reprehensible for any educated person in a leadership position.  Look at that picture up there.  There appears to be a huge group of them.

Earmarks aren’t a huge deal as I’ve showed in post after post on the actual numbers of the budget deficit. They make up less than 1 percent. That’s a political potato chip and no one seems to be able to eat just one. No wonder all the economists left the west wing and have been replaced by investment banker/lawyers. You can only fight an uphill right wing meme so long coming from a Democratic President.

ABC has a SOTU primer up that gives some history and sets some expectations. They believe that POTUS will make hay of the productive lame duck session.

While the election was heated, there has been a move since to tamp down the rhetoric and move toward bipartisan solutions. The lame-duck period after the election was particularly productive as Democrats and a few Republicans passed a number of bills before Republicans took control of the House this month.

Obama will likely point to this period as the way government should work. Obama will likely point to this period as the way government should work. Republicans grumbled at the time that Democrats took advantage of the lame-duck session, passing legislation before Republicans officially took control of the House in January.

If there is a possibility to get some infrastructure spending through at any meaningful level, then I could experience a little sense of relief.  TPM believes that even some key Republicans will go along with that type of spending. Of course, that actually is a bit of an earmark isn’t it?  Doesn’t every congressperson want their share of road funds or that new airport?  How these get chosen and funded might just mean we see more earmarks in reality.  However, any government spending that increases demand and spurs jobs at this point is preferable to none.  I’d even take a few bridges to no where at this point.

One area the Republican party’s anti-spending crusade puts them in a bind is infrastructure spending. Repairing roads and bridges, modernization, etc. have historically been bipartisan priorities — but they’ve also always cost a lot of money.

Ask Republicans whether they want to include transportation infrastructure in their calls for broad spending cuts, and you don’t get a very specific answer.

“We’ve got to learn how to prioritize and do more with less in all areas of government,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor at his weekly press conference today. “It just is what it is. In the terms of transportation, we’ve got to figure out ways how to leverage dollars, how to come up with innovative ways to address the nation’s ailing transportation infrastructure.”

The biggest problem getting these through congress will have to do with the Federal Accounting system as much as anything.  You see, the government doesn’t depreciate or amortize things like battleships and dams.  Expenditures are fully expensed so in terms of the budget deficit, things will get worse in the short term. This means there has to be a cease fire on the ‘size’ of the deficit on these kinds of items.  Their benefits last for years.  They create do create jobs and jobbers.  The problem is they are an upfront cost and we live in a world of political football rhetoric that includes deliberate misunderstanding of economics as well as economics deniers.

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I just learned way more than I ever wanted to know about Michelle Bachmann

Posted: December 30, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Populism, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance | Tags: , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

The first time I ever saw Michelle Bachmann was when, as a brand new Congressperson from Minnesota, she hugged and kissed George W. Bush after the State of the Union Address. She was so affectionate toward him that I almost wondered why the Secret Service guys didn’t pull her off him. Here’s a you tube clip in which she explains the incident.

The reason I was reading up on Bachmann is that I was struck by the story at TPM today about Bachmann’s claim that she used to be a liberal Democrat, but she suddenly became an extreme right wing Republican after reading Gore Vidal’s novel Burr. Here’s the transcript of a Bachmann appearance in Michigan in which she recounts the story of her abrupt conversion.

Michigan is a tough state, but I do believe that Democrats, independents, Republicans, all make up fair-minded, reasonable people. I say that because I grew up in a Democrat state, and I have to share a little secret with you: I was a Democrat when I grew up. Because in Minnesota, they stamp that on your birth certificate! You know that, that’s how it works.

I didn’t realize until I went off to college one day — this is the honest to God truth — I was going off to college, and I was reading this snotty novel. It was written by Gore Vidal, and I was maybe like a junior in college, or — yeah, I think was maybe a junior in college. I was reading this snotty novel, and he was going after our Founders. And he was mocking them. And he was making fun out of them.

I was a reasonable, fair-minded Democrat. And another secret you need to know: My husband and I met in college. We worked on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign. It’s true, it’s true. This is like a 12-step meeting here today, you know that. Because I am here to admit to you, I’m a Minnesotan who had “DFL” – that’s what we call Democrats in our state — stamped on my birth certificate, worked for Jimmy Carter. The first time I ever went to Washington, DC, I went to dance at Jimmy Carter’s inaugural ball! It gets worse!

Until I was reading this snotty novel called ‘Burr,’ by Gore Vidal, and read how he mocked our Founding Fathers. And as a reasonable, decent, fair-minded person who happened to be a Democrat, I thought, ‘You know what? What he’s writing about, this mocking of people that I revere, and the country that I love, and that I would lay my life down to defend — just like every one of you in this room would, and as many of you in this room have when you wore the uniform of this great country — I knew that that was not representative of my country.

And at that point I put the book down and I laughed. I was riding a train. I looked out the window and I said, ‘You know what? I think I must be a Republican. I don’t think I’m a Democrat.’

And from that moment on, I recognized that it was the Republican Party, and conservatives in particular, who really got America — who we are, what we stand for, and are unashamed about the values that the Founders lived and died and shed their blood and their treasure for.

Good Grief! I can see why someone might think Gore Vidal is “snotty” (did she mean “snooty” or maybe “snobby”?) but he isn’t any more so than, say, William F. Buckley was.

At Salon’s War Room, Alex Pareene writes:

In my perhaps unrepresentative experience, Vidal’s historical fiction — especially “Burr” and “Lincoln” — are the only things Vidal ever wrote that conservatives like. (I mean, thank god Michele didn’t pick up “Myra Breckenridge.”) But those are the conservatives who, I guess, are adult enough to read a mostly historically accurate account of the Revolution in which the Founders are portrayed as recognizably human and not become offended that the book is not a literary adaption of the Schoolhouse Rock classic “No More Kings.”

OMG, what would have become of Bachmann if she had read Myra Breckenridge! I hate to even think about it.

Anyway, it turns out that Bachmann has been telling her silly conversion story for years. Pareene dug up several examples. The funniest one is an interview with George Will.

Bachmann, an authentic representative of the Republican base, had quite enough on her plate before politics. She and Marcus, a clinical psychologist, were raising their children — they had four then; they have five now — and, as foster parents, were raising some other people’s children, 23 of them, a few teenagers at a time.

Born in Iowa but a Minnesotan by age 12, Bachmann acquired what she calls “her family’s Hubert Humphrey knee-jerk liberalism.” She and her husband danced at Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. Shortly thereafter, however, she was riding on a train and reading Gore Vidal’s novel “Burr,” which is suffused with that author’s jaundiced view of America. “I set the book down on my lap, looked out the window and thought: ‘That’s not the America I know.’ ” She volunteered for Reagan in 1980.

Bachmann is married to a clinical psychologist? Wow, I’m going to have to take some time to digest that.

Oh wait, I just looked at his academic credentials:

Dr. Marcus Bachmann, president of Bachmann & Associates, has been a clinical therapist in the Twin Cities for more than 18 years. Marcus is a popular conference speaker with practical insights, biblical principles, and humor interwoven in his messages.

I believe my call is to minister to the needs of people in a practical, caring and sensitive way.

Dr. Bachmann received his Masters degree in education/counseling from Regent University located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He received his Doctorate degree in clinical psychology from Union Graduate Institute located in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Are those places even accredited?

Michelle Bachmann: Republicans May Vote Down Tax Cut Bill

Posted: December 6, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: president teleprompter jesus, Surreality | Tags: , , , | 36 Comments

Guess why? From The Hill:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the chairwoman of the House Tea Party Caucus, said Republicans could balk at voting to extend all the tax cuts for two years if it’s tied to a long-term extension of jobless benefits.

“I don’t know that Republicans would necessarily go along with that vote. That would be a very hard vote to take,” Bachmann said on conservative talker Sean Hannity’s radio show on Monday.

Why is that?

“I think we’re back in a conundrum. I think the compromise would be extending the rates for two years and not permanently, but not tying it to massive spending,” she said. “We cannot add on something like a year of unemployment benefits.”

Let’s see now, 750 billion to extend the Bush tax cuts, plus perhaps 250-300 billion for the estate tax cuts, plus 120 billion for the payroll tax cuts plus a few other odd cuts vs. 33 billion to extend unemployment benefits.

Speaking of right wing nuts, Kate O’Beirne says that poor parents whose children need to use the Federal breakfast program are criminals.

Parents of children who participate in school breakfast programs are “criminally negligent,” says the Washington editor of the conservative National Review.

“My question is what poor excuse for a parent can’t rustle up a bowl of cereal and a banana?” O’Beirne asked. “I just don’t get why millions of school children qualify for school breakfasts unless we have a major wide spread problem with child neglect.”

She continued, “If that’s how many parents are incapable of pulling together a bowl of cereal and a banana, then we have problems that are way bigger than — that problem can’t be solved with a school breakfast, because we have parents who are just criminally … criminally negligent with respect to raising children.”

O’Beirne’s comments come even as statistical evidence mounts that more and more Americans are struggling to eke out a living.

I can’t even think of a snarky comment to go with these stories. I’m speechless.

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