Josh Marshall says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 4/3/2009 #4

On the one hand, I can understand the argument of Jake DeSantis, the AIG executive who says he agreed to stay and work for a year in exchange for a big bonus, was repeatedly assured he'd get it, and then was muscled into giving it up after a big popular outcry. 'A deal's a deal' is always a strong argument.

On the other hand, when the public is funding the project, you're just inherently out on a limb when you say: "Okay, I put in my year of work. Where's my $1.5 million?"

When the companies have come to the taxpayer hat in hand, begging for money, at that point you're into the average citizen's moral space, in which it becomes her or his business whether you really deserve that much money -- something that people just don't think is their business as long as you're talking about private corporations making or not making money in whatever way they're able.

For what it's worth, that's the way I think too. As much as I think some exec paychecks are obscene and point to real imbalances in our economy, I'm really leery of limits on pay levels in private companies. To the extent that executives are paid too much, it seems like a broader issue of poor corporate governance, since shareholders shouldn't be willing to pay executives obscenely more than they're worth. But that's sort of the point: shareholders, in practice, exert little real control over this sort of thing. (And I suspect, though I don't know enough about this stuff to know, that that's the case because in the post-1980 stock market, investors are much less concerned about the functioning of the companies -- in a direct sense -- than their ability to drive stock valuations.) But, yeah, when a company would be out of business without taxpayer help? Then we're in your business. Do you really need $15 million as opposed to $2? Is your mortgage that high? Do you have that many kids in school.

Look at the AIG bonus situation as a symptom of everything that is wrong with the GOP and as a perfect example of why they are not only incapable of governing, but cannot even comprehend the idea of a well functioning government.

In the GOP of 2009, it is all ideology ... 100 percent of the time. This means that government has no business interfering in the affairs of a private enterprise ... even if that enterprise is receiving funds from the government. You can see it in their failure to investigate cost overruns, not to mention outright fraud, in Iraqi reconstruction projects. You can see it in their failure to demand accountability from the large arms manufacturers who receive billions in government dollars. Finally, you can see it in the financial firms who have been bailed out. No matter how much money a private enterprise takes from the federal government, they are not to be held accountable. They are not to be held to increased scrutiny. They are not to be regulated.

With today's GOP, there are no practical concerns. It's all about kneeling down to the power of conservatism. They are why we are in this mess, and they remain the largest impediment to getting out of it.

Source - Talking Points Memo

Frank Schaeffer says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 3/20/2009 #1

Today the Republican Party is rooting for doom. And since the Republicans are now anti-American members of an Obama-must-fail insurgency, lies become a self-fulfilling prophecy: talk doom, and keep the economy in a panic and we may get what we wish for.

Don't conservative Republicans object to the lies? No, because the Republicans don't have any actual and traditional conservative followers left. The Republican base is now made up of religious and neoconservative ideologues, and the uneducated white underclass with a token person of color or two up front on TV to obscure the all-white, all reactionary all backward -- there-is-no-global-warming -- rube reality. Actual conservatives, let alone the educated classes, have long since fled.

The Republican religious nuts are rooting for Jesus to "rapture" them, not for America, and the neoconservatives are rooting for war and the Israeli hard liners, not for America. Truth (and sanity) are out the window.

So, what is the problem with lying to our faces, say, claiming that all American's taxes are going up when 95% of American's taxes are going to go down? Why not claim Obama is a socialist, even if he's not? Why not say anything at all to drive our country into a pit when losing is seen as winning? That, is all the Republicans have to offer America: more lies on a path to destruction from which the Republican "leadership" plans to resurrect themselves and "save" America from Obama.

Source - The Huffington Post and Crooks and Liars

I saw Mr. Schaeffer's post at Huffington, and then Crooks and Liars posted a video interview with him. The quote is from his Huffington Post piece. Do you want to learn about how the religious left operates? Mr. Schaeffer is your man.

Josh Marshall says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 3/13/2009 #7

Let's just stipulate DC Republicans are simply not part of the discussion when it comes to repairing the US economy or arresting our slide into deep economic misery. And any reporters who aren't clear about this are just lying to their readers or viewers. The latest Republican plan, in the face of today's new spike in unemployment, is a freeze on federal spending. I'm not even sure it's fair to say that this is a replay of the disastrous decisions the magnified the Great Depression between 1929 and 1933. It's more a parody of it. When the crisis is a rapid and catastrophic drop off in demand, you handcuff the one force that can create demand (i.e., the federal government) in the throes of the contraction. That's insane. Levels of stimulus are a decent question. Intensifying the contraction is just insane and frankly a joke. It's time to recognize that the only debate here is happening among Democrats and sundry non-affiliated sane people. The leaders of the GOP are simply not part of the conversation.

Source - Talking Points Memo

The point sort of makes itself here, doesn't it?

Bi-Partisan

8 Random Items for 2/13/2009 #6

Both issues are part of an emerging GOP case against Obama and the ruling Democratic Party: Strip away the new face, the lofty rhetoric and the promises of post-partisanship and you’ll find the same big-spending party of old, bent on politicizing government to consolidate its hold on power.

Even with the stimulus package on the verge of passing later this week, the unanimous GOP vote against the bill in the House and the near-unanimous opposition in the Senate revealed a Republican Party surprisingly united in direction and in message for perhaps the first time since losing its congressional majority in 2006.

Yes, the Republican party is united in their opposition to anything proposed by President Obama, to the surprise of no one. Of course, it's the Democrats who are not sufficiently bi-partisan, right? Any member of the press who is told by a Republican that the President, or that the Democrats in general are too partisan should laugh in their face. Will they? No. The press is so cowed at this point that they'll never call them on the BS.

For the record, Politico may get the occasional scoop, but they engage in more wankery per word than any news site even slightly to the left of Fox.

Rep. Pete Sessions says ...

8 Words of Stupidity for 2/12/2009 #5

Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban. And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) as reported by Daily Kos.

Yes, a Republican Congressman is suggesting that the Republican party could learn a lot from the Taliban. I assume he means learning about something other than the Taliban's stand on gay rights and gender equality because I believe the Republican party has already absorbed the Taliban's point of view on those issues.

Ronald Reagan says ...

8 Words of Stupidity for 2/12/2009 #2

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism has been by way of medicine.... One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in America when men were free.

- Ronald Reagan speaking for the American Medical Association as related by David Waldman at Congress Matters.

It is easy to see why Republicans worship Ronald Reagan. He isn't particularly smart and he will lie to make his point. For the record, it is the Republican party that has worked non-stop to dismantle American freedoms and to deny those freedoms. Just saying.

John Cole says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for 2/10/2009 #4

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

- John Cole from "You'll Never Get This 21 Minutes of Your Life Back"

I love a good analogy, and this is better than just about any I've read.

Josh Marshall says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for 2/10/2009 #3

(T)he Republican position is ominously similar to their position on global warming or, for that matter, evolution. The discussion of what to do on the Democratic side tracks more or less with textbook macroeconomics, while Republican argument track either with tax cut monomania or rhetorical claptrap intended to confuse. It's true that macro-economics doesn't make controlled experiments possible. And economists can't speak to these issues with certainty. But in most areas of our lives, when faced with dire potential consequences, we put our stock with scientific or professional consensus where it exists, as it does here. Only in cases where it goes against Republican political interests or economic interests of money-backers do we prefer the schemes of yahoos and cranks to people who study the stuff for a living.

- Josh Marshall from "Denial As Political Strategy"

Josh Marshall dissects the Republican political game with regards to the stimulus package. So what do you think, are the Republicans truly putting "Country First" or are they putting their own political interests first?

DougJ says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for 2/10/2009 #2

I think that Obama is smart to jerk off the Villagers with all this (bulls**t) about bipartisanship. And in the Senate, there are Republicans who will cross over to vote with Democrats (and break filibusters). But, honestly, who gives a (f***) what Michelle Bachman and Jack Kingston and Tom Tancredo think about anything? Screw ‘em is right.

- DougJ of Balloon Juice shares his thoughts on bi-partisanship.

Pissed Off

8 Thoughts About the Stimulus for 2/9/2009 #7

I'm starting to seriously wonder about the electoral decisions made by the people of South Carolina. You see, to Gov. Mark Sanford, the systematic collapse of the American economy isn't a bad thing; it is a fair and just outcome. It is the "free market" working as intended.

Republicans love to talk about their ideals, as most ideologues do, but ideals pale in comparison to people. The simple fact of the matter is this: the people who will be hurt the most by the struggling economy did not play any role in the creation of the mess. As for the people who causes the mess, even if we shut down every corporation whose executives made bad decisions which contributed to this crisis, they would not be living in poor houses, only the worker bees at the bottom of the scale will.

This "it's not the government's place" stuff is a load of crap. People are suffering. It is a moral imperative that we take every step we can, not just to alleviate the suffering, but to restore our economy to the prosperous state that the American people deserve.

Republican Priorities

8 Random Thoughts for 2/6/2009 #8

Can you believe that all but 5 Republican Senators voted for an amendment to the stimulus package that would have stripped all spending out of the stimulus package and replaced it with permanent tax cuts? It's never about reality with a Republican. It's all about faith and they have no higher faith than their faith in tax cuts to solve every problem, all evidence to the contrary be damned.

More Thoughts on the Stimulus

8 Random Thoughts for 2/6/2009 #5

• It looks like the President has gotten serious about selling the stimulus. Reviewing the news sites, it looks like Obama gave a particularly impassioned plea to a group of House Democrats at a retreat last night. The President said, "If you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver." It's an important point and a necessary point if we are going to pull ourselves out of the mess. The people in charge when the mess was made should not be the ones calling the shots about how to fix it. That was a decision made by the American people in November.


• Even better was this lecture for the bad guys from the President: "What do you think a stimulus is? It’s spending — that's the whole point! Seriously." Some of the members of his party need to be clued in to this point as well. I'm looking at you Blue Dogs. 


• It looks like a vote on the stimulus package could happen as early as today, or maybe Sunday. Either way, the Republicans are attempting what KargoX has called "filibuster by amendment". It also appears that the debate is getting angry. Good. If guys like Max Baucus are getting upset with the obstructionism, then maybe we'll toss their caucus out the door, refuse to hear them out any longer and push this legislation through.

Additional Thoughts on the Stimulus

8 Random Thoughts for 2/6/2009 #3

• How dishonest are the Republicans in their rhetoric about the stimulus package? Wednesday on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R - SC) derided the lack of infrastructure investment in the stimulus bill. The day before? Sen. DeMint voted against an amendment that would strengthen the infrastructure investments. (Nobody is doing a better job of covering the Senate debate on the stimulus than Kargo X at Congress Matters who is the first I've seen to notice the inconsistency.)


• To reiterate a point that has been made again and again: why would anyone care what John McCain thinks about the stimulus? He has an amendment up in the Senate to the stimulus bill that would suspend all spending measures if the economy grows for two consecutive quarters. In other words, if we are fortunate enough to enter a recovery, he would like to stall it.


• Is there anything that rank and file Republicans won't accept on faith? Karl Rove is just the latest conservative liar to claim that the stimulus bill would provide ACORN with billions of dollars. As usual, the truth runs contrary to the conservative statement.

Thoughts About the Stimulus Package

8 Random Thoughts for 2/6/2009 #1

• Despite the protestations of Republicans in the Senate, and even a few conservative Democrats such as Sen. Ben Nelson, the fundamental problem with the stimulus package is not that it is too big, it is that it is not big enough. Sure, you could take the opinions of conservative ideologues as truth, or you could trust experts such as Dean Baker and Paul Krugman. We all have choices to make, and I choose to listen to those who have made it their life's work to study a subject, not to those who simply seek to advance a political agenda. (Remember, liberalism is about finding what works to improve the lives of many while conservatives believe government is bad, always.)


• Don't buy into the conservative arguments about the stimulus bill being loaded with pork. Combined, all of the programs to which they object, account for around 1% of the package. Yes, the Republicans will punish the American economy for 1% of the bill.


• The Obama administration must do a better job of selling the stimulus package to the country. With all of their technological capabilities, they can surely whip something up to make an impression on the American people. They just started making use of the campaign email list to rally support for the stimulus a few days ago. While this video and his Washington Post opinion piece are good, the administration is still playing catch up. Personally, I'd like to see a prime time speech on the subject. I have confidence that, when unfiltered by the conventional Washington wisdom as practiced by the majority of the traditional media, President Obama can sell his plan.

Rep. Adam Putnam says ...

8 Words of Stupidity for 2/5/2009 #5

I have tremendous faith in House Republicans. I know we have a long way to go to earn back the trust of the American people, but we’ve come a long way. I’m proud of my work to that end. And I’m confident others will get the job done. ... 2010 could be a good year for us.

- Rep. Adam Putnam (R - FL), who is giving up his seat, denying that his party is in a tailspin.

I don't blame Rep. Putnam for getting out now, but he's lying about the party on his way out. This is a man who was a member of the house leadership of his own party a short time ago. Now he's on his way to state government, a symbol of his party's failure at, well, everything.

Sir, don't let the door hit ya, where the good Lord split ya.

Awesome

8 Commentaries for 2/4/2009 #6

The Republican Party is back! They won't be heading down the tubes after all. They refuse to follow the Whig party into obsolescence. Why? Well, let's just say that they are consulting a first rate political strategist to help put themselves back on top. They are conferring with one of the most brilliant political thinkers in the history of our great nation.

Yes, the Conservative Working Group is meeting with the amazing Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber.

It's obvious at this point that the Republican party has no clue how to win. Hell, they're happier at being the minority party anyway. They can do what they do best: obstruct.

The Rude Pundit says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for 2/3/2009 #4

The Republican Party is Old Yeller, filthy with rabies, and you know there's only one thing you can do with Old Yeller.

- The Rude Pundit, after contemplating the lack of blacks in the Republican party.

Republicans and Stimulus

8 Random Items for 1/29/2009 #8

I had typed a bunch of lofty words and long sentences espousing my views of the crisis and the stimulus package and why liberal solutions were needed to both mitigate the impact of the crisis and to pull us out of it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that anyone who has even the most passing familiarity with history, and with the Great Depression in particular, already knows this to be the case. As Richard Nixon himself said, "We're all Keynesians now."

Still, the Republican opposition to Obama's stimulus package has left me with conflicting emotions. I do not believe that the majority of elected Republicans in Washington want to see the financial crisis deepen, but I do believe that they think it would a small cost to pay to avoid a Keynesian solution that pulls us out of the crisis. They are more than willing to sacrifice our paychecks, our bank balances, our brokerage accounts and our small businesses to prevent enactment of a liberal solution.

Let's state this plainly.

Republicans do not oppose Obama's stimulus plan because they do not think it will work.

Republicans oppose Obama's stimulus plan because they are afraid that it will work.

When conservative economic ideology is thoroughly debunked again, just as it was in the Hoover administration, the American people will again reward the Democratic Party, as they did after FDR.

This is what keeps the Republicans bed wetters up at night.

We Won, They Lost

8 Random Items for 1/29/2009 #5

Here's what the title above means:

President Barack Obama is signing into law an equal-pay bill that is popular with labor and women's groups and is expected to make it easier for workers to sue for decades-old discrimination.

Equal pay for equal work? Is this even a controversial matter? Well, yes. It is highly objectionable to many Republicans. Why?

Well, many conservatives just don't believe the government has any place telling any business what they can and cannot do. (Of course, telling individuals what they can or cannot do in the privacy of their own bedroom is a different story.) If the market wants to punish those companies that discriminate, it can do it. If not, then discrimination must be a good thing. This would be the "it's just not the government's place" position.

Then their in the misogyny position. These are those groups of white male Republicans who don't believe that women could possibly perform equal work. They also believe a woman's place is in the home. These are largely religious people who believe that God created man superior to women. This would be the "evil and stupid" position.

Finally, there are those Republicans who realize that their hold on power requires discrimination. They know that deep down they can't measure up to their competition, so they support anyone who is holding down someone else. This would be the "maintaining control" position.

Republican controversy aside, we voted Obama into office and we can now see the beginning of the end of pay inequality in the workforce. That is real progress.

The Death of the Republican Party

8 Random Items for 1/29/2009 #4

I repeat my favorite line about the Republican Party in 2009.

I have one word for the Republican Party. Whigs.

Read this and enjoy. The only thing standing between the implosion of the Rush Limbaugh led Republican Party is the lack of a killer instinct by the Democratic Party.