Rich vs. poor in the Great Recession

via Cesca

This chart via Jon Chait illustrates everything you need to know about the ultimate impact of Reaganomics. In short: the working and middle classes were totally hosed.



Chait: "The remedy, of course, is to cut tax rates for the highest-earning 2%."

Everything you need to know about the Pledge to America

Those "responsible spending cuts"? Not so much. The GOP has promised to kill the affordable Health Care act (increasing the deficit), keep the Bush Tax Giveaway to the Wealthy (increasing the deficit) and has not shown where cuts are going to come from.

In fact, John Boehner was interviewed by Chris Wallace about the Pledge and it's lack of specificity and he had the following to say:

WALLACE: Congressman Boehner, as Willie Sutton said about banks, entitlements are where the money is. More than 40% of the budget. Yet, I’ve looked through this pledge and there is not one single proposal to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

BOEHNER: Chris, we make it clear in there that we’re going to lay out a plan to work toward a balanced budget and deal with the entitlement crisis. Chris, it’s time for us as americans to have an adult conversation with each other about the serious challenges our country faces. And we can’t have that serious conversation until we lay out the size of the problem. Once Americans understand how big the problem is, then we can begin to talk about potential solutions. [...]

WALLACE: Forgive me, sir, isn’t the right time to have the adult conversation now before the election when you have this document? Why not make a single proposal to cut social security, medicare and medicaid?

BOEHNER: Chris, this is what happens here in Washington. When you start down that path, you just invite all kind of problems. I know. I’ve been there. I think we need to do this in a more systemic way and have this conversation first. Let’s not get to the potential solutions. Let’s make sure Americans understand how big the problem is. Then we can talk about possible solutions and then work ourselves into those solutions that are doable.

SRSLY? Let's not talk about solutions. That's the gist. Typical Republican response: 'Let's not talk about solutions until after the election because we hope Americans are dumb/frustruated enough to elect us on vague and empty promises, so we can give more money to the wealthy and screw the economy (again) after the elections'. This is full of non-specific iconography that the GOP hopes Americans are stupid enough to buy.

Are we this stupid?

Here's an analysis of the differences between the Pledge and Obama's proposed budget.

American Progress

The substantial increase in deficits under the “Pledge to America” budget are due to the significant tax cuts that come from extending all expiring tax provisions and the implementation of several new tax cuts. Altogether, tax revenues under the “Pledge to America” plan would average 16.7 percent of GDP. During the last period the federal government ran balanced budgets revenues averaged 20 percent of GDP.

The document claims that these cuts will be offset by spending reductions, but their proposals for these reductions add up to significantly less than their revenue cuts. The vast bulk of these spending cuts are achieved through what are described as “hard caps,” but they provide little detail as to what programs would be cut.

The “Pledge to America” also includes a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. But since the ACA reduces deficits over the next 10 years, repealing it increases the deficit as well.

Chart via Ezra

Waiting for Superman: Thank a teacher

I'll have more to say as this movie gets closer. I'm a high school teacher, and I agree with much of what David Guggenheim has already let out about Waiting For Superman. We do have massive problems in education, and the teacher's unions, of which I am a member, are a part of that problem. In some districts, a big part. But to lay the blame for the state of American education solely at the feet of the teacher's unions is an oversimplistic, convenient meme for this Tea Party era we're living in.

This video was done by Morgan Spurlock, Jon Hamm, John Legend, Juliette Lewis and others, thanking the teachers that made a difference. Check it out.

Deranged, probably closeted, socially awkward Michigan AG stalks college student on-line

Gawker

For months, Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general for Michigan, has been writing the blog "Chris Armstrong Watch," devoted to attacking the University of Michigan's gay student assembly president with homophobic and other horrible slurs. What is wrong with him?

Shirvell, who faced an outraged Anderson Cooper on CNN last night, is a deeply conservative Christian who claims that he has the right to say whatever he wants outside of work. Which may be true, but his campaign against a gay college student might have veered into the category of harassment, and at the very least, is as sad and pathetic as pretty much anything an adult can do under the name of "political activism."

More....

Watch this cupcake, he's like a character from The Office. He's got the obstinance of Dwight Schrute with the absolute cluelessness of Michael Scott.

This guy is an assistant Attorney General? In a major state? SRSLY?

Fox News racebaiting: "POTUS loves gangsta rap"

In Obama's interview in the new Rolling Stone, he gets asked about what's on his iPod.

My iPod now has about 2,000 songs, and it is a source of great pleasure to me. I am probably still more heavily weighted toward the music of my childhood than I am the new stuff. There's still a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those are the old standards.

A lot of classical music. I'm not a big opera buff in terms of going to opera, but there are days where Maria Callas is exactly what I need.

Thanks to Reggie [Love, the president's personal aide], my rap palate has greatly improved. Jay-Z used to be sort of what predominated, but now I've got a little Nas and a little Lil Wayne and some other stuff, but I would not claim to be an expert. Malia and Sasha are now getting old enough to where they start hipping me to things. Music is still a great source of joy and occasional solace in the midst of what can be some difficult days.

Here's how Fox presented it:


Really? Can this be seen as anything other than racebaiting? This is clearly throwing red meat to the racist elements of the Republican party. Fox should be ashamed. How can someone who cites Maria Callas, Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan be a gangsta thug? But that's exactly what Fox has implied.

They're disgusting.

Stewart comes to Colbert's defense and shows the "serious" side of Congress that Colbert degraded

Great point about the media ripping Colbert, and their own lack of any real reporting

Hammerito

On Hardball, Chuck Todd and his panel are currently ripping Stephen Colbert apart for appearing in character in front of Congress today.

First of all, Elmo appeared before Congress in 2002. ELMO.

Secondly, these are the screeds of politicos who are pissed off that a ‘comedian’ (I think ‘satirist’ is a much more precise term, but whatever) has done what they can’t/won’t/don’t - he said what he believed and did it in a way that was precise, authoritative, and interesting.

This is haterade, pure and simple. Colbert was invited to testify by a congresswoman on a subject about which he is (while not well informed) better informed than most members of Congress.

No one likes being made a fool of, and today, Colbert made everyone on Capitol Hill and in mainstream newsrooms look like dicks. I hoped they might take a bit of humility from the fact that they have been out-journalismed* by Stewart and Colbert for years now. I hoped that they might try to up their game to keep from being embarrassed every time they fail to do their job.

Instead, they’re bitching and moaning** that Colbert did what they won’t and was entertaining in the process.

Stephen Colbert testifies before Congress on immigration

Huff Post

Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert testified before Congress today about immigration during a hearing called "Protecting America's Harvest."

Colbert appeared with United Farm Workers (UFW) President Arturo S. Rodriguez before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. In August, the comedian spent a day working at a corn and vegetable farm in New York state after Rodriguez appeared on his show to discuss UFW's "Take Our Jobs" campaign.

The effort is intended to debunk the theory that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens and highlight the fact the nation's food supply is dependent on these farm workers.

Watch Colbert's opening testimony today:

Watch his testimony:


In the most powerful part of the segment Colbert was asked why, of all the issues he could talk about, or bring attention to, he decided to get involved in this issue. Colbert, for the first time today, drops out of character.

"I like talking about people who don't have any power...I feel the need to speak for those who can't speak for themselves....We ask them to come and work, and then we ask them to leave again. They suffer, and have no rights."

He also quotes Matthew 25:40: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"



Of course, this last segment likely won't get much air time as the media rushes to demonize his testimony with headlines like Stupid Stunt and Jokester Colbert.

Stewart catches GOP recycling same old plans as part of new Pledge

Question: why do we get mad when Ahmadinejad spouts shit, and orgasmic when teabaggers do?

MSNBC

The U.S. and several European delegations walked out of the U.N. speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday after he said most people believe the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks in order to assure Israel's survival.

In his speech to the annual General Assembly, Ahmadinejad said it was mostly U.S. government officials who believed a terrorist group was behind the suicide hijacking attacks that brought down New York's World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon.

Another theory, he said, was "that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime" — his way of characterizing Israel.

Nuts, right?

But when Palin and Gingrich go full birther and allege the President is a secret Muslim, when Christine O'Donnell insists that scientists are engineering mice with human brains, when Jan Brewer lies about beheadings, when Palin lies every time she speaks, half the nation stands and cheers. The Tea Party can claim that Obama is an African-born, socialist, Muslim, terrorist-coddling, white-people hating, anti-colonial, white-people hating rat out to undermine America - and they pick up support.

I thought a lie was a lie.

What the fuck?

Details emerge on The Republican Pledge to Further Screw America

Ezra Klein

Take the deficit. Perhaps the two most consequential policies in the proposal are the full extension of the Bush tax cuts and the full repeal of the health-care law. The first would increase the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years, and many trillions of dollars more after that. The second would increase the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years, and many trillions of dollars more after that. Nothing in the document comes close to paying for these two proposals, and the authors know it: The document never says that the policy proposals it offers will ultimately reduce the deficit.

...At the end of the day, America may be an idea -- but it is also a country. And it needs to be governed. This proposal avoids the hard choices of governance. It says what it thinks will be popular and then proposes what it thinks will be popular -- even when the two conflict. That's an idea that may help you win elections, but not one that'll help you govern a country.

Fineman on Obama's Could-Have-Been-Worse Presidency

Howard Fineman

If (the Democrats) avoid a blowout it will in part be because voters see the Obama that is, not the fiction they worshiped or dreaded. He is the plodding “national incident commander” for our beleaguered era, and his accomplishments—to the extent he has them—so far are mostly about how our predicament would have been worse had it not been for his bailing of water. It’s a hard message to sell in the midst of 9.5 percent unemployment, when dollar discount stores are all the rage, and the gap between the rich and everyone else in the country is as wide as it has been since the Progressive Era.

...(H)e is what he is. To get a real fix on our 44th president and what he has done—or not done—it’s best to leave behind the grandiose language and grand expectations. He is a singular, history-making character, yet he is best defined by what he is not. He is neither the we-are-the-change savior his acolytes saw early on, nor is he the radical his foes see now. Obama is labeled a socialist by the hungriest recipients of government welfare in the history of commerce—Wall Street banks—but he is nothing more nor less than a legalistic believer in the regulatory state.

...Oddly, his foes think he is viciously effective; it’s only his friends who think he is ineffectual.

In fact, he’s neither. Halfway into his second year, we can see that he is just a smart but cautious guy who succeeds by dogged effort and not by eloquence (he really isn’t very eloquent) or by grand gesture. Critics on the left and right—from Paul Krugman to Sarah Palin—can say what they want, but the truth is that Obama and his team did help avoid, or forestall, a global economic collapse, in part because his demeanor was cool and his ability to grasp the details (and desire to do so) was evident well before he was even elected.

...The president doesn’t have the rhetorical chops to tout such items with Clintonian, kitchen-table vividness (you can just imagine Big Dog with all this material to work with). But that doesn’t mean the incremental achievements aren’t real.

Obama was elected as a sensation, but he is isn’t governing as one. He is putting points on the board, sometimes with little notice and comparatively less fuss than either was anticipated or was the case in the past: a pay-equity law for women; two quite liberal justices on the U.S. Supreme Court (without a filibuster in a filibuster-mad Senate); a renewal of Mideast peace talks. Road and bridge projects, however delayed, are now underway—bright spots in the much-derided Stim.

...I can say this about the president. It could have been worse. And if we aren’t careful, it probably will be.