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Credit: E-Local.com infographic

While the Right freaks out about the number of Christmas Trees at the MUSEUM that is the public areas of the White House (where yeah, Fox News, there is no War on Christmas), the White House Christmas Tree infographic (worth the click) points out another number from White House Christmas Tree history that that same Right wants to forget.

Open thread below....

Here's a gem featuring the great Emmitt Rhodes. Got a favorite song about living?

The Merry-Go-Round
	Price: $9.49 (As of 12/07/12 08:02 pm details)

Oh, I'm sorry. Is that headline a little strong? Maybe because I am just furious over this, as everyone should be. Compare and contrast, kids:

The Senate on Tuesday passed a massive, wide-ranging $631 billion defense authorization bill that restores threatened Pentagon biofuels programs, issues new sanctions against Iran and changes U.S. detention policy for American citizens.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed the Senate unanimously 98-0 after the bill was debated for five days and hundreds of amendments were considered on the floor.

That's not even counting the so-called "black budget," of course. Have you ever seen a politician draw the line on the defense budget? I can't remember it ever happening.

Now consider this:

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to ask Congress for about $50 billion in emergency funds to help rebuild the states that were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, challenging deficit-minded lawmakers while worrying regional leaders, who complained Wednesday that it was not enough.

The White House will send the proposal to Capitol Hill this week, and while the final sum is still in flux, it should be between $45 billion and $55 billion, according to officials briefed on deliberations over it.

That falls significantly short of the $82 billion sought by New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to clean up storm damage, as well as to improve infrastructure to prepare for future storms.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers from the region quickly expressed disappointment in the pending request and lobbied the administration to increase it before sending it to Congress. “While $50 billion is a significant amount of money, it unfortunately does not meet all of New York and New Jersey’s substantial needs,” Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York and Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, all Democrats, said in a joint statement.

Fifty billion dollars? An insult. We lost $18 billion in disappearing pallets of cash in Iraq, and no one ever gave a crap except dirty hippies like bloggers. Now this is what the administration offers to rebuild the freakin' East Coast?

Shame on Obama, and shame on all the politicians and media clowns cooperating in playing this deficit game. The richest country in the world can't clean up after itself because austerity! (Mind you, New York City is the economic engine of the country, home to Wall Street and the entertainment industry.) Why, if we adequately funded the recovery, that might clue ordinary people in to the economic shell game that's going on before their eyes, aided and abetted by a complicit media.

And we can't have that. [Via David Dayen.]

Last week, we started the countdown of the five stupidest right-wing tweets of 2012. You'll be able to vote on the stupidest after we post the last one.

Our second contender is from Eric Cantor.

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Since the modern Republican Party has created it's own alternate universe with its own revisionist history, it makes complete sense that they'd transform the American (and socialist!) holiday celebrating workers into one celebrating "job creators." But it didn't work so well at the polls in November.

Keep it up, Eric!

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Dave already touched on the protests and police response to the Michigan right to work for less law that their legislators decided to go ahead and jam through in a lame duck session. Here's more from Rep. Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) who did his best to describe the legislation for what it is -- a right to freeload.

Rep. Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) Speaks Out Against "Right-to-Work" Legislation:

In this clip, State Rep. Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) explains his opposition to House Bill 4054, a proposal to make Michigan a "right-to-work" state. The proposal was pushed through the House in one day without a single committee hearing and without taking a single word of testimony.

These Republicans all love personal responsibility unless it means an opportunity to sock it to the paychecks of everyday working Americans and to bust a union. I'm not sure if the tide can be turned back through legislation or ballot initiatives which reverse or invalidate all or at least part of what just happened here, but I would suspect that is the next move we'll see from labor to try to counter this.

Here's more from the AFL-CIO on this rotten legislation: Breaking: Michigan Senate Passes ‘Right to Work’ For Less Bill:

The Michigan State Senate just passed the “right to work” for less bill. The House passed a similar bill earlier today and Gov. Rick Snyder (R) says he will sign the legislation that rolls back workers’ rights.

The measure passed on a 22-16 vote Thursday after hours of impassioned debate. Four Republicans joined all 12 Democrats in opposition.

After months of claiming “right to work” for less was not on his agenda, Snyder changed course this week and began a rapid push to move the bill through the legislature. The Nation’s John Nichols writes that the Michigan action is “part of a bold anti-labor move launched in coordination with a Koch Brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity project to ‘pave the way for right to work in states across our nation’.”

GOP legislative leaders had plotted behind closed doors with Governor Snyder, to have Michigan join the traditionally lower-wage states that decades ago enacted “Right-to-Work” laws to thwart the rise of a labor movement that promoted civil rights, women’s rights and economic justice.

The Michigan State AFL-CIO released the following statement:

....The only ‘freedom’ gained for Michigan workers will be the freedom to make less, the freedom to be disrespected at work, the freedom to struggle to pay their bills and the freedom to be left out of the American dream. This bill is a blatant attempt by the richest in Michigan to silence the voices of working families in our democracy, build their own power, and make the growing gap between the rich and everyone else even bigger.

Should Snyder sign this legislation, he will join a list of other governors – John Kasich, Scott Walker, and others – who have signed over the future of their respective states to big corporations and CEOs, making a decision to leave working families behind. Regardless of what might happen, working people have made it clear they will continue to fight for our vision of a better, stronger Michigan and work to hold elected leaders accountable.

More than 3,000 union members and workers' rights advocates rallied against the legislation and for several hours police shut the doors to the Capitol, keeping protesters out of the House and Senate galleries. Several people were maced as they tried to enter.

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Ironically, it was the activity of two of his top deputies that ended his career. On Thursday, Letten announced his resignation after the actions of former first assistant US Attorney Jan Mann and assistant US Attorney Sal Perricone. Via the Washington Post:

Resignations of U.S. attorneys under a cloud of scandal are rare. In an unusual step, Deputy Attorney General James Cole traveled to New Orleans on Thursday and informed the district’s federal judges that the Justice Department had appointed a career prosecutor to investigate the allegations of misconduct in Letten’s office.

Letten’s resignation, effective Tuesday, comes eight months into a scandal that sparked the Justice Department investigation of his top deputy and a second veteran prosecutor in connection with anonymous online criticism of a man whose company is the target of a federal inquiry.

The two prosecutors, former first assistant U.S. attorney Jan Mann and former assistant U.S. attorney Sal Perricone, acknowledged using aliases to post comments on the Web site of the Times-Picayune newspaper. The comments were highly critical of Fred Heebe, the owner of a local landfill that was under federal investigation, according to court papers. Perricone, a member of Letten’s inner circle, resigned, and Mann was demoted.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating the episode, and last week a federal judge increased the pressure on Letten by calling for an independent counsel to probe the matter.

The judge, Kurt D. Engelhardt, also called for the department to investigate leaks of grand jury information to the media by prosecutors in the high-profile Danziger Bridge case, in which New Orleans police officers shot innocent city residents after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and then tried to cover it up.

The New York Times has more:

Last month, the revelations of online misconduct reached Mr. Letten’s top assistant, Jan Mann. A federal judge, in a scathing 50-page order, broached the possibility of criminal conduct in regard to her online activities, as well as those of another senior prosecutor, Sal Perricone, who resigned in March.

The judge also revealed that another federal prosecutor had expressed suspicions about the comments to his supervisors in 2010.

The exposure of Ms. Mann, months after Mr. Letten’s avowals that Mr. Perricone had acted alone, raised doubts about the effectiveness of an internal investigation by the Justice Department. The revelations could also jeopardize hard-fought convictions — including those last year of police officers involved in post-Katrina killings on the Danziger Bridge — as well as continuing inquiries like a bribery investigation that appears to be steadily encircling C. Ray Nagin, the former mayor.

I really hope the Los Angeles District Attorney's office is paying attention. Given that it's under new management, it might be time to give serious attention to online commenting by assistants, anonymous or otherwise. It would appear some guidance on appropriate behavior is in order.

Here's a sample of what Mann and Perricone said about Mr. Heebe via anonymous comments. I snipped this from the the court pleading, which has plenty of other examples:

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The text, for the visually impaired like me, reads as follows:

13. Many of Defendant's comments -- particularly those made under his most recent handle "Henry L. Mencken1951" -- involve Mr. Heebe, his family, and his company River Birch, Inc., as well as a federal investigation involving River Birch. In commenting on this ongoing investigation, Defendant made numerous statements about Mr. Heebe which Defendant knew to be false. The comments were part of an effort by Defendant to undermine Mr. Heebe's reputation in the community.

14. This conduct is particularly egregious given that Defendant was the senior prosecutor overseeing the ongoing investigation of River Birch at the time he posted the comments in question. Rather than maintain the degree of objectivity and professionalism expected of federal prosecutors, Defendant plainly prejudged Mr. Heebe's guilt prior to the conclusion of the investigation and then sought to use his insider knowledge in an effort to turn public opinion against Mr. Heebe.

I'm betting this isn't the only case like this. Just the first one.

First of all, we're pretending that the economy is doing better because we have fewer people on unemployment, but that's for a number of factors, most of them not good. The austerians cut the number of weeks for available benefits. Plus, we've had a MASSIVE economic pivot that pushed people from full-time positions to contract work, which means they're not even eligible for unemployment. Unemployment is one of the few economic stimulus programs we still have, so you're damned right that any austerity deal better include federal unemployment extensions:

WASHINGTON -- Democrats in Congress demanded on Thursday that any upcoming "fiscal cliff" deal include a continuation of federal unemployment insurance, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

"We have 2 million families that are in a very difficult situation if we do not extend unemployment insurance benefits," Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said during a press conference at the Capitol. "This is the real cliff."

Unless Congress acts to reauthorize federal benefits for the long-term unemployed, 2 million laid off workers will abruptly stop receiving benefits after Dec. 29, according to the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy and research group.

The unemployment lapse is one of the less-noticed elements of the so-called fiscal cliff, the moment at which a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes is scheduled to take effect. The biggest disagreement is over expiring Bush-era tax cuts; top Republicans want to keep all the cuts, while Democrats only want to renew them for annual household incomes below $250,000.

"The dire consequences of failing to help jobless Americans are not debatable," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said. "If there is an agreement on the fiscal cliff, unemployment insurance must be included. If there is not an agreement reached, we must extend unemployment separately."

(The fiscal scolds must be obeyed!)

Is there a more frustrating liberal columnist than Jonathan Chait? At times he does stellar work, but at other times he becomes another casualty of the beltway villager syndrome when he says Go Ahead, Raise the Medicare Retirement Age.

This seems like a useful time for liberals to sort out the difference between budget ideas we don’t like and budget ideas we can’t or shouldn’t accept. (Ezra Klein has some other sensible ideas here.) Many of my liberal wonk friends have been making the case against raising the Medicare retirement age — seeSarah Kliff, Matthew Yglesias, and Jonathan Cohn.

Their basic case is that raising the Medicare retirement age is a really stupid way to save money because it just forces people to stop buying health care through Medicare, which is relatively cheap, and start buying it through private insurance, which costs way more. They’re all totally right about this. Still, when the question comes to what concessions the Democrats are going to have to accept, rather than what policy makes the most sense, raising the Medicare age seems like a sensible bone to throw the right.

Raising the age of Medicare isn't a damn bone, it's a six inch dagger sticking into the hearts of millions of elderly Americans. It's been analyzed by the best and consensus is that raising the age of eligibility is horrible for health care, people, future costs and savings.

The majority of 65- and 66-year-olds would end up with skimpier coverage than they’d have with Medicare—and some would end up with no coverage at all—leaving them exposed to higher expenses. Businesses would also face higher costs, because some of those 65- and 66-year-olds would stay on employer policies. Medicare premiums would also inch higher, since the pool of people in Medicare would be older overall. Overall, according to independent assessments, the government would spend less on medical care, but the country as a whole would spend more, which is precisely the opposite of what public policy is supposed to be achieving right now. (This report from the Kaiser Family Foundation has a full analysis and this item from Sarah Kliff puts it into context, if you want to know more.)

So why does Chait think this is a good idea?

For one thing, it has weirdly disproportionate symbolic power, both among Republicans in Congress and establishmentarian fiscal scolds. Mitch McConnell and Erskine Bowles alike would regard raising the retirement age as a sign of serious belt-tightening and the “structural reforms” conservatives say they need. Meager and inefficient though the savings may be, they pack a lot of punch in delivering Republican votes.

So instead of good policy and compassion we're supposed to surrender on something that does nothing to ease the so-called fiscal cliff just so teabirchers in Congress can feel better about themselves because they screwed over millions of working class elderly Americans. And of course we must appease the fiscal scolds which in reality have been turned into bipartisan GODS for the beltway villagers and they need their sacrifice. It's not shared sacrifice that politicians proclaim is needed, but the Edward G. Robinson golden calf kind of sacrifice to the GODS in The Ten Commandments. The fiscal scolds must be obeyed or ye shall be punished!

DDay then debunks Chait's final argument about how raising the eligibility age of Medicare would strengthen ACA:

Then there’s this bit of folly:

What’s more, raising the Medicare retirement age would help strengthen the fight to preserve the Affordable Care Act [...] The political basis for the right’s opposition to universal health insurance has always been that the uninsured are politically disorganized and weak. But a side effect of raising the Medicare retirement age would be that a large cohort of 65- and 66-year-olds would suddenly find themselves needing the Affordable Care Act to buy their health insurance. Which is to say, Republicans attacking the Affordable Care Act would no longer be attacking the usual band of very poor or desperate people they can afford to ignore but a significant chunk of middle-class voters who have grown accustomed to the assumption that they will be able to afford health care. Strengthening the political coalition for universal coverage seems like a helpful side benefit — possibly even one conservatives come to regret, and liberals, to feel relief they accepted.

This is cynical, to say the least. It’s also completely wrong. The one thing we know will be a side effect of increasing the Medicare eligibility age is that insurance premiums will skyrocket. It will make Medicare more expensive because they lose relatively healthy 65 and 66 year-olds from their risk pool, and it will make private insurance more expensive because they add relatively sick 65 and 66 year-olds to their risk pool. Insurers hate the idea for just this reason. As a result, everyone’s premiums will rise, and cost-shifting will ensue from the government to its citizens.
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It’s maybe the worst strategic plan in the world to raise the Medicare age to bolster support for the Affordable Care Act by raising how much everyone has to spend on health insurance, particularly those who don’t get subsidies, the same “significant chunk of middle-class voters who have grown accustomed to the assumption that they will be able to afford health care.”The idiocy on display here can hardly be believed. The dangerous part is how many members of the Democratic caucus might agree with this logic, Nancy Pelosi excepted.

Stupidity unfortunately isn't a deterrent in the hallowed grounds of Congress, but one thing I do know. We can't afford to have more establishment liberals succumbing to satiate the hunger of the barbarous tea party to cut entitlement/earned benefit programs that Americans depend on to survive.

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The Fox News morning show Fox & Friends on Friday declared that a law in Michigan that weakens unions was a "Victory for Capitalism!"

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled state legislature in Michigan had quickly pushed through a new measure that would make the birthplace of the country's labor movement a right-to-work state, crippling unions by prohibiting requirements that employees join or pay dues.

"Yesterday, the legislature of both of houses passed a law making Michigan the 24th right to work state, bans mandatory union dues," Fox News co-host Steve Doocy reported while a graphic on the screen read, "Victory for Capitalism!"

"If you work for the UAW, you work for Chrysler, Ford, places like that -- there are a lot of people who are upset," Doocy noted.

"But that's where it's going," co-host Brian Kilmeade asserted. "If you want to know what's good about our economy, look at Indiana, look at Ohio and now look what's happening over in Florida [with anti-union laws] and that's what they want to do in Michigan. It's governors making tough choices."

Hundreds of protesters turned out on Thursday, briefly shutting down the Michigan state Capitol Building and causing State Police to use pepper spray and arrest several demonstrators. But lawmakers jammed through the legislation and Gov. Rick Snyder has promised to sign the bill after final passage, which is expected before the Republican majority is reduced from a 64-46 margin to a 59-51 margin in January.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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Earlier this week, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan were both feted at the Jack Kemp Foundation, and at the banquet, both attempted to distance themselves from the Republican Party's favorite talking point of 2012 -- that the problem with this America is that the freeloading, moocher "takers" outnumber the noble, job-creating "makers."

Bobo, apparently really desperate to find any glimmer of hope these days, highlighted this passage from Rubio's speech.

As he was telling this story, Rubio motioned to some of the service staff at the Kemp dinner. They stopped to listen to him. “It all starts with our people,” Rubio continued. “In the kitchens of our hotels. In the landscaping crews that work in our neighborhoods. In the late-night janitorial shifts that clean our offices. There you will find the dreams America was built on. There you will find the promise of tomorrow. Their journey is our nation’s destiny. And if they can give their children what our parents gave us, the 21st-century America will be the single greatest nation that man has ever known.”

People at the dinner say that there was a hushed silence for a second as Rubio concluded with this refrain. Then a roaring ovation swelled and filled the room.

The Republican Party has a long way to go before it revives itself as a majority party. But that speech signifies a moment in that revival. And I would say the last month has marked a moment.

Yes, Rubio's failure to label the hotel wait staff a bunch of parasites in their presence is the new "Tear Down This Wall" speech.

But here's the funny part.

The wait staff at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel are union members. And Marco Rubio is one of the most anti-labor lawmakers in Congress.

He's said unions are un-American, sponsored the RAISE Act, which was an assault on collective bargaining and he's received a perfect 100%/A+ score from one of the leading union-busting organizations on the right.

The reality is, Rubio's wants to make it harder for these workers to give their children a better future. He and his party offer them absolutely nothing. Giving them a pat on the head and not calling them leeches hardly marks a new day for the GOP, no matter what Bobo says.