10.23.2010

Obama and Dems poll numbers shoot up.... DISASTER LOOMS! AIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!

In the latest Newsweek poll, President Obama's job approval ratings have jumped, crossing the 50% mark. The poll shows his approval rating at 54%, with a 40% disapproval rate.

Further, although neither party in Congress gets favorable ratings, Democrats in Congress have a 10% approval advantage over the GOP - 41% to 31%.

How does this figure in the midterms? It's too early to say, but it seems that Democrats and progressives are starting to engage. Given the steam that the Tea Party has had, they've gained a significant media presence but it seems too early to translate that into wins, especially in districts where Tea Party candidates are going down to the wire with the crazy, and in many cases, upping the ante.

10.22.2010

Sept. job numbers: more private sector jobs in 2010 than in 8 years of Bush/Cheney

Cesca

The September jobs report was just released and demonstrates that America is on a far slower path to recovery than anyone originally predicted. Despite this, the shedding of government jobs cloaks a glimmer of hope: more private sector jobs have been created this year than during the entire Bush administration. Read that again: 2010 has had more private job creation than during the entire 8 year tenure of George W. Bush.

This is the 9th straight month of private sector job growth in the midst of a devastating recession that has put a serious strain mostly on the poor and middle class. There has been a total of 863,000 private sector jobs created in 2010, exceeding the total created under the Bush/Cheney regime.
In no way am I saying that these numbers are great. What I am trying to figure out is why Americans, who say they're going to vote GOP because of jobs, don't understand that this preisdent IS creating jobs? Why don't they understand that Obama has cut the deficit by over $100 million in 2010, in the middle of a recession?

Obama has created more jobs in 2010 than Bush did in EIGHT YEARS. He has cut the deficit more in one year than the last Republican administration ever did. That has to count for something. But it doesn't seem to, and here are three thoughts as to why:

1) Americans don't seem to understand that before you can heal a wound, you have to stop the bleeding. The stimulus and other actions that Obama has taken have stopped the bleeding. That is, and always was, goal number one.

Our "instant culture" of I-want-it-now doesn't give us the patience to see this through. We're tryintg to work our way out of the worst economic situation in 80 years, one that took 10 years to create, and we expected it done in 12 months.

We're unrealistic.

2) The GOP noise machine drowns out the facts.

3) Issue number 3 is that the Democratic party sucks at getting the message out. From our media wing to our leadership, there's no "there" there. The GOP has John Boehner, Sarah Palin and Eric Cantor. The Democrats have Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Reid and Pelosi are incredibly gifted legislators - especially Pelosi - but they can't communicate with middle America.

Add to that a huge right-wing media machine that's unable to be embarrassed and willing to engage in massive intellectual fraud and hypocrisy on a giant scale and it's not hard to understand how they're selling a message of fear and hate to a scared populace.

We're a nation with a raging case of Teh Stupidz.

The Tea Party/GOP noise machine

Watching Bill Maher last week, he confronted his guest, St. Louis Tea Party radio host Dana Loesch guest with the following indisputable facts, all of which she denied were true or claimed were in dispute:

1) the stimulus cost less than the war in Iraq. Her response: "those numbers are in dispute"

2) the stimulus contained almost $300 million in tax cuts that were demanded by Republicans who then opposed it. Her response: "no it didn't"

3) the stimulus saved 3 million jobs. Her idiotic response was "then why is unemployment still at 10%?" to which John Legend responded (barely concealing his disgust) that without the stimulus, unemployment would be at 13%. Loesch responded that that was in dispute.

4) the bailouts worked, it saved GM and millions of jobs, and we got our money back plus some, making a profit. Her response: 'why does the government get to decide who survives?'. She sidestepped the truth that didn't support her assertions and asked her question in a manner that suggested that saving a million jobs is somehow worthy of derision.

Interestingly enough, she got upset when Maher used the term "teabagger" (even though the teabaggers are the ones who called themselves teabaggers first), yet she had no problem, and Maher raised no objections, when she used the backhanded-slur "Democrat party".

This illustrates the fundamental problem with debating the functions of government in this Tea Party era: they have no sense of truth or fact. It's all subjective reality. Present them with numbers from the CBO and they'll scream that those are "government numbers" and therefore ought not to be trusted. Present them with fact and they'll sidestep, or cry conspiracy, or deflect ('remember 30 years ago when...'), or just scream "lamestream media... AIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!".

There is no reality with them, other than the shifting constructs of the day-to-day. Yesterday they were supporting Juan Williams and complaining (erroneously) that his First Amendment rights were violated. Yet when real First Amendment rights are being violated by Joe Miller's hired goons illegally detaining a reporter for asking questions of the candidate, they claim that the reporter deserved it.

How does one debate a group of chronically lying hypocrites?

Bravo Mr. President. Obama reaches out to bullied gay teens: it gets better

Things like this remind me why I love this man and why I'm still inspired by him.

10.20.2010

The gun industry has no oversight? Really? It polices itself? Does that seem like a good idea?

CNBC has an article about problems at the Remington Firearms Company. It seems that their signature weapon, the model 700 bolt action rifle may have a defect that the company has known about for 60 years.
A 10-month investigation by CNBC has found that at least two dozen deaths and more than 100 injuries have been linked to the signature product of an iconic American company.

The Remington Model 700-series rifle - with more than 5 million sold - is one of the world’s most popular firearms. Famous for its accuracy, the rifle is now the target of a series of lawsuits claiming that it is unsafe and susceptible to firing without pulling the trigger.
Of course they claim that there's nothing wrong. Few companies will admit to a design flaw in a product. That's not unusual. But over 60 years, there's bound to be a paper trail and the stunning part is what it would have cost Remington to fix the flaw-that-doesn't-exist-but-has-been-alleged-for-decades.
The documents reveal that on at least two occasions, the company considered – and then decided against – a modification of the original trigger design intended to eliminate inadvertent discharges. One of those proposed fixes would have cost Remington 5.5 cents per gun, according to the company’s own calculations.
5.5 cents. They declined to spend less than 6 cents per rifle to ensure that their weapons would be safe. 5.5 cents was too much to protect lives.

So the government will step in, right? Right?

Wrong.
(F)rom the very beginning, the company looked at ways to fix its bolt-action rifle, even contemplating a nationwide recall. But on more than one occasion, Remington decided against a recall.

And it turns out that decision is Remington's, and Remington's alone.

For most products – cars, toys, food, even BB guns - the government can order a recall. In 2010, for example, the Eagle 5 Rifle crossbow made by Master Cutlery was recalled after regulators found it could fire, without pulling the trigger, when the safety is switched off.

But the Consumer Product Safety Commission cannot recall guns. Nor can the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms or the Justice Department.

Guns hold a special place in American life - and American law, says Dallas attorney Jeffrey Hightower.

“Remington polices itself,” he said. “The gun industry polices itself.”

A federal law, passed in 1976 and upheld repeatedly in court, specifically bars the government from setting safety standards for guns, because of the Second Amendment.
While some estimates now say that the cost is as much as $100 per rifle, I'd be interested in seeing the new calculation. Even accounting for super inflation, 5.5 cents in 1960 isn't $100 now.

This is a wonderful repudiation of the Tea Party and their 'get the government off my back' mentality. This is why the Tea Party is wrong when it claims that regulations aren't necessary. This is a perfect example of an unregulated company doing exactly the wrong thing - or more correctly, behaving like a business.

There's nothing wrong with a business behaving like a business, but let's not pretend that business interests always coincide with public interests. They don't.

10.19.2010

Remember why we came out in '08, and ask yourself if you'll really be better off with a GOP majority



We need to take a serious look back at the absolute disaster that was the Bush Administration and the mess that it created - a mess that we're still trying to deal with today.

This leads to a question for the progressives like Jane Hamsher and FireDogLake that spent the summer leading a charge against the president because he didn't go far enough... do you really think that rallying the troops against Obama has had a positive effect? Do you think that the causes that you care about are going to benefit from the GOP surge? Do you really think, now that the Bushies are on their way back in to power, that Obama is "just like Bush"? Do you think that you'll make gains under a GOP Congress?

To the middle... watch and remember. And think.

If you correct teabagger ignorance, you're a condescending elitist

via Hammerito
"I give up. I fucking give up.

When I first started hearing right-wingers claim that separation of church and state is a liberal myth, I wondered why no one sat them down, shoved the document in their face, and made them read those three lines out loud. Now I see that it doesn’t matter.

Something like 30% of the country has gone mad. That’s the only explanation I can think of. This is not an exaggeration. They are literally standing there pointing at the sky and saying “the sky is red” and when you try to convince them that it’s blue and bring them a color chart and other blue things for comparison they stare at you blankly for a few seconds and then go back to repeating “the sky is red”. And even if you convince them for a moment that it is indeed blue, you were being condescending while you did it. So you’re an elitist. And therefore you’re wrong. The sky is red.

No, I’m done with the appeals to bipartisanship, the platitudes that we all share a common dream, that people are just frustrated with government. A country where this kind of thing constitutes mainstream political debate is not worth fighting for. I’ll stay on the coast where it is relatively safe, but I’ll be ready to jump ship at any moment. I suggest anyone with half a brain do the same."


Gawker commenter on Christine O’Donnell not knowing, and then NOT BELIEVING that the first amendment contained the provision of separation of church and state during a debate with Chris Coons. Coons recited the text of the amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”, to which she responded “That’s in the first amendment…?”

Seriously, nearly every time I hear a Teabagger open his/her mouth, I feel like I’m back in second grade and being made fun of for knowing the right answer to the teacher’s question.
So much truth. In a world where Republicans can make headway by being completely disingenuous, what's left of real political debate?

Disingenuous? Absolutely. How about we just call it hypocrisy? Or outright lies. They advocate that we have to reduce spending while simultaneously arguing for an unfunded $4 trillion extension of tax cuts that primarily benefit the top 2%.

They scream for getting government off of our backs while they move to allow the greatest government intrusion in our personal lives ever. Using the most extreme positions on abortion by trying to disallow abortion even in the case of rape and saying that the government should root out teachers who are gay or straight and co-habitating, they're inviting the government into our homes in ways that have never been allowed.

When they say that they're against the stimulus because it didn't create jobs, and yet write letters asking for stimulus money to create jobs in their states, they are at best prevaricators. At best.

The party that trumpets the Constitution doesn't know the First Amendment or the Establishment Clause, doesn't believe in freedom of the press, refuses to talk to them and uses their own private security goons to illegally detain a reporter asking difficult questions

What's worse, they live in a factless reality. Everything is relative. When proven wrong by facts, they ignore the facts or decry them as creations of the lamestream media.

Where are we headed when there are no objective facts and the media has completely abdicated its role as gatekeeper and fact-checker?