How can you tell a Republican is lying?

It's bad enough that Little Bobby Jindal thought it was a good idea to use the dismal response a Republican government had to a major disaster in his state as his example of why government is bad. No, Bobby, REPUBLICAN government is bad. How on earth can a party that believes government is bad ever hope to govern well? Anyway, it turns out, Bobby can't even tell the truth about his example of bad government.

Remember Tuesday night when he said this:

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: ‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’ I asked him: ‘Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?’ He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, ‘Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.’ And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: ‘Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!’ Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

Wellllll, turns out it's a big ole lie. Politico's Ben Smith wrote about it.

Anyway, Jindal's spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers, told Smith that the governor didn't mean to imply that the story actually took place during the "heat of the rescue effort" or that Jindal was directly involved. It actually took place some "days later," Sellers said, as Lee was giving an interview about the incident on the phone.

Let's see. "During Katrina" Little Bobby said he went to Lee's makeshift office and had "never seen him so angry." Lee was yelling into the phone that he was the sheriff and "if you don't like it you can come and arrest me."

Little Bobby, in his sweet high school freshman voice, said he asked Lee, "Sheriff, what's got you so mad?" That's when Lee told him the story about the boats and the bureaucrat who wanted insurance and registration. "That's ridiculous," Little Bobby said, and the sheriff yelled into the phone, "Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too."

Does that sound like he implied he was there to you? Me neither. In fact, he says he was there. Lee, of course, has since died and can't tell us the truth, but Melissa Sellers did.

Bobby Jindal lied. He told a cutesy little story that he made up. But Jindal's staff wasn't done yet.

Jindal's chief of staff Little Timmy Teepell said that he and Little Bobby walked into Lee's office while he was "yelling on the phone about a decision he's already made."

"He's saying, 'This is a decision I made, and if you don't like it, you can come and arrest me,'" Timmy said.

But Timmy didn't explain where the "Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!" part came from, but Melissa insisted that there was no difference between what Little Bobby said Tuesday night and what actually happened.

"This is liberal blogger B.S. The story is clear," Timmy said.

Right. So Timmy and Melissa are liars too, just like their boss Little Bobby, because Bobby didn't say he overheard Lee giving an interview about the bureaucrat and the boats. He said he was there, and that Lee threw in the "you can arrest Little Bobby too" line.

LIAR.

Update: Seems Little Bobby's been telling this story for quite some time. Here's a video (dontcha just love YouTube) in which he makes it absolutely clear he was "hearing Sheriff Lee's end of the conversation" with some "nameless bureaucrat" and not hearing some interview.

Didn't hear anything about this little lie at CPAC, although those guys really went nuts when Hillary Clinton said she was dodging bullets in Bosnia.

It's just becoming more clear every day that after eight years of living under the Bush administration's Alice Through the Looking Glass world, they've lost all contact with reality.

When Bobby was giving his speech and saying he was there, he wasn't saying he was there. That mayor who sent out the watermelons on the White House lawn image had no idea there were any racist connotations to that either. Like, what was the joke then?

Mitch McConnell said today that conservatives were more fun than liberals, because who'd want to hang out with Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you could hang out with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Limbaugh.

Is that a trick question?

Michelle Bachman -- who told Chris Matthews that she was worried that Barack Obama had "anti-American views" and then called for the "news media" to "do a penetrating expose" about whether members of Congress "are pro-America or anti-America" and later lied and said she'd said no such thing and blamed Matthews -- came up on stage after the black guy they elected chairman of the RNC spoke and said "You be da man, you be da man."

Cliff Kincaid, head a conservative group with the most bullshit name ever -- Accuracy in Media -- suggested first that Obama is a communist and then that he wasn't born in the United States, something that's been thoroughly debunked, except apparently conservatives can't take indisputable evidence for an answer. The audience at CPAC, where all completely sane people go to spread their sanity, brought the house down with their applause.

John Bolton brought the house down too by picking Obama's hometown of Chicago as his example of city that Iran could target with a nuclear attack. And Joe the unlicensed Plumber-turned-GOP-Strategist (yes, he spoke too) said if he were in Congress he'd probably be in jail for slapping some other member who "stood there and said anything bad about our troops, pretty much anybody who sat there and talked treasonous talk about America."

Back in the day, really, when people would talk about our military in a poor way, somebody would shoot ‘em. And there’d be nothing said about that, because they knew it was wrong. You don’t talk about our troops. You support our troops. Especially when our congressmen and senators sit there and say bad things in an ongoing conflict.

I'm guessing the Joe gets to decide who has talked "about our military in a poor way" so they could get shot. And this from the guy who said back when he was Joe the War Correspondent that journalists shouldn't "be anywhere near war" and "should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting."

And now I'm guessing one of my not-playing-with-a-full-deck commenters will swing by to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about or some such.

Delusion. It's what's for breakfast.


Cross-posted at Stop the Press!


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Sense Of Entitlement

Conservatives are whining about "entitlement programs" now. You know, entitlement programs, like Medicare, Social Security, Head Start, food stamps, unemployment benefits -- anything that could actually help the citizens of the United States of America.

Keep an eye out for Democrats -- and not just those stinking Blue Dogs -- who may follow suit and adopt that hideous language as if people in dire straits are sticking their hands out and demanding help because they feel entitled to it and not because it's the right thing for government to do when its people are desperate.

But it's not true that conservatives oppose entitlement programs. Why, they're some of the biggest supporters, in fact.

You may not be aware of it, because when a conservative supports an entitlement program, they don't call it that. They call it a "bailout" or a "rescue plan" or "tax cuts." And it's meant explicitly for bankers and investors and CEOs and other campaign contributors.

Some people get it though. I found this blog, Stunatra's Place, earlier today.

You know, I am tired of hearing about this fucking stimulus/bail out/bullshit package. Look at these whiny motherfuckers. Let's see if I got this straight....you fucks are okay with bailing out the rich cocksuckers on Wall Street who robbed the people on Main Street but when it comes to helping those on Main Street you say "Fuck them?" What a bunch of bullshit.

If we're gonna alienate Main Street....why don't we just save us all a lot of money and not bother bailing anyone out. Tough shit for everyone. Auto industry, banks, crooks on Wall Street, struggling homeowners and anyone else who wants a hand out....fuck you.....you're all on your own. Good fucking luck!

Now, I won't go that far. I think that government does have a place -- an obligation even -- to help its citizens. And yes, that is a bit different from how it was set up in the 18th Century, when the entire U.S. population could have lived in Brooklyn. Times -- and the country -- have changed. Then, an economic downturn would have made barely a blip on the population since most of it was agrarian.

Not true anymore. Now, the population is too dependent on all kinds of artificial constructs -- many of them, if not most, set up by the government. An economic downturn -- especially a severe one like we're seeing now -- has the potential to be devastating to the people of the country.

But still, the conservatives would rather continue with their own entitlement programs for companies and rich bankers. Why, they're so horribly upset that taxpayer money might be used to help taxpayers that one of their rich buddies in the media, Rick Santelli, is calling for "tea parties," presumably some take off on the Boston Tea Party way back when. All the conservative sycophants are drooling over the possibility.

Billmon, however, says the rich guy version of a tea party doesn't look like anything like the old American variety of tea party. He thinks it probably look more like this, and I'm inclined to agree. It's clear they don't really know what the first one was about -- the favored tax status of the British East India Tea Company. Not the same thing as an attempt to help the people, and more akin to the Republican entitlement program of helping out corporations.

You heard them all going on and on about how the stimulus bill, for example, was just awful, was going to add to our already skyrocketing debt, shackle Americans for generations to come. John McCain, I think, called it "generational theft."

Only one problem, and for that I go back to Billmon. Government debt, it seems currently amounts to only about 50 percent of Gross Domestic Product, which is not that far from where it's been for the past 30 years. In fact, government debt as compared to GDP has risen only about 38 percent in those 30 years.

And, that's far below most other industrialized nations, like Japan (180 percent), Italy (170 percent), France (70 percent) and Germany (60 percent).

But other kinds of debt, not included when politicians say "national debt" but possibly more important in the grand scheme of things, have jumped far more.

And the biggest offender is the indebtedness of our finely tuned, well-oiled and strongly running financial institutions, now at about 350 percent of GDP -- more than six times what it was in 1975. And that's precisely where conservatism went wrong. Billmon...

The trend towards ever greater debt ratios has been particularly steep since then mid-1990s, which was roughly when the global creditor class decided that the "Great Moderation" (the globalization-induced taming of both inflation and recession) was here to stay, and began shoving loans in the face of any borrower who could fog up a mirror -- and some who couldn't.

There is an on-going economic debate -- too wonkish and tedious to explore here -- about whether this wall of money was a result of a coincident collapse in personal saving in the US, the UK and some of the other wealthy countries, or whether it actually caused middle-class and upper-middle class consumers to go an a spending spree the likes of which the hasn't been seen since the invention of the credit card.

Suffice it to say both sides of the trade thought they were getting a great deal at the time. And many of the same right-wing financial pundits now bitching about all this debt were perfectly happy to invent sunny stories that explained why it could go on forever.

But equally problematic is that private debt -- the kind that you and I hold -- has also risen, to just under 300 percent of GDP, one and half times what it was in 1975. That's also the fault of the conservatives, who convinced us over the years that we'd be just fine, no matter how much debt we took in. Billmon again.

Of course, conservative gospel tells us private debt is never a problem -- even when it's used to turn houses into ATM machines. But government borrowing (the only type of IOU dignified with the label 'national debt') is always a problem, even when it's used to build roads and bridges for all the cars bought with all that equity extracted from all those overpriced suburban mini-mansions. Then it's 'porkulus.'

It's been all that financial indebtedness that has us in the pickle we're in now. Nobody was very concerned about it, especially conservatives, because according to their smoke and mirrors fiscal understanding, everything worked out fine in the end.

Except it didn't. It created "toxic assets," all those crap loans that they gave to people who couldn't afford 'em, pushing private debt up. And now, all the chickens have come home to roost. The banks are stuck because the people they loaned money to can't pay. Then there's a bunch of financial mumbo jumbo about what makes things work or not work that come into play, and the result is that people who could pay their mortgages and car loans start to lose their jobs. Then they can't pay either, and everything slides further downhill.

Now, according to the conservatives, all we have to do is make sure the shareholders and executives of the bank receive their entitlement funds, and everything will be OK. But it won't. People will still be out of work. The bad loans will still be bad loans.

That's apparently not the concern of conservatives, who care only for their own bank and stock accounts. Except, again, it's not going to work. The same shortsightedness and half-assed efforts that doomed the Republicans before the last Great Depression are dooming them now. And us, if we don't act quickly and forcefully.

I go back to Billmon, who knows whereof he speaks, having covered financial matters for a long, long time.

The hard truth is that there is now only one, and only one entity on the planet that can keep the private credit excesses of the past decade, which most conservatives wildly applauded, from ending in a classic debt-deflation meltdown. And that is the US federal government.

Sometimes, deficit spending is the right thing to do. And the "entitlement" programs the conservatives hate so much are the very ones that need to be carefully preserved during this very difficult times, Republican governors refusing the bucks to bolster their conservative street cred be damned.

It's clear that Republicans have no answers but the ones that got us into this mess. Listen to them. What do they say that's different from what they've said for the past 8 years?

Oh, that's right. Because they've run us into the ground with their deficit spending, we must stop it now that we've sunk so low that the middle class is feeling the pinch. Oh, and cut taxes for our rich friends.

Don't buy it. Don't even think it. They're wrong, as they have always been. The Blue Dogs are wrong too. The liberals? At this point, they may not be right either, but they've sure got a better shot at it than Republicans who only want to keep doing what they have been doing.

It's gonna be a hard road ahead, my friends.

The years of anti-government and anti-deficit propaganda have definitely left their mark -- not least on the village idiots of the Beltway media, who may not rant and rave on camera, but who can't even comprehend, much less accept, the idea that there are times when expanding government debt is not only not a bad thing, but is a positive good thing, even an essential thing. The Keynesian idea of fighting a recession brought on by excessive debt with more debt is a hopelessly counter intuitive strategy. And intuition, for better or worse, is what democracy runs on most of the time -- that is, when it isn't being powered by base emotions like greed, fear and hatred.

Maybe there is no way out of this mess, either practically or politically. Limitless growth, Edward Abbey once wrote, is the ideology of a cancer cell, and the doctrine of endless debt-fueled expansion may have created an economy so riddled with it that any therapy powerful enough to kill the cancer will also kill the patient. In other words, globalized capitalism (or rather, this strange brew of corporate oligopoly and lemon socialism) may have finally dug itself a hole too deep for the traditional neo-Keynesian policy tools (fiscal and monetary policy) to lift it out of.

But, if that's true, then our children and our grandchildren may indeed spit on our graves, but it's going to be because we have bequeathed them much bigger nightmares than an increase in the federal debt.

And if that happens, remember where it came from. It didn't come from helping America's citizens. It didn't even come from unnecessary wars and bailouts. It came from unfettered financial irresponsibility brought on by greed and megalomania -- outside the government sector, but enabled by greedy and megalomaniacal elected officials who duped an entire country into thinking it could survive on somebody else's money.

They were wrong. And these modern day robber barons are wrong now to give a pass to their own entitlement programs while denying help to people who really need it.


Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Sticker Shock

I could almost give 'em this one, except for the "Obama bin" part. That's pretty telling. There were, after all, plenty of "Impeach Bush" stickers around for the past 8 years, although there is that little thing of actual impeachable offenses.

But the Patriot Depot, based in Atlanta, is making quite a name for itself among the dittohead followers of the Ayatollah Limbaugh with its array of items that "unapologetically reflect a politically conservative and/or Judeo-Christian ethic." There are Ann Coulter books, Bernard Goldberg books, Mike Huckabee books, anti-global warming books, something called "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women and Feminism" that I'd be scared to open and bumper stickers galore.

Take this one, for example, riffing on the "Obama is a socialist" meme. Y'know, if these assholes knew what socialism actually is, they might have made up Comrade Bush stickers last year. But that would not have been right, since, clearly, Republicans would never, ever, ever do anything that might bring socialism to America. Whatever it is.

Speaking of change we can't afford, there's also this little gem. At risk of bringing the wrath of a certain segment of feminists upon my head, let me say once again: Sarah Palin would make a horrible president. She lacks the breadth of understanding of the issues facing the United States that is necessary for a president, and has yet to show any desire to obtain that understanding. Stirring up racists and playing to the worst of human nature is not a qualification. At least it shouldn't be. So, thanks, I will keep the "change."

Here's another change I'll keep. Isn't this what it's all about for these guys? Guns, freedom and money. I can understand the guns and money part, but as best as I can tell, when they say "freedom," what they actually mean is "I get to decide who is a real American and who isn't, and if you aren't, you are screwed, and I've got the guns and money to make sure that's true."

Here's another cute one. Notice the little Democrat donkey representing the word "ass." There's the usual uncreative suspects too, like "Don't blame me, I voted for Palin" -- not McCain, mind you -- and "January 20, 2009 -- the beginning of an error." There's an unbelievable number of anti-Hillary Clinton books, not surprisingly since she clearly scares the bejesus out of these folks. And there's a bunch more Politically Incorrect Guides to things like English and American Literature (I'm scared to look at that one, too), Global Warming, Darwinism (what the hell is that anyway?) and Intelligent Design, Hunting, of all things, Science (oh spare me), the Civil War (eegads), the Bible, the Constitution, the MIddle East, Islam (oh my god. this one sounds scary too), Western Civilization and the South (and Why It Will Rise Again), festooned, of course, with a Confederate battle flag. But I'm sure there's not a racist bone in any of their bodies.

Now, far be it for me to deny someone their god-given right to make a buck in this capitalist system anyway they can. I bring this to your attention just so you'll know what we're up against here.

Y'know, I was horrified when the Supreme Court declared George W. Bush our president in 2000. I feared for the worst. But I had feared for the worst before, and things had come out more or less all right then (little did I know that the worst I had feared wasn't actually coming to fruition until the latter years of GW's rule). So I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt. Never even considering hoping he failed. And for a few minutes there on 9/11, I thought maybe he'll turn out all right.

It was soon afterward that it became painfully obvious that GW's call to bring us together in our darkest hour was just so much bullshit, the high point of a presidency that would slowly drag the country into the mud of its own creation.

The past eight years were a bit like living in Alice's looking glass, where the economy's in great shape early in the morning and in the crapper by the afternoon, where "nobody could have predicted" was the watchword for things everybody but the administration did predict.

It's a a world where freedom is having your civil liberties stripped away, where a crusade is launched to "install democracy," where reasons for war change as often as the hour.

In that same world, Michael Brown did a "great job" in the Katrina disaster -- which, incidentally, caused no oil spills (!) -- FDA inspections and enforcements were down and reports of tainted food and other products skyrocketed, and dozens of "signing statements" assured that the administration didn't have to enforce or obey laws passed by Congress.

There are still tens of thousands of weapons missing in Iraq, our treatment of many veterans is beyond shameful, Osama bin Laden -- the guy we were gonna smoke out of the caves he was hiding in -- is still hiding, whether in caves or some more comfortable abode we don't know, and we had a Justice Department that wouldn't define torture.

That same Justice Department admitted hiring based on political ideologies, scientific reports were routinely changed or suppressed if they didn't agree with the party line and environmental rules and regulations were routinely eased.

And then there were the constant "Bushisms," "nucular," trying to rub the German chancellor's shoulders. And what was that bit about not reading?

But yeah, turnabout is fair play right? That's all Patriot Depot is doing. Returning the favor of all the anti-Bushies.

I just can't get over this one little difference. We may not have liked the Supreme Court's choice in presidents. We may have been angry about it. We may have even feared for the worse. But our fears and anger weren't about not being in charge. They were about what we wanted for this country.

I know, plenty of conservatives say that's what they want too -- McCain's "Country First" comes to mind. And I'm sure that some of them really believe it, but I'm afraid they're in the minority now. Modern Republicans, who now represent the conservative movement, are only concerned with getting back in power.

There's that lil bumper sticker up there -- "I'll keep my guns, freedom, and money ... " That's what they want to protect. Not the people. Not the citizens of this country. Not even its reputation in the world. Just the guns, "freedom" and money of a ruling class that does not have our best interests at heart.


Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Cry Me A River

So now the Republicans, led by Sen. John "I Lost" McCain and his bud, Sen. Lindsey "Aren't I Sweet" Graham, are crying that the stimulus bill isn't the bipartisan bill the president promised.

It was a bad beginning because it wasn't what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people, that we would sit down together,

McCain said.

"We"? What "we" promised the American people? John, honey, you promised the American people more of the same. And your whining act on the floor of the Senate last week proved that you're still after more of the same. What, do you think you're gonna run for president again at 78?

No, John, let me remind you again. You lost. You do not get to demand that Obama do things the way they have been done for 30 years -- the way you would have continued to do them had you NOT LOST. But you did lose, John. You did lose.

This is not 'change we can believe in',

Graham said.

Maybe it's not change you can believe in, sweetheart, but Obama promised real change, and that means -- are you ready for this? -- your "tax cuts will solve all our problems" approach -- the same approach Republicans have taken for the past 30 years and look where it's gotten us -- isn't change. Not only that, but it's also not going to get us out of the hole you dug. I don't know about South Carolina, but where I come from "change" doesn't mean "doing the same thing we've always done."

President Obama held unprecedented meetings with Republicans during the run-up to the stimulus bill. And what did it get him? A big fat "fuck you."

Look, I appreciate the fact that the president came over and talked to Republicans. That's not how you negotiate a result. You sit down together in a room with competing proposals. Almost all of our proposals went down on a party-line vote.

Loser McCain said.


Well, duh. What did you expect when your side takes its marching orders from Rush "I hope Obama fails" Limbaugh? Every single Republican congressman and woman stamped their little feet and crossed their arms over their chests and said "NO," just like a toddler that's only now learned the word. Where were you, John, when GW was running up all those bills and crashing the economy like he did? You wanna hear John's answer to that? Here it is:

Republicans were guilty of this kind of behavior. I'm not saying that we did things different. But Americans want us to do things differently, and they want us to work together.

So it was OK when you and your ilk never met with Democrats, held up votes while you twisted arms to get what you want, held secret meetings to decide how best to screw the American people. But you got the first part right, John. Americans do want you to do things differently. And that means not doing what you want. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

This president has always worked in a bipartisan fashion. He will continue to reach out to Republicans. We hope that Republicans will decide they want to reach back.

And, Gibbs noted, not only did Obama invite the obstructionists to the White House, he went "to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans where they work."

But still they don't heed the message, the one that the American people started in 2006 and continued in 2008. The one that they'll still be delivering in 2010 if the obstructionists don't get with the program.

So, if you want to know who did the bipartisan fail, look no further than the Republican side of the aisle. It was you, John, and you, Lindsey, and John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl and John Cornyn and everybody else with an "R" after their name with three exceptions.

Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter. Now, I don't like what they and Ben Nelson, who has a "D" after his name, did to the bill. And I sincerely doubt the bill's gonna make enough change happen to prevent the Republicans from getting a big tizzy on screaming "I told you so" as they try to make the case that Obama was wrong and they were right.

Don't be fooled. John McCain is wrong. Lindsey Graham is wrong. All the rest of them are wrong too, all the way back to Ronald Reagan, who set the wheels that have now come off the wagon in motion in the 1980s.

"Bipartisan" doesn't mean you write a bill that has a little bit of what one side wants and little bit of what the other side wants. And it sure doesn't mean bringing to the table the same failed policies that the American people so soundly rejected in November.

And, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, "bipartisan" doesn't mean you stand in front of the television cameras and lie. The New Deal failed, my ass. As if the New Deal was some big conglomerate program instead of multiple smaller programs -- some of which worked, and were continued, and some of which didn't, and were scuttled. Where do you get your history, guys? Does Supreme Leader Limbaugh give you that too? Or do you use the same writers who do the science textbooks that pretend evolution is an untested theory?

This economic crisis is far deeper than the Republicans want you to think it is. A couple of tax cuts that will primarily benefit rich people isn't going to help. Neither is Tim Geithner's bailing out the banks, but that's another post.

Republicans, conservatives -- they failed. Miserably. They do not now get to step up to the plate and take another swing at it.

It may well be true that some of the Democratic plans don't work. But we already know about the GOP's tried and false ideas. "Change" doesn't mean doing the same old thing.

This Republican party isn't the loyal opposition. This Republican party isn't trying to help the country and its citizens succeed. This Republican party only cares about making sure Obama and the Democratic Congress fail so they can make a comeback in 2010.

At least that's what they're thinking. As if the American people don't remember what they voted against, Sen. McCain, on November 4.

Maybe now would be a good time for the Republicans to remember that too, because I can guarantee you we're gonna remember what you did in the early days of 2009. And if you continue with this same obstructionist attitude right on through until the next election, well, then, boys, whatever happens to you is on you.

Don't say you weren't warned.

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Perspective

This is why I really have a hard time having compassion for politicians.

Where for art thou, Barack? We hired you to kick some ass not to be kissing it.

I snagged this from Thurman over at Random Abstractions...which he snagged from the Rude Pundit...

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A fine piece of perspective today, courtesy of The Rude Pundit. Hope he doesn't mind.

By the Numbers: Creeping Class Warfare, Republican Style:
How about just a minute or two of perspective?
Amount to bailout AIG - at least $85 billion
Amount to bailout Citibank - at least $45 billion
Amount to bailout Bank of America - at least $45 billion, with guarantees on $118 billion in loans
Amount the Bush administration overpaid for bailed-out bank assets - $78 billion

Proposed cuts to President Obama's economic stimulus bill (currently being debated by 20 "centrist" senators):
$1.1 billion to Head Start
$24.8 billion to states for budget shortfalls in education programs
$15 billion to states for additional education funding
$2 billion to Child Care Development Block Grants
$150 million to funding for programs in the Violence Against Women Act

Oh, and, hell, let's just throw this in:
Amount of just two years of George W. Bush's tax cuts: roughly $500 billion (adjusting for interest). Two-thirds of that came from tax cuts on the top 20% of wage earners.
(Note: this leaves out the cost of operations in Iraq because, well, does it need to be said?)

Education funding is seed money for better paying jobs and a larger tax base. Assistance for families to help with child care has a direct impact on the ability of people to work. And, really, even talking about cutting $150 million in a bill like this is like saying, "If I stop putting nickels in the gumball machine, I'll be able to buy that car."

The unemployment rate is 7.6%. And "centrists" (which is another word for "attention-seeking assholes begging to appear relevant") are quibbling over whether or not it'd be better to cut programs for health and education?

When you walk into an old house that's been neglected for years and is about to collapse into itself, yeah, you need to make sure the frame is stable, but you better get rid of the asbestos insulation before it infects everyone living there.

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Keeping The Bush Era Viable

Greetings All,

I came across this interesting piece at Op-Ed News on activities of late from the "Sullen and Defeated" neo-con contingent and am sharing it here with y'all.

Keeping The Bush Era Viable
by Bob Koehler

Rest assured, there are powerful interests that will not put up with an Obama presidency if it’s about even half the changes it threatens — I mean, promises — to make.

Watch them circle, yipping at his integrity. “Obama’s moralizing tone may not wear well,” a Wall Street Journal headline archly surmised a few days ago. “How often do Americans want to hear how misguided they were before his arrival?”

Huh? The new president didn’t simply, inscrutably “arrive” at the White House, as though appointed by, oh, Rod Blagojevich. He was elected by a serious, screaming-for-change majority of Americans to do precisely what he is doing, and so much more — that is to say, to upset to the point of apoplexy the status quo of war and greed as represented so faithfully by, among many other media hypocrites, the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

The op-ed piece that followed, by Dorothy Rabinowitz, sarcastically dismissed Obama’s plans to close Guantanamo and halt the secret military tribunals as part of some unfathomable “moral cleansing” kick he appears to be on — subliminally rallying as many of the sullen and defeated as possible to the great cause of mocking peace and common sense as principles on which to run a nation. My gawd, we’re at war. How can you fight evil if you can’t do torture? Read More

Peace Y'all