I got a fair amount of blowback on twitter the other night for retweeting Ta-Nehisi Coates’ observation that it was good to see skepticism of prosecutors in the wake of the Zimmerman arrest, but that he wished it would happen all the time. Twitter is a very imperfect medium, so people may have misunderstood the point, which is that skepticism of prosecutors is always a good idea. It doesn’t mean they are all corrupt or inept (or that George Zimmerman shouldn’t be punished) it’s simply that they have great power over individual’s lives and the law requires them to prove their case. Unfortunately, they sometimes takes shortcuts. And when they do it, lives are ruined and sometimes lost because of it:
Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.
Officials started reviewing the cases in the 1990s after reports that sloppy work by examiners at the FBI lab was producing unreliable forensic evidence in court trials. Instead of releasing those findings, they made them available only to the prosecutors in the affected cases, according to documents and interviews with dozens of officials.
In addition, the Justice Department reviewed only a limited number of cases and focused on the work of one scientist at the FBI lab, despite warnings that problems were far more widespread and could affect potentially thousands of cases in federal, state and local courts.
As a result, hundreds of defendants nationwide remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration, a retrial or a retesting of evidence using DNA because FBI hair and fiber experts may have misidentified them as suspects.
In one Texas case, Benjamin Herbert Boyle was executed in 1997, more than a year after the Justice Department began its review. Boyle would not have been eligible for the death penalty without the FBI’s flawed work, according to a prosecutor’s memo.
Read the whole thing. It’s an absolute horror story. And the problem isn’t isolated to a few errant DA offices. It’s systemic. As is the cover-up.
Even if you don’t agree with me that capital punishment is immoral, I can’t understand how anyone could think a system with these flaws can be entrusted with it. Aside from the obvious possibility of human error you have a system in which it’s imperative that prosecutors, unlike defense attorneys, serve two clients — the people and justice. Far too often they forget the second one.
I didn’t realize we’d passed equal pay day on April 12th. That’s the day when women officially caught up to what men earned in 2010. Huzzah.
My corporate ladder climbing days are behind me (thank goodness) and I’ve resigned myself to being poor — and free. But there was a time when I fought this good fight every day. And it was intensely frustrating. I had hoped it would be over by the time I reached this point in life — it seemed as though we should only have to turn over the old grand patriarchs to do it. But it hasn’t been that easy.
However, there are some good tips out there for younger women from those who’ve been around the corporate block. Here’s a great list from Ann Friedman. I’ll just give you a taste of a couple of them that really hit home for me:
Be sure to negotiate.How will you earn more money if youdon’t ask for it?
But don’t negotiate too hard, lest you be seen as a total harpy. “People found that to be way too aggressive,” economist Linda Babcock told NPR in February. “She was successful in getting the money, but people did not like her. They thought she was too demanding. And this can have real consequences for a woman’s career.”Be more cutthroat. The working world rewards go-getters and alphas, and nice gals finish last. Toughen up and maybe you’ll get that corner office!But don’t, like, be a ball-busting bitch once you get there. Studies have shown that employees, both male and female, are wary of working for high-achieving women. And since only 20 percent of professional leaders are women, you’ve got to represent your whole gender. Do us all a favor and don’t make all of your employees hate you.
Get comfortable on the golf course. Know your way around a humidor. Suggest a post-work happy hour at the local strip club. The real deals all happen outside the workplace, you know.But don’t be too uptight about it when those outside-the-workplace meetings happen in places that still explicitly ban you.
Also be sure to work harder than any man, but be careful that nobody sees you as toiling too much lest you be categorized as a “worker bee” and consigned to middle management.
And never, ever, complain about how few women are in executive positions or in any other way indicate that you see the inequities to which you are subjected. That means you aren’t one of the boys. But then, of course, you’re not.
This is a big one, folks. You might want to pop over to C&L at 11 pst to see the fireworks. We’ve got a true blue progressive up against a conservative, anti-choice Democrat and it’s a pitched battle. Here’s Howie:
Trevor Thomas is running for Congress in west Michigan’s 3rd CD, which is mostly based in Grand Rapids and Battle Creek and has traditionally been a mainstream type of district. Before the House seat was captured last year by radical right teabagger Justin Amash it had been moderate Republican Vern Ehler’s district. Long before that it has been represented by Arthur Vandenberg and, later, Jerry Ford. Amash is a bad fit for the district. But before Trevor can face him, he has to win the Democratic primary against a virulently anti-Choice, self-funding multimillionaire, Steve Pestka. Pestka will be just another hackish social conservative helping the GOP in their wars against everyone. While in the state legislature, for example, Pestka voted with the GOP to defund Planned Parenthood— same stand as Amash. Trevor, of course, is a 100% pro-Choice candidate, like every Blue America-backed candidate. Today at 11am (PT)–2pm ET– Blue America will be spending some time online with Trevor at Crooks and Liars. If you can, please join us for a question and answer session.
“I’m the only candidate in this race who is pro-woman and pro-choice,” he told us last week. “Just look at the record. My opponents have both voted to undermine a woman’s right to choose and eliminate critical health services. I would expect that from a tea-party favorite like Rep. Amash, but a Democrat? Clearly there are folks supporting him who aren’t comfortable with me raising this as a major issue, but we’re not going to back down. There’s too much at stake in this election for women, and I am the only one who will fight for the issues that matter most to them and their families.”
Trevor learned something important– probably many things– when he was working for Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. She was running against billionaire Grand Rapids powerhouse Dick DeVos but even being outspent by $27 million, she beat him decisively. “Michigan voters, Trevor told me, “cannot be bought.” Good to know– but he also learned how to make dollars stretch a long way and how to leverage grassroots support against a campaign bloated with money from corporations and the one-percent. And he’ll need to use those lessons in his own race– in both the primary and general as he faces off against two consecutive wealthy self-funders.
Gov. Granholm and Lt. Governor John Cherry are both campaigning for Trevor. They know him– and they know Pestka.
“From day one Trevor has been a fighter for fairness and opportunity,” said former Governor Jennifer M. Granholm. “From the newsroom to the halls of Congress, Trevor has the experience and passion to get results on the issues critical to Michigan families. This is a campaign of inclusion that will stand up and represent all the voices of West Michigan and I am proud to support and be a part of it.”
[A] serious question: Who does the DCCC back in the Michigan 3rd CD race?
Steve Pestka, who voted to defund Planned Parenthood when he was in the Michigan House, or Trevor Thomas, an actual pro-woman Democrat
Context — Obama’s White House is in the process of trying (and failing) to damp down the firestorm from the gay community about Obama’s pointed refusal to grant the same protection against same-sex–preference bias as it routinely grants to other biases.
Simultaneously, national Democrats are taking the “Republican War against Women” meme and, at least until Rosen-gate, wrapping themselves tight in it — making it their unique selling point (product identifier) in the 2012 election.
Something doesn’t add up.
Is the national Democratic “we support women” message sincere? If so, they should disavow anti-woman Steve Pestka now and actively work to make Trevor Thomas the nominee.
Or is the “we support women” just a convenient … untruth, told to sell an appearance only?
If Pestka is the nominee, the DCCC will be using “War on Women” money to finance Planned Parenthood–defunder Steve Pestka’s House race.
That’s a problem, if you gave to the DCCC to fund its defense of women. Only the DCCC can clear this air.
This isn’t the only race this is happening. If anti-choice Blue Dog Tim Holden — to whom Debbie Wasserman Shultz donated $2,000 by the way — wins his primary, the DCCC will be spending the money you donated to fight the War on Women to help a man who is virulently anti-choice.
Trevor is fighting the good fight and he has the backing o9f the most popular Democrat in the state, former Governor Jennifer Granholm. She didn’t have to endorse — it’s a primary and even friends get a pass if they want to take. I think she means it.
David Frizzell, Indiana State Representative and 2012 National Chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), issued the following statement today on behalf of ALEC’s Legislative Board of Directors:
“Today we are redoubling our efforts on the economic front, a priority that has been the hallmark of our organization for decades. Fostering the exchange of pro-growth, solutions-oriented ideas is precisely why ALEC exists.
“To that end, our legislative board last week unanimously agreed to further our work on policies that will help spur innovation and competitiveness across the country.
“We are refocusing our commitment to free-market, limited government and pro-growth principles, and have made changes internally to reflect this renewed focus.
“We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic issues, and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus on the economy. The remaining budgetary and economic issues will be reassigned.
“While we recognize there are other critical, non-economic issues that are vitally important to millions of Americans, we believe we must concentrate on initiatives that spur competitiveness and innovation and put more Americans back to work.
“Our free-market, limited government, pro-growth policies are the reason ALEC enjoys the support of legislators on both sides of the aisle and in all 50 states. ALEC members are interested in solutions that put the American economy back on track. This is our mission, and it is what distinguishes us.”
It would appear that unmasking ALEC as a one stop shop for wingnut extremism wasn’t all that popular. Losing major institutions every single day due to customer complaints and boycotts was taking its toll.
It’s a big deal since ALEC was founded not for the purpose of economic issues at all, but rather to advance an ideological agenda:
ALEC was co-founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich who also helped found other conservative organizations in the 1970s and 1980s including the Heritage Foundation, the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, the Moral Majority and the Council for National Policy. Henry Hyde, who later became a U.S. Congressman, and Lou Barnett, who later became National Political Director of Ronald Reagan’s Political Action Committee, also helped to found ALEC. Early members included a number of state and local politicians who went on to statewide or national office such as Bob Kasten and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin; John Engler of Michigan; Terry Branstad of Iowa, and John Kasich of Ohio.Several members of the U.S. Congress were also involved in the organization during its early years, including Sen. John Buckley and Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Rep. Phil Crane of Illinois
If anyone trusts a group that’s founded by those guys, I have some fabulous Riverside condos to sell them.
Clearly, all the people who have been pressuring ALEC over the past couple of years should stay on the case. Even if they do confine themselves to “economic” issues, the right wingers have an interesting way of making everything an economic issue (freedom!) — its economic philosophy makes Ayn Rand look like Angela Davis.
Obviously, being caught with their little white slip showing was a problem. But that won’t stop them from their nefarious mission. How else are all these social conservative robots who populate the state houses all over the country going to know what they’re supposed to vote for?
Still, a good day and a big victory for those who’ve been putting the pressure on. Not that it’s any consolation for such a hideous loss, but Travon Martin’s tragic, unnecessary death may have saved lives in the long run.
The right to bear arms comes from our creator, not our government,” Gingrich said. The NRA “has been too timid” in promoting its agenda beyond American borders. The Bill of Rights was not written only for Americans, he said. “It is a universal document.”
“A Gingrich presidency will submit to the UN a treaty that extends the right to bear arms as a human right to every person on the planet.” Every world citizen, he said, “deserves the right to defend themselves from those who exploit, imprison, or kill them.” For his latest big idea, Gingrich earned a standing ovation from the crowd of roughly 5,000.
“We don’t need to go across the planet trying to impose American values, but we do need to go across the planet spreading human values,” Gingrich said. “The Second Amendment is a right for all mankind.”
One could point out to Mr. Gingrich that many nations whose people are exquisitely well armed are still ruled by dictators (they tend to have tanks, airplanes, and training that regular old people don’t have), or that said countries often have coups and factional citizen militias leading to civil wars. Or one could point out it’s bizarre to suggest that gun ownership be a universal right at the expense of, say, healthcare. Or to suggest that implementing such an idea would require subsidies far in excess of the foreign food aid so despised by the Republican base.
But that would be too easy, and lead to ideological warfare. No, let’s roll with Mr. Gingrich on this, and simply extend his logic.
You see, for Mr. Gingrich and his approving NRA audience, the Declaration of Independence declares that God, not government, grants human rights, including life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. So far so good. Mr. Gingrich and the NRA take the logical leap from there to argue that the Bill of Rights, written largely by the same group as wrote the Declaration, also constitute a list of God-given rights, among which is the right to bear arms. OK.
So using that logic, what other rights might we say are universal, God-given human rights, not just those granted to American citizens via the government of the United States of America? Well, there’s this one:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In which case, Newt Gingrich would presumably arm the citizens of Rome to free themselves from the imposed religious tyranny of the Vatican. Or maybe this one:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
If Newt Gingrich and the NRA firmly believe that the Fifth Amendment is a God-given right to all mankind, then the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are also guaranteed the same due process and immediate trial. And since they haven’t been charged with any crime as of yet, they should also presumably be given guns per their God-given 2nd Amendment rights. Or maybe this one:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Was a warrant issued for Saddam Hussein’s arrest? Fidel Castro’s? Salvador Allende’s? Mossadegh’s? What was the probable cause? Because if the Fourth Amendment is a God-given universal human right rather than a government-granted freedom, the right wing and its supporters obviously have some explaining to do. Or this:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Again, clearly the universal rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees are being abused, since these rights don’t just apply to citizens of the United States. They’re universal. Also, the juries should be made up of fellow Aghans since these universal human laws demand that a jury be selected from among the people in the districts in which the crimes shall have been committed. Newt Gingrich, I expect swift action on this. Or maybe this:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Now this is interesting. Since the Bill of Rights is a universal, God-given document that applies the world over, clearly it doesn’t infringe on other rights already in existence. In many countries, that includes the right to universal healthcare. Which means that the French have more God-given rights than Americans do? I’m confused. But I’m sure Professor Newt and the geniuses at the NRA can clear that up quickly.
Also, if 2/3 of the states vote to alter any provision of the Bill of Rights, would that be akin to rewriting the Bible itself?
Perhaps Newt Gingrich and the NRA might want to walk this one back and concede that maybe, just maybe, the American Bill of Rights is a construct of the American government, driven by the laws of an imperfect society that strives imperfectly to be as decent to one another as human beings can be.
Nah. Blanket hypocrisy and nonsensical stupidity are much easier.
Predictably,the foreign wingnuts are atwitter about Hillary’s dancing picture. If all goes according to the usual plan, the domestic wingnuts will soon be on the case:
Is Hillary Clinton becoming an embarrassment as Secretary of State?
The overwhelmingly liberal US media is treating the story as a bit of fun, with the usually austere Mrs Clinton seen as letting her hair down. But I suspect that a lot of US taxpayers will see it differently – as a senior government official having a jolly time on an official overseas junket at taxpayers’ expense. And this was hardly a display of good judgment at a time when nearly 13 million Americans are unemployed, and US soldiers are laying their lives on the line every day in Afghanistan. In an effortless display of leading from behind, Hillary was partying in Colombia while the Taliban were about to launch a wave of terror attacks in Kabul.
It is hard to imagine Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright or Henry Kissinger “livin’ la vida loca” on the world stage. This was less an example of “smart power” than a boozy nightclub audition for the sixth season of Jersey Shore. Hillary Clinton’s Colombian antics are an embarrassment for a high-level cabinet member on official duty, and have lowered the office of Secretary of State. Not exactly the sort of image the federal government should be projecting at a time of widespread public disillusionment with Washington excesses.
Yes, you may have been under the impression that right wingers consider Hillary to be a frigid, unfeeling schoolmarm but that was then and this is now. It’s only a matter of time before they have her jumping out of the cake at the secret service sex parties.
And by the way, it’s not at all hard to imagine other world leaders “livin’ la vida loca” on the world stage. How about this:
or this:
US Secretary of State Colin Powell performs a version of the Village People disco hit song ‘YMCA’ at the conclusion of Asia’s largest security meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Friday July 2, 2004. Powell took to the stage, dressed as a construction worker Friday, with other unidentified US diplomats to deliver their rendition of the 1970’s hit song to an audience of Asia Security meeting delegates.
And here’s the triple threat — Laura, Condi and Junior in Brazil:
Let’s just say that dancing in public is an occupational hazard for diplomats and politicians. And I guess we all have a different embarrassment threshold. I’m a little bit more troubled by saber rattling and lying about WMD, but YMMV.
You have to admit that Powell has some good moves.
Following up on my post below about the danger of a lame duck deficit deal, here’s Krugman from this morning:
Just a few months ago I was feeling some hope about Europe. You may recall that late last fall Europe appeared to be on the verge of financial meltdown; but the European Central Bank, Europe’s counterpart to the Fed, came to the Continent’s rescue. It offered Europe’s banks open-ended credit lines as long as they put up the bonds of European governments as collateral; this directly supported the banks and indirectly supported the governments, and put an end to the panic.
The question then was whether this brave and effective action would be the start of a broader rethink, whether European leaders would use the breathing space the bank had created to reconsider the policies that brought matters to a head in the first place.
But they didn’t. Instead, they doubled down on their failed policies and ideas. And it’s getting harder and harder to believe that anything will get them to change course.
Consider the state of affairs in Spain, which is now the epicenter of the crisis. Never mind talk of recession; Spain is in full-on depression, with the overall unemployment rate at 23.6 percent, comparable to America at the depths of the Great Depression, and the youth unemployment rate over 50 percent. This can’t go on — and the realization that it can’t go on is what is sending Spanish borrowing costs ever higher.
In a way, it doesn’t really matter how Spain got to this point — but for what it’s worth, the Spanish story bears no resemblance to the morality tales so popular among European officials, especially in Germany. Spain wasn’t fiscally profligate — on the eve of the crisis it had low debt and a budget surplus. Unfortunately, it also had an enormous housing bubble, a bubble made possible in large part by huge loans from German banks to their Spanish counterparts. When the bubble burst, the Spanish economy was left high and dry; Spain’s fiscal problems are a consequence of its depression, not its cause.
Nonetheless, the prescription coming from Berlin and Frankfurt is, you guessed it, even more fiscal austerity.
This is, not to mince words, just insane.
Well, it’s only insane if you don’t know that you’ll survive with your millions intact no matter what happens. Like Krugman, I just keep going back to this guy:
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate .… It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”
Obviously a fair number of elites believe this is true today. On both sides of the Atlantic. Here, we call it “shared sacrifice.” There, they call it austerity. It all amounts to the same thing: a prescription for average citizens to accept a lower standard of living and a less secure life in order that the “producers” continue to reap huge profits.
Lloyd Blankfein wasn’t joking when he said he was doing God’s Work. What they fail to make clear is that they are calling for human sacrifices.
It’s common knowledge that the Obama Administration has sent the right wing into an apoplectic tizzy. Many people have written why that might be the case; I’ve written a few pieces myself attributing it to a vision of demographic decline.
Nugent called President Obama a criminal and denounced his “vile, evil America-hating administration” which is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.” Taking it a step further, he said that “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” “If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done,” he continued.
Supreme Court justices also came under assault by Nugent, who claims that the court’s more liberal members have signed a declaration against Americans’ right to self-defense…
Nugent concluded with a call to cut off the heads of Democrats in November: “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions?”
A lot of people will read this and clutch their pearls at Nugent’s apocalyptic and violent rhetoric. But that’s not what bothers me. One didn’t see nearly as much of it on the left as one sees on the right today, nor from remotely as mainstream a source of Republican support as Nugent. But during the Bush Administration I heard some pretty heated and forceful rhetoric from a lot of people on the left. Nor am I one to fault anyone of any political persuasion for making a passionate appeal.
But what I don’t understand is what has Nugent and his pals so riled up. The Obama Administration’s great liberal achievement was implementing the Heritage Foundation’s anti-Hillarycare healthcare plan. The Administration hasn’t proposed or implemented any serious gun control laws, and has in fact been extremely measured even in the face of the obvious problems caused by “stand your ground” laws. The Administration has been famously and erroneously attentive to deficit concerns. It has been fairly aggressive in its foreign policy, enough to cause some major rifts on the left and libertarian fronts. There have been no major scandals to latch onto. It hasn’t exactly been hostile to the interests of Wall Street or energy developers. It hasn’t pushed an immigration reform package. There’s just no reason for the wingers to be this freaked out.
During the Bush Administration, the Left had plenty of cause for alarm for myriad reasons. The Bush Administration engaged in two wars, one of which had no justification or rationale whatsoever not based in lies. It illegally outed CIA agents who conflicted with its deliberate lies to go to war. It passed huge, crippling tax cuts for the rich. It gutted environmental protections. It tried to privatize social security. It massively curtailed civil liberties, and corrupted and politicized every agency it dealt with, from the Justice Department to the EPA. And, of course, it crashed the economy while bailing out the richest Americans with few strings attached. The Left had every reason to be sounding an apocalyptic alarm, and rightly so. Insofar as President Obama has not addressed or tried to fix any of the problems the Bush Administration created, various sections of the left have remained legitimately upset (though I would argue that some issues are more the fault of Congress than of the President.)
But what is Nugent’s problem, exactly? What are the issues, beyond a generic sense of loss of identity and aggrievement, are driving a guy like him to feel this strongly? It’s clearly not anything substantive, but something deeper seated, something cultural, and something profoundly personal that doesn’t express itself in terms of actual legislative issues. As I mentioned before, I have my theories, but even they’re unsatisfactory. One of the reason that the Right gets tagged so often as racists, in addition to all the more obvious evidence, is that their overreaction to the Obama presidency doesn’t seem to have much in the way of more credible explanations.
Whatever is wrong with Nugent and his friends, though, one thing is clear: there is nothing President Obama or national Democrats can do to appease them. So they might as well stop trying.
Is there no one in America who can stop this zombie Judd Gregg is so in love with?
There is a great deal of discussion about how, after this November’s election, there will occur in December the Mother of All Lame-Duck sessions by Congress. There is considerable legitimacy to this expectation. […] Two major events will occur at the beginning of 2013 with consequences that may force Congress to act.
First is the sequester imposed by the budget deal that led to raising the debt ceiling last year which will force a cut of approximately $500 billion to $600 billion over the next 10 years in defense spending on top of the already significant cuts put in place from last summer. This is coupled with a significant further sequester on non-defense discretionary spending. Almost everyone realizes that with soldiers in the field, the defense cuts forced by the sequester would be dangerous and inappropriate.
Second, the Bush tax rates are scheduled to expire, which would cause a tax increase affecting all Americans who are productive to the tune of between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.
These two events, if allowed to go forward as proposed, would bludgeon the economic recovery and almost assure a relapse of the economy into some level of contraction, possibly even a renewed recession.
While the debt reduction that would result from these spending cuts and tax increases is needed to reduce our disastrous debt course, the manner in which they will occur will be counterproductive and would actually aggravate, to a large degree, the long-term debt problem by slowing economic growth.
Right. The deficit would be closed by allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire. In other words it would take our tax rates back to where they were in 2002. Which I would think politicians in both parties could be thrilled about because they could then go on a frenzy of new tax cuts for the middle class and be big heroes. And O suppose they would do just that if it didn’t disturb the corporate masters. For good reason they fear that in the end they might be forced to spend what amount to tip money in higher taxes and they aren’t taking any chances. Indeed, they are insisting that they pay less.
And anyway, where’s the fun in any of this if they can’t force average working Americans to sacrifice what little security they have in life:
The only viable, bipartisan vehicle that has been put forward to produce such an orderly reduction in our debt is the plan offered by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget does a great deal, but it is partisan and therefore not legislatively viable. President Obama has proposed a few ideas, but they are also partisan and not viable.
Gee, I wonder which plan Judd Gregg proposes?
The Simpson-Bowles commission should reconvene before the crush of the lame- duck session. It should start where it left off with the fiscal menu it put on the table to cut $4 trillion from the debt over 10 years.
It should, however, be ready to expand beyond its original proposal, incorporating ideas from the president and Ryan, and adjust and update the original proposal. It should prepare a template that will give this lame-duck session, on which political pressure will be intense, an opportunity to act outside the partisan boxes that will frustrate serious action.
Very Serious Action. And I think you know what that means.
As I have been saying for months, pray for gridlock. Any plans along these lines are lethal for average Americans. (And keep in mind that Judd Gregg was President Obama’s original choice for commerce secretary…)
Update: In case anyone’s mistaking Gregg for an honest broker, recall this. He’s a full blown deficit hysteric.
Mitt can try to run away from these people but he won’t be able to do it. Social conservatives are absolutely necessary to any GOP candidate.
The far right is the tail that wags the Republican dog and they proved that they are no longer content to be good soldiers during the budget negotiations. They don’t give a damn if the entire country blows up, they will have their way. There is no reason to believe that they will stay home in November even if it means the Commie Kenyan usurper has another term and he takes the country all the way to perdition. You see, they are assured of their own righteousness — and they just don’t give a damn about anyone else. Mitt’s got his hands full.
To be perfectly honest, I think the entire GOP knows that Mitt’s unlikely to win. It’s hard to unseat an incumbent president and Obama’s numbers have held up remarkably well considering how terrible the economy has been. No, I think they know this one’s a loser — and they are setting themselves up as the one true King-maker for 2016. Mitt will have lost, you see, because he wasn’t conservative enough. They never are. As always, conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed.
