KRUGMAN: No, I think it’s fair enough. But, you know, let me ask — there’s something I don’t understand about this whole thing. There are actually two major investigations of members of Congress underway right now. There’s Charlie Rangel, who’s accused of some fairly petty, although stupid and wrong, ethical violations, and there’s Senator John Ensign, who’s facing a criminal investigation and which actually — it’s even a story that involves sex. And you get no publicity whatsoever on the Ensign investigation. Why is Rangel getting all this attention?
AMANPOUR: Is that fair, George?
WILL: Well, Rangel is much more important, because he’s chairman of an important committee. And in fact, Rangel’s misfortune is a national misfortune, because we desperately need — and after the deficit commission reports in December, we might have had — serious tax reform in this country. That requires a cooperative member leading that committee in the House.
Category: Uncategorized
Message Consistency
Bob Corker (R ,TN) 2009: After the president forced the firing of General Motors chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr., Republican Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) proclaimed Obama’s actions “truly breathtaking” and said the government ownership roles at Chrysler and GM “should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise.”
Bob Corker (R, TN) 2010: The ideas we [Republicans] laid out there were followed through. I take some pleasure out of helping make that contribution. . . . I think what we did is we forced a debate and we forced a hard look at these companies.
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.
[M]y children don’t look Hispanic.
Brian Sandoval, Nevada gubernatorial candidate, responding to a question about “how he would feel if his children were stopped in the street and asked for their papers.”
God Bless America.
God Bless America.
The GOP’s class warfare has backfired.
“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.
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.
Filibusted
“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.
Better Democrats™ please.
Lemkin 