Month: July 2010

Barack Obama understands that if people ignore George Will and believe the planet is getting warmer rather than cooler, that this will make him more politically popular. He also knows that people might believe scientists about something like this. His problem is that while American scientists are all ready to coordinate their message in order to advance a foreign agenda, JournoList doesn’t have the reach necessary to extend this kind of partisanship to foreign scientists. Fortunately, though, foreigners hate America. And foreigners know that Obama’s death panels and general socialism will cripple the US economy. So in order to boost Obama’s fortunes, they’ve gotten 48 countries’ worth of scientists together to promote this lie. Fortunately, George Will still has the guts to call it like it is and the Post—and dozens of other papers across the country—still publish his bold work. Kudos.

Matthew Yglesias explaining it all

I think there’s only one way to fight this trend: you force the issue by recess appointing everyone on the docket at the first available opportunity. Only when the system is shown as unalterably broken will anything be done to fix it, and that moment only comes when President(s) throw up their hands and don’t even bother submitting nominees anymore.

The solution, I think, is either:

A) No confirmation process below the Secretary level (and, of course lifetime appointments to the various benches); the President gets whoever he/she wants

–or–

B) Confirmation hearings at Secretary level, everybody else into one big bolus that’s up-or-down voted and can’t be filibustered

Let’s be real, the whole nominations process is simply political theater, and that’s when it’s working. Now it’s not even theater: it’s a weapon with which the gears of the Senate are daily sanded. It guarantees bad governance and bad policy outcomes and it’s got to stop.

The GOP’s class warfare has backfired.

southpol:

“I have voted Republican my entire life,” he says. “I don’t want to vote for Harry Reid. But I don’t want to be told I’m lazy, and I’m dumb, and I’m living high on the hog, collecting [unemployment insurance] because I want to.”

(via ryking)

Wow. Color me shocked. The article is at least as worth-your-read for containing this opening paragraph:

Sometime this spring, Republicans turned against unemployment. In Nevada, Sharron Angle ®, the candidate facing incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D), told local reporters, “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job.” (Untrue.) Angle also called the unemployed “spoiled.”

Emphasis added to point out that it’s just not that hard to take a point of view. Especially a sensible and informative one: what Angle said was demonstrably false. Period. No “opinions differ” or, even worse, simply print what she said and “leave it there.”

More please.

The GOP’s class warfare has backfired.

No One Could Have Expected

Are you trying to tell me that immigrants spend money?

In a 2008 study, she found that Arizona immigrants contributed $29 billion annually to the state economy, representing about 8% of its activity.

When immigrants leave, Gans said, “stores experience dramatic drops in sales. Apartment owners who rent to immigrants have high vacancy rates and risk losing their buildings. Legal workers or renters or consumers don’t generally step in quickly enough to prevent these businesses from experiencing real additional hardship.”

At 43rd and Thomas, such short-term economic perils are no abstraction.

“If people don’t come here, I don’t make money and I don’t pay taxes,” Katchi said.

[…]

merchants say the repercussions are clear — not just in how it’s prompted many families to leave the state, but scared others enough to curtail their regular activities.

“The economy’s already bad, but on top of it [SB 1070] is like a bullet in the head to us,” said Osameh Odeh, 35, whose Eden Wear clothing store was empty one recent afternoon. “People don’t come out of their houses anymore.”

Odeh has laid off workers and doesn’t pay his utility bills until the day they come due. He’s not sure he can stay open and notes that the effect spreads well beyond the rough-and-tumble streets of Maryvale. A resident of the middle-class suburb of Gilbert, Odeh has cut back his purchases at home.

No One Could Have Expected

Filibusted

jasencomstock:

“I think we should retain the same [filibuster] policies that we have instead of lowering it…. I think it has been working.”

—

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii)
Better Democrats™ please. (via lemkin)

Well don’t get rid of the fucking thing now.  the Democrats are going to be a c-hair away from losing the senate this fall, and will most certainly lose it in 2012 (I think republicans only have to defend something like 9 seats that election).

They’d just be beating the rush. The first thing the Republicans will do upon retaking the Senate is eliminate the filibuster. To add insult to injury, they’ll point to their own obstructionism as evidence of the system’s failure. And won’t be challenged by the media in any way shape or form; quite the contrary, any Democrats making a complaint will be painted as “sore losers” who, as usual, want to ignore clear mandates from the American people.

I think we should retain the same [filibuster] policies that we have instead of lowering it…. I think it has been working.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii)
Better Democrats™ please.

Is Afghanistan important? Sure. Does it matter? Sure. Is the performance of a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Khost Province more important to the long-term interests of American citizens than the performance of the Riverside County Public Schools? I don’t think so. Are American efforts in Afghanistan achieving some humanitarian purposes? Sure. Is building a T.G.I. Friday’s at Kandahar Air Base a better way of undertaking a humanitarian mission than increasing appropriations to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria? It’s almost silly to even ask the question.

Matt Yglesias, being absolutely right even leaving aside the relative dollar-for-dollar impact of the two programs directly compared.
And but so this comparison will never be made in this country as it currently stands. And won’t ever be unless somebody, somewhere starts talking about the underlying factors intelligently. It’ll take years of that conversation to get to a point where a national politician could then address this issue in a meaningful way, at least publicly.
Obama, perhaps the only politician in my lifetime that actually seems suited to undertake such a rational long-play, shows absolutely no inclination to do it. So I doubt this happens now or ever. Smiles everyone, smiles!

[Journalists] could have made the point that they were important because they were skilled at compiling and communicating what might interest people, or they could cling to their AUTHORITAH and claim they were important gatekeepers, deciding what the rabble should know. They chose the latter, and now they wonder why we don’t applaud.

Duncan Black