Video: The Piers Morgan Fan Club

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Krugman on Obama: "Somehow he’s turned into the second coming of Herbert Hoover"

Paul Krugman appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Wednesday and put it that plainly. Olbermann seemed to agree.

Read the rest of this post...

Cantor and Teabaggers ready to slash Medicare

ThinkProgress:

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said he is ready and willing to slash entitlements like Medicare.

Reuters:

Thousands of Tea Party movement activists are expected to descend this month on town hall meetings across key battleground states as part of an intensifying campaign ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. Their priority is a plan to slash Medicare costs proposed by House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan…"The Ryan plan is the only one out there so far, and what we need is an adult conversation with all politicians talking about the real issues."

And just who his going to stop them? Our President, who is the one who put Medicare on the table during the recent deficit deal debacle? I trust Pelosi on this one. I don't trust Reid. And forget about Obama - if [insert any concession here] gets him a deal, he'll do it. Read the rest of this post...

Romney joins Bachmann and Santorum, signs NOM’s hate the gays pledge

Yep. Mitt is hating on the gays. More at AMERICAblog Gay.

And, of course, must google and link to Santorum. Read the rest of this post...

Barack Obama: Best. President. Ever.

Washington Monthly's Steve Benen:

But as Kevin concluded, “[I]n two years Obama has done more to enact a liberal agenda than George Bush did for the conservative agenda in eight. That’s not bad, folks. All things considered, I’d say Obama is the most effective politician of the Obama era. And the Bush era too.”

I’d go just a little further and say Obama is the most effective politician since Reagan, and depending on the day, perhaps even the most effective politician since LBJ.

Sorry, I just can't let this one pass.  First off, the biggest complaint about President Obama is that he is the king of missed opportunity.  Even were I to concede the good he's done (and I don't concede Benen's hagiography at all), Obama was handed a huge mandate, a public craving leadership after a failed GOP presidency and an economy in tatters, an opposition party in ruin, a whopping approval rating, and control of both houses of Congress (with 59, and then 60 Senators on his side, and a healthy majority in the House).

What did the President do with this historic confluence of power and opportunity handed to him?  He immediately began to compromise on day one with first the stimulus and then health care reform.

Rather than go big and push for what was needed and/or what he promised, President Obama let incrementalism be his guide, set his sights low, then sat back and didn't get involved (he calls it "leading from behind") until it was nearly too late.  The result?  A stimulus that reasonable people knew was too small when it was proposed (the results of which continue to haunt us to this day, and may just lose us the Senate and the White House next year - not just because it was too small, but because the President failed to defend it and now it's a political albatross in addition to not nearly effective enough), and a health care law that nobody can even remember what it did (other than help people with pre-existing conditions).  And not to knock the health care law, because I hear it will some day do great things (that was a brilliant move, by the way, making the important parts of the health care law not kick in for years), but it too could have been so much more had the President actually tried.  He sat back for months, ceded power to health care reform's enemies in congress, and by the time he got involved, the public option, which was the center piece of his plan for cutting costs and expanding coverage (even though now he pretends it was a minor footnote), was dead.  And forget about doing anything about drug prices, God forbid we tick off big pharma by simply asking them why they're charging me $25 in France for the same asthma medicine they charge me $155 for in Washington, DC?

Then there's the President's seeming inability to successfully articulate an effective argument in defense of anything he wants to do or has already done, so that now the public thinks the stimulus didn't create a single job, and they hate "health care reform" even though they actually love the details of it when you don't mention those details are part of "health care reform."  And there's no need to revisit the President's negotiating skills, as the deficit deal debacle is still fresh in everyone's minds.

As for George W. Bush, you have to remember that he didn't have a mandate at all.  He didn't even win the election, by some accounts.  And how many Republicans did Bush have in the Senate?  Never more than 55.  President Obama, on the other hand, had a max of 60 Democrats and Independents to work with.  And what did George Bush do with less opportunity than Barack Obama?

1. The Bush tax cuts, which are a good part of the reason that the budget is broke today, and a good part of the reason that Democrats felt they had to agree to the crappy deficit deal, and why they don't think we can afford another stimulus. Pretty damn effective tax cuts.

2. Or how about the Patriot Act, that seemed to be a pretty effective far-reaching piece of legislation.

3. Then there's putting Alito and Roberts, and the selection of Roberts as chief justice.

4. Killing the Kyoto Accords.

5. Torture.

7. Suspending habeas corpus.

8. Illegal wiretapping of Americans.

9. Afghanistan. (War, and the defense build-up that follows, is a critical component of the GOP agenda.)

10. Iraq.

11. John Ashcroft.

12. Partial-birth abortion ban.

13. Withdrawal from ABM Treaty

14. Abstinence education

15. Faith-based initiative

16. The War on Terror (and its impact on the American psyche)

I do not mean to suggest that President Obama has done no good. He has. But even the great things he's done weren't so great when you dig into the detaeils, like lifting the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military (something that has yet to happen, by the way) was such a botched exercise that but for a raucous gay activist community, it would have likely never happened.

Things are bad out there. People are ticked. The left's relationship with this President is seriously strained. And we're about to lose the White House and the Senate, to go along with last year's loss of the House. This President doesn't need further enabling.  He needs an intervention.

PS The best president ever just suggested that the Democrats in Congress were partly to blame for the FAA stand-off, and that they were endangering the recovery (something he of course is now endangering with his deficit deal).  He trotted out his old blaming things on the "politics of Washington" canard, which manages to blame Democrats and smear a lot of good people who work in this town, while at the same time helping his re-election at the expense of the Democrats holding on to the Senate next year.  No, it's not the politics of Washington, Mr. President, it's your friends the Republicans.

Another PS - Adam Serwer wrote an interesting response to this as well over at the American Prospect.  Possible more scathing than mine. Read the rest of this post...

Record number of Americans on food stamps as "Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves"

One America:

Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in May, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

The number of Americans using the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- more commonly referred to as food stamps -- shot to an all-time high of 45.8 million in May, the USDA reported. That's up 12% from a year ago, and 34% higher than two years ago.

The other America:

Even with the economy in a funk and many Americans pulling back on spending, the rich are again buying designer clothing, luxury cars and about anything that catches their fancy. Luxury goods stores, which fared much worse than other retailers in the recession, are more than recovering — they are zooming. Many high-end businesses are even able to mark up, rather than discount, items to attract customers who equate quality with price.

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Dow dropped 512 points today, "single worst day since the 2008 financial crisis"

Yeah. Ugly. From CNN:

In their single worst day since the 2008 financial crisis, stocks plunged Thursday, with the Dow tumbling 512 points, as fear about the global economy spooked investors.

"The conventional wisdom on Wall Street was that the economy was growing -- that the worst was behind us," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital. "Now what people are realizing is the stimulus didn't work, and we may be headed back to recession."

U.S. markets were already sharply lower on widespread worries, including the weak job market.

So, the debt deal didn't quell the fears of the markets. It's a double whammy: A sucky deal and 401ks still take a beating. Read the rest of this post...

Maddow: Corporate wealth is becoming disconnected from the U.S. economy

This is even more timely today, with the Dow down big, than it was when first broadcast on Wednesday.

The bottom line here: Corporate profit doesn't equal jobs (in the US). I'll add, corporate profit comes less and less from the US as well.

This means that the growth of a low-income workforce in huge developing markets — from Brazil to, yes, China — is in parallel with the growth of the consumer economies of these countries. Coke, for example, gets most of its profits overseas, as this prepared-in-India report shows:

Pepsi and Coca-Cola both are American company. Pepsi earn more profit from its native country where as Coca-Cola get most part of its profit from overseas.

What does this mean for us? Three things:

■ Corporations now exist to pass huge amounts of money into the executive suites via CEO-controlled, fully captured "compensation committees." (Sorry, Virginia, that's just a fact; it's why CEOs are making so much and we aren't.)

■ Corporations have decoupled their labor expenses from the U.S. work force.

■ Corporations are decoupling their profits from the U.S. consumer market.

Conclusion: The Dow can recover even if the U.S. consumer market doesn't and the U.S. economy goes into a 10-year tailspin.

Now Rachel on all of this:


Maddow:

"It's raining money for them; it's rivers and lakes and oceans of money for the S&P 500" [the profit side]

"Planned layoffs are up 2/3 from the months before" [the labor side]

"There's a clear and painful disconnect between what's happening for the wealth of corporations and what's happening for the rest of the economy" [the bottom line]

In other words, I think my conclusion (above) is correct. And if so, the U.S. worker could more and more be watching the success of nominally (and only nominally) "U.S." corporations from the outside, the way Colombian workers, or Mexican workers, or Egyptian workers do — our masters, who rule from abroad.

And if that's the case, what does it mean for U.S. politics going forward?

(I'm not asking that question to be provocative; I'm asking because that really is the next big question; and we're going to need answers before the actual answer hits us in the face, or elsewhere.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

White House says it’s a "myth [that] President Obama caved"

First rule of PR, don't repeat the charge.  Having said that, I'm generally a big fan of FAQ's that take the hardest questions and then debunk them.  Still, having the White House Web site publish the words "President Obama caved" is still jarring.

The context of this is a new White House web page that explains why the deficit deal doesn't suck.  I'm not sure I agree with the White House's arguments.  Let's start with this:

Myth: President Obama caved.

Fact: President Obama laid out key priorities that had to be part of any deal. Those priorities are reflected in this compromise. First, we avoided default which would have plunged the economy into a deep recession, imperiling the well-being of millions of Americans. Second, the initial down payment on deficit reductions does not cut low-income and safety-net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Third, we set up a path forward that will put pressure on Congress to adopt a balanced approach. And finally, we raised the debt ceiling until 2013, ensuring that House Republicans could not use the threat of default in just a few months to force severe cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

1. I don't think you can really take credit for stopping the Republicans from destroying the world economy.  First off, I'm not entirely convinced that Boehner and McConnell would have let that happen.  Second, many people think the President had the authority under the 14th Amendment to continue paying our debts.  And third, after you cave to the demands of hostage takers you don't really get credit for "saving the hostages."  Not when you do it the wrong way.

2. Odd that the White House is claiming credit for Medicare, Medicare and Social Security not being part of the deal when it's the President who put those programs on the table in the first place.

3.You put us on a path to a balanced approach?  So the first deal wasn't a balanced approach?  Not that we didn't know that, but it's interesting that the White House is admitting this on a page devoted to "myths" about the deal.  And in any case, I don't think anyone thinks the Super Congress is going to end well.  All it takes is one Democrat to vote with the crazy Republicans on the committee (Kent Conrad, come on down!) and we're all fiscally dead.

4. You've made sure the debt ceiling isn't an issue until after the election.  Again, at what cost?  And yet again the claim that the President saved Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security when he's the one who put it on the table in the first place.

There's a lot more, and it pretty much reads the same.  AT least the White House is finally fighting.... against us... after the battle is over. Read the rest of this post...

U.S. total income "plummeted" 15% from 2007–2009

Via Matt Stoller, we get this from Reuters, which seems to be coming through like a champ these days (my emphasis):

U.S. incomes plummeted again in 2009, with total income down 15.2 percent in real terms since 2007, new tax data showed on Wednesday.

The data showed an alarming drop in the number of taxpayers reporting any earnings from a job -- down by nearly 4.2 million from 2007 -- meaning every 33rd household that had work in 2007 had no work in 2009.

Average income in 2009 fell to $54,283, down $3,516, or 6.1 percent in real terms compared with 2008, the first Internal Revenue Service analysis of 2009 tax returns showed. Compared with 2007, average income was down $8,588 or 13.7 percent.

The article is stuffed with information like this, a veritable piñata of double-dip sandwich makings.

For example, for 2009:

• Over 1400 taxpayers in the $1 million plus group paid no taxes at all (nice)
• The number of actual tax returns fell by almost 2 million, compared with 2007
• And this double hit: "While the number of people who earned enough income to file a tax return fell, the share of those filing who paid no income tax rose to 41.7 percent of tax returns, up from 36.4 percent in 2009."

Actually, the only good news in the whole article is the byline — reporting and writing by David Cay Johnston in Singapore.

This is why we don't have nice things, like jobs; we can't afford to "ask" (bribe) Congress to give them to us.

GP Read the rest of this post...

About that "Super Committee"

From Steve Benen:

Given the events of the last couple of weeks, Dems are arguably even more inclined to play hardball, since Republicans were so irresponsible during the debt-ceiling fight.

I think Steve means "given the events of the last couple of weeks, Dems SHOULD BE even more inclined to play hardball." But we all know they won't. It's not in their nature. Even Bernie Sanders talks a good game, but do you see him launching any filibusters? We have three years of this presidency, and far more years of Democrats in Congress. Nothing suggests that their behavior will change. If anything, I'd rewrite Steve's line to say: "Given the events of the last couple of weeks, Republicans should know that Democrats are not inclined to play hardball."

More from Steve:

It’s not as if the GOP created an atmosphere of goodwill and cooperation. And with Republicans already taking an antagonistic attitude about the next round of talks that haven’t even started, Democrats would be fools not to approach the next phase with confrontation in mind.

But they are, Blanche.

Again, Steve is correct. Democrats would be fools not to approach future dealings with Republicans with confrontation in mind. But it's not like this was the first time the GOP played hardball with the Democrats. That's all they do is play hardball. And the Dems caved. That's all they do. There is no reason to expect a change in the President's, or the Democrats in Congress', behavior. And the Republicans know that. Read the rest of this post...

Sen. Conrad on whether debt deal’s cuts threaten jobs and growth: "Sure they do"

That's nice.  But Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, would have you rest assured that the confidence fairy will make everything all right:  From Slate:

But considering how close the economy is to a double dip, these small short-term cuts might be enough to kill the recovery. The Obama administration failed to get its most effective, most desired stimulus measures written into the final compromise, despite months of wrangling. The deal lets the payroll tax cut and the federal extension to state unemployment benefits expire, even though the economy—particularly the labor market—has not really improved since those measures were enacted. Not extending the unemployment benefits alone might shave enough from GDP to send the economy back to scratch growth. Today, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that not extending federal benefits will cut $60 billion in annual spending. If you presume that each dollar of unemployment insurance boosts GDP by $1.60, that alone smacks 0.5 percent off of GDP.

When confronted with that fact, members of Congress shrug. My colleague Dave Weigel asked Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., about the discretionary spending cuts, and whether they threaten growth and jobs. "Sure they do," he answered. "Now, what we don't know is: What will the offset be of improved certainty and confidence? And we'll just have to see." The White House, for its part, says it now plans to "pivot" to jobs, with the debt ceiling and compromise bill out of the way. But the debt ceiling debate seems to have proven that no stimulus measures can make it through this Congress. How could they, if a conservative bill containing all cuts barely managed to squeak through?

Note how Conrad is basically willing to gamble with throwing the US economy into another recession:

"Now, what we don't know is: What will the offset be of improved certainty and confidence? And we'll just have to see."

We'll just have to see whether Kent Conrad just threw us into a double dip recession?  Gee, thanks, Senator for being so concerned.

So, what we have from Conrad is a "sure" that the cuts threaten the economy, and a "we'll just have to wait and see" whether the deal will somehow magically reinvigorate the economy.

Then again, if your state had only a 3.2% unemployment rate like North Dakota's, compared to the 9.2% national unemployment rate, and if you had had no scruples, you too might be willing to gamble with the economy. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: Hope is not a plan

What's most interesting to me is how ticked off Krugman is getting - I mean, seriously, titling one blog post "President Pushover" - and, the degree to which Krugman's ire is a barometer of liberal pique with Obama finally boiling over (and I think it is). What's also interesting to me is the degree to which Krugman has, through his blog, and also his TV appearances (and probably to a lesser degree his column, since it's less frequent), become one of the most influential de facto leaders of the left, and certainly the anti-Obama left (which recently is becoming the same thing).  Here's Krugman last night, in a post titled "Hope is not a plan":

Nor is it [hope] good politics. So what the heck are they thinking?

President Barack Obama’s spokesman is discounting talk that the economy may be headed back into recession, despite recent concerns of economists.

Spokesman Jay Carney says there is no question that economic growth and job creation have slowed over the past half year.

But, Carney told a White House briefing, “We do not believe that there is a threat of a double-dip recession.”

Of course there’s a threat. Larry Summers puts the odds at one in three; I might be slightly more optimistic, but the risk is very real. Who, exactly, is at the White House who knows better?

And think about the politics here. For two years the White House has been determinedly cheerful, always declaring that the recovery was on track, that its policies were working fine. And all it did was squander its credibility

It seems to me that there are a few possibilities to explain Carney's comments, and White House actions.

1. The President really does think the economy is going swell, and will go swell, by the time of the election next year.
2. The President thinks there's nothing else he can do - either economically, or politically - to help the economy, so the best he can do is put on a happy face.
3. Regardless of what he believes to be the true state of the economy and/or his ability to do anything about it, the President believes the best he can do is exude conference.

If it's 1, we're in trouble. And reportedly it was 1 that got us such a small stimulus - the White House figured we'd be out of the economic doldrums in a year or so, so we didn't need a very large stimulus to hold us over.

2. I think the President concluded a long time ago that he had done what he could for the economy, with the stimulus, and it was time to pivot to the debt (you'll recall he endorsed the GOP talking points on the debt about a month or so after the one year anniversary of the stimulus). The "pivot to jobs" is, I think, for show, only. I have no idea what the President could possibly propose that won't be either pablum, or terrible (more tax cuts). Of course he could propose another stimulus, but he won't. So in the real of what's possible, for him, I have no idea what he could come up with that would be serious or have an impact on the current economic crisis. And that's scary.

3. Sure, the President feels the need to put on a happy face. But regardless, I don't think anyone puts much stock in the President's word. Which is particularly sad considering that this President's number one gift was his ability to communicate. Read the rest of this post...

What do we do now?

DC political consultant Mike Lux, who is rumored to have given the administration an earful the other night at the Common Purpose (aka Veal Pen) meeting, has some interesting analysis of the deficit deal and where we go from here (courtesy of Crooks & Liars):

As to the President, what is important to understand is that he wanted this negotiation. He had opportunities to avoid it last year, getting this deal done as part of the lame duck budget deal, or at the beginning of this year by making clear that he would only sign a clean debt ceiling increase. But he waded into these negotiations willingly and eagerly, hoping that reason and Wall Street lobbyists would help him craft the grand compromise he was willing to make if the Republicans agreed to raise taxes. It was part of his long-term strategy for getting the deficit issue off his back — Ezra Klein’s piece here (which I have been assured by people at the White House that it very much reflected Obama’s thinking) lays out the thinking: cut a big dramatic budget deal, get the deficit issue off his back, look like a centrist going into the next election. And through most of this showdown, he did look far more reasonable than the Republicans and was doing better than them in the short-term polling. The problem is that if Republicans don’t ever compromise, if they don’t care about being reasonable or not blowing up the economy, the President is the one who would have to fold, and that is exactly what happened. It made him look weak, and it tore a gaping hole in his relationship with his base. D.C. centrists loved his reasonableness, his willingness to reach out, and all those other things praised in the editorial pages of the Washington Post, but even the pundits who were praising him — in fact, especially the pundits that were praising him — turned on him when he lost. Such is the nature of this town.

All we need is one bad Dem appointed to the Super Congress and it's over - and you know there will be at least one:

I worry less about Pelosi appointing anyone who would sell us out — her own values and her political smarts are too strong, and the political dynamics in the House give her the freedom to appoint good people. But the culture and clubbiness and tradition of the Senate create a lot of pressure on Reid to appoint people who could be very bad. Sen. Conrad, the Budget Committee chairman, who protocol and tradition say should be appointed, is an extremely conservative Senator who has been happy to cut terrible deals with Republicans in the past, and who doesn’t have to worry about grassroots anger back home because he is retiring. Remember, even one vote from the Democrats is all it would take, and the bill cannot be filibustered once it comes out of the Super Commission. Progressives should be spending a massive amount of time and effort working on Reid to not give a seat to a Senator whose history shows they will sign off on a bad deal, especially someone like Conrad who is very conservative and accountable to no one since he isn’t coming back.

And if you own your own place, get ready for a massive tax increase:

The Simpson-Bowles Commission and the Gang of Six both targeted middle-class tax breaks like the home mortgage deduction and health care benefits with the idea of using much of the money to cut tax rates for high-income individuals and big business.

If they betray us on the Super Congress, and I can't imagine how they won't, then I think it will be time for people to reassess their relationship with the current candidates in 2012.  The NRA and AIPAC, probably the two strongest interest groups in Washington, would simply mark any candidate for defeat who supported a similar deal against their interests.  All you have to do is defeat one high profile candidate once, and the rest will fear you for eternity (it's the way the Teabaggers did it).  Can we say we'd do the same?  Perhaps it's time we reconsidered a relationship with the party that clearly is no longer working. Read the rest of this post...

More of the same? No thanks.

@samsteinhp: Carney: "Pivot [to jobs] is not an appropriate word. It is continuing the focus we have had..."

Read the rest of this post...

Wisconsin: Anti-gay recall senator, Luther Olson, has some family issues

The Wisconsin Republicans are ... well, this story tells quite a tale. Please read carefully; each clause adds to the mess:

Wisconsin Family Action has spent big money to re-elect a divorced adulterer who is rumored to have impregnated his teenage babysitter.

The “pro-family” group has so far funneled at least $200,000 into television commercials promoting Republican Sen. Luther Olsen by attacking the driving record of his opponent, state Rep. Fred Clark. The small religious group has not disclosed where it obtained so much money.

WFA claims that it exists to promote “traditional” marriage. Yet the group’s top priority in the Aug. 9 recall election is to save the senate seat of a man who created a scandal several years ago when he had a high-profile extramarital affair with a married woman who is now his wife.

But that’s only the beginning of Olsen’s moral challenges.

Of couse, there's more. Just click and read. It's almost a cliché, and an usavory one. Family Action ... divorced adulterer ... babysitter. I'd be laughed out of Hollywood if I tried to pitch that.

Luther Olsen is the guy we listed here; he's losing to his Democratic challenger, but not by much. If you're in-state, consider helping out with the recall. And no matter where you are, you can contribute.

Republican recall elections are August 9. Democratic recalls (yes, there are a few) are a week later, on August 16.

A net three change from R to D gives the Wisconsin Senate to the Democrats. Sure would be nice to notch a victory for a change, instead of one of those noble but sad little losses. Those are kinda getting to me. Here's hoping.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Cenk Uygur: This looks even more appropriate today than when it first came out

We're in that post-partem era, where we say goodbye to what we thought we knew, and watch as the cord is cut, at least in the eyes of many. For quite a few, there's not much turning back from this last No-Drama Nightmare.

And in that context, this seems even more appropriate. It's Cenk Uygur explaining why he turned down MSNBC for a weekend show.

But don't think of this as about Cenk — it is and it isn't. Instead, listen to what he's saying about the intersect between Democratic politics and the "liberal" media; this is about what sounds to many like the White House (or their very close friends and/or money-bundlers), and how they help call the shots for "liberal" messaging outlets.

There's a ton of information in this statement. It's not a smoking gun, but the smell of sulpher is in the air. Listen carefully, especially in the context of this last week or so.



(This follow-on segment is rather good as well.)

GP Read the rest of this post...