The GOP's Corrosive Push for Austerity

To listen to GOP demagogues one would think they gave at least a slight thought about the lies they are destroying as their policies continue to create a permanent under class.  The true focus of the GOP is the wealthy and the incredibly selfish members of the Christofascist/Tea Party base of the party.  These folks truly do not care about the fellow citizens despite all their self congratulatory back patting and feigned piety.  An op-ed in the New York Times looks at the society cost that the GOP obsession with budget cuts and lower taxes is fueling.  It's not pretty and the future consequences will be even uglier as wealth disparities continue to soar and social mobility decreases.  Here are column excerpts:

F.D.R. told us that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. But when future historians look back at our monstrously failed response to economic depression, they probably won’t blame fear, per se. Instead, they’ll castigate our leaders for fearing the wrong things.

But while debt fears were and are misguided, there’s a real danger we’ve ignored: the corrosive effect, social and economic, of persistent high unemployment. And even as the case for debt hysteria is collapsing, our worst fears about the damage from long-term unemployment are being confirmed. 

Now, some unemployment is inevitable in an ever-changing economy. Modern America tends to have an unemployment rate of 5 percent or more even in good times. In these good times, however, spells of unemployment are typically brief. Back in 2007 there were about seven million unemployed Americans — but only a small fraction of this total, around 1.2 million, had been out of work more than six months. 

Then financial crisis struck, leading to a terrifying economic plunge followed by a weak recovery. Five years after the crisis, unemployment remains elevated, with almost 12 million Americans out of work. But what’s really striking is the huge number of long-term unemployed, with 4.6 million unemployed more than six months and more than three million who have been jobless for a year or more. Oh, and these numbers don’t count those who have given up looking for work because there are no jobs to be found. 

It goes without saying that the explosion of long-term unemployment is a tragedy for the unemployed themselves. But it may also be a broader economic disaster.  The key question is whether workers who have been unemployed for a long time eventually come to be seen as unemployable, tainted goods that nobody will buy.  .   .   .   .   there is, unfortunately, growing evidence that the tainting of the long-term unemployed is happening as we speak. .   .   .   .  a rising number of job openings doesn’t seem to do much to reduce their numbers. It’s as if employers don’t even bother looking at anyone who has been out of work for a long time. 

[W]orkers who reported having been unemployed for six months or more got very few callbacks, even when all their other qualifications were better than those of workers who did attract employer interest.   So we are indeed creating a permanent class of jobless Americans. 

And let’s be clear: this is a policy decision. The main reason our economic recovery has been so weak is that, spooked by fear-mongering over debt, we’ve been doing exactly what basic macroeconomics says you shouldn’t do — cutting government spending in the face of a depressed economy. 

It’s hard to overstate how self-destructive this policy is. Indeed, the shadow of long-term unemployment means that austerity policies are counterproductive even in purely fiscal terms. Workers, after all, are taxpayers too; if our debt obsession exiles millions of Americans from productive employment, it will cut into future revenues and raise future deficits. 

Our exaggerated fear of debt is, in short, creating a slow-motion catastrophe. It’s ruining many lives, and at the same time making us poorer and weaker in every way. And the longer we persist in this folly, the greater the damage will be.

Time For Obama to Hammer the GOP

The U.S. economy, while still slowly recovering from the economic disaster put into play under the regime of Bush/Cheney could be much better than it is at present and as it will be if sequestration kicks in at the end of the month.  But one political party has relentlessly done everything possible to trash the economy since the height of the economic melt down in 2008.  That's right, it is the Republican Party which has followed a consistent policy of economic sabotage starting with its refusal to back an adequate stimulus package in 2008 to its current drive to allow sequestration to rack the economy and perhaps leave over a million Americans jobless.  The GOP goal?  First to dampen the economy so that Barack Obama could not win re-election.  That gambit failed, so now the goal is to trash the economy so blame will fall on Obama.  It the State of the Union Message tomorrow, Obama needs to wield a 4x4 and beat the hell out of the GOP and make the clear case to the Americans of how the GOP is harming average Americans - all for misguided partisan games.  A column in The Daily Beast lays out more on this issue.  Here are excerpts:

The cuts are scheduled to happen, as I’m sure you know, on March 1. Reductions in the amount of $1.2 trillion over the next decade—$500 billion to defense and $700 billion to domestic programs—would start kicking in on that day. The cuts will be paced as if to play out over a decade, but even so, they’re deep. There will be furloughs, maybe some layoffs, some programs discontinued or put on hiatus.

The Republicans’ position right now is to let this happen, or at least to act like they’re completely ready to let this happen.  .  .  .  . So that’s the strategy. If you’ve heard one Republican say this over the last few days, you’ve heard a dozen: We’re done with taxes. He got his taxes at the New Year. No more.

The danger for Obama here is that to people who don’t know the history of this situation, which is obviously most people, that might sound reasonable. No more tax hikes. The public supported the tax increases in the fiscal cliff deal, and public opinion about taxes is definitely more liberal than it was a few years back, but we can hardly be sure that the public’s appetite for tax increases is infinite.

Given all that, it seems to me that Obama needs to say two things clearly and forcefully. First, history didn’t begin with the fiscal cliff deal. During his time in office, he’s agreed to two big budget cuts and a few smaller ones, totaling around $1.8 trillion. He’s pushed for and gotten revenue of about $600 billion. So that’s three-to-one, cuts over revenues. The score, in other words, is 1.8 trillion to 600 billion. The Republicans are trying to pretend that the score is 600 billion to zero. Job number one is not letting them get away with that.

Job number two is that he should propose some specific revenue measures. The White House has been cagey about this, and I don’t understand why. It plays into Republican hands, because they can just say anything they please about his intentions. He should be specific about what he has in mind—whether it’s lowering the corporate rate but eliminating some loopholes or whatever, tonight is the time to spell it out.

Now, when he does that, and it raises revenues, the Republicans are going to yell, “But tax reform is supposed to be revenue neutral!” Who says so?

Last time, in the fiscal cliff deal, the public was clearly with Obama. The big question here is: Will they be this time? I think so. I think most people don’t want the kinds of cuts to domestic programs that the Republicans are for. So I think most people will back Obama’s position, provided he gives them the context and provided it’s clear to them what his position is.

One thing Obama has working in his favor is that it’s the Republicans who appear willing to burn the house down. When people are looking for someone to blame for a fire, their suspicions are likely to gravitate toward the people who’ve been walking around for three years carrying a jug of gasoline and a book of matches. Most Americans know who that is.

Obama Pushs for sequester Delay as GOP Prepares to Destroy Economy

With the mandatory sequestration just a month off all signs are that the Congressional Republicans prefer trashing the U. S. economy over any deal with Obama.  The irony is that many in the U. S. military and those in the defense industry who vote Republican out of a knee jerk reaction are about to have their illogical allegiance to the GOP bite them in the ass big time.  But for the looming damage to the larger economy, it would almost be tempting to see these feckless voters reap the rewards of the brain dead politics.  Meanwhile, Barack Obama - seemingly the only grown up involved - is proposing a deal to delay the sequestration's impact.  Politico looks at Obama's effort and the likely economic saboteur reaction that may come from the knuckle draggers in the House of Representatives in particular.  Here are highlights:

President Barack Obama will call on Congress at Tuesday to pass a package of short-term spending cuts and tax reforms in an effort to head off the looming automatic, across-the-board sequester cuts, a White House official tells POLITICO.

“Given that the budget process in Congress won’t likely be completed by March 1,” the official said, the proposal “will allow Congress more time to reach a solution that permanently avoids the sequester and significantly reduces the deficit in a balanced way.”

Uncertainty around the sequester is already having a negative impact on our economic growth, and if it was to take effect it would cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs and have devastating impacts on our economy,” a White House official said in a statement. “The President will urge Congress to come together and act to ensure these devastating cuts to defense and job-creating programs don’t take effect.”

The sequester was part of the Budget Control Act passed by Congress and signed by the president in 2011, and was set to take effect if Congress could not agree on a set of cuts totaling $1.2 trillion. It was billed as a trigger to force agreement, but no agreement materialized. The cuts, set to take effect in just over three weeks, will slash defense and non-defense spending.

Boehner signaled that he was not interested in a deal that would raise tax revenue, even temporarily. In a statement Tuesday, he blamed Obama for the creation of the sequester, saying the president is the one who “insisted it become law” and noting that House Republicans have already passed bills that would have averted the cuts. The Senate has not acted on those bills.

The president, however, is hoping to gain a political advantage by continuing to press his case in the court of public opinion. “While we need to deal with our deficits over the long term, we shouldn’t have workers being laid off, kids kicked off Head Start, and food safety inspections cut while Congress completes the process,” the White House official said. “With our economy poised to continue to strengthen this year, the president will make clear that we can’t see another self-inflicted wound from Washington.”

The reality is that the GOP cares nothing about the majority of Americans.  As a party, the GOP's sole concern is pandering the religious extremists and unhinged Tea Party demagogues.  The rest of us simply do not count.

GOP Intrasigence: A Million Jobs at Stake

Once again the country stands poised to see economic havoc wrought on many families and businesses due to GOP intransigence on the issue of spending cuts and tax increases.  Sadly, the Congressional GOP seems to prefer a renewed recession over any policy change that would upset the insane extremists and economic saboteurs of the GOP base. Extremists who all too often wrap themselves in the mantle of "godly Christians" even as they push for policies that would slash spending that aids the poor, the homeless and the working poor.  The big question thus becomes one of it and when the rest of the public will bestir themselves to promise sufficient electoral pain against the GOP if the effort to destroy the economy yet again doesn't cease. An editorial on the New York Times looks at the disturbing state of affairs.  Here are excerpts:

With enormous struggle, the sluggish economy managed to create 2.2 million jobs last year. But beginning at the end of this month, at least half that amount — more than a million jobs — will start to disappear because of a mindless government austerity program that no one in Washington seems able to stop. 

From the armed forces to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, every program except for most safety-net benefits is about to be cut by an arbitrary process known as the sequester, instigated by the 2011 Republican rampage against government. Over the next seven months alone, the cuts will reduce defense spending by $55 billion and nondefense discretionary spending by $27 billion.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a respected independent group, said at least a million jobs will be lost this year and next because of the slowdown caused by withdrawing so much money from the economy. The Congressional Budget Office says up to 1.4 million jobs are at stake. 

This isn’t fortune telling; the effect of the coming sequester was already evident in last week’s announcement that the economy actually contracted during the final quarter of 2012. Much of the decline was directly due to the 22 percent reduction in spending by the Pentagon and military contractors in anticipation of the sequester’s effects. 

With the economy teetering on a knife edge, it is clear that this is the worst moment to initiate an indiscriminate budget cut. Government spending at this time can spell the difference between growth and shrinkage. But Republicans are willfully blind to this reality. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican, called it a “Keynesian pipe dream” last week, saying that only spending cuts will help the economy. 

Congressional Republicans seem perfectly serene about allowing the sequester to take effect in a few weeks, so eager to prove they are budget cutters that they are willing to ignore the coming economic storm. “I think sequester’s going to happen,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. “I think people want it to happen.”

Congress should be thinking about ways to accelerate the economy, instead of remaining preoccupied with a short-term deficit. Nonetheless, the coming job losses could be sharply reduced if half or more of the spending cuts were replaced by revenue increases, as President Obama and Congressional Democrats have demanded. That would lower the amount of spending pulled out of the economy to bring down the deficit, replacing the cuts with taxes from the rich or companies with high cash reserves that are less likely to spend it. 

The money could be raised by eliminating tax loopholes for energy companies, hedge fund managers and other high-end recipients of federal largess, but Republicans won’t even consider the idea. “The tax issue is finished, over, completed,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said recently.

In other words, bring on the unemployment. The first jobs to go will be in the defense sector, but the losses will soon spread as contracts to states and cities are cut, education and police grants are cut, and payments to Medicare providers are cut. Even the aid just approved for victims of Hurricane Sandy will fall under the sequester’s ax. Americans are about to find out what happens when an entire political party demands deficit reduction at all costs, because those costs will be enormous. 

One can only hope that those about to lose their jobs understand that it is Republicans who bear responsibility and that these victims of GOP insanity will hand out retribution against the GOP beginning here in Virginia in November.

Lunatic Fringe Threatens Republicans Who Voted For Fiscal Cliff Deal

In a post yesterday this blog noted that the so-called GOP establishment is finally waking up to the reality that it created a Frankenstein monster when it cynically embraced the Christiofascists and later the Tea Party crowd and began electing these knuckle dragging Neanderthals and religious zealots to positions on city and county committees and caucuses.  That's right, these people were voted on out of expediency to maintain ranks rather than adjust party policies and principles to  attract a wider participation by sane individuals.  Indeed, I remember when the process began in the Virginia Beach City Committee before I resigned over the GOP's increased fusing of religion into the civil laws.  Ridding the GOP of this cancer will not be easy as is evidenced by an article that looks at Christofacist/Tea Party threats in the wake of the fiscal cliff vote earlier this week.  Here are highlights:  

Republicans in Congress who took the politically risky step of voting this week to raise taxes now find themselves trying to fend off potential primary challenges next year from angry conservatives.

These lawmakers wasted little time in attempting to deliver an explanation that would be acceptable to the tea party and the GOP's right flank, and, perhaps, insulate themselves from a re-election battle against a fellow Republican. They've started defending the vote as one that preserves tax cuts for most Americans, while promising to fight for spending cuts in upcoming legislative debates over raising the nation's borrowing limit.

It was the first time in two decades that a significant number of Republicans voted for a tax increase; 33 Senate Republicans did so and 85 House members who broke with their GOP majority to support the bill that avoided the nation going over the so-called fiscal cliff but that also raises taxes on upper incomes.

"The ones that voted for it, I think they will rue the day," Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby proclaimed after opposing the bill. And Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express, put it this way: "It's not too early to be looking at 2014. I think there are going to be a lot of primary challenges. People are fed up."

Most if not all of these Republicans who voted to raise taxes are likely mindful of their party's recent history of nasty primary battles that have pitted incumbents against tea party-backed insurgents. And none of them is likely to be immune to the scrutiny - rising stars, powerful committee chairmen and Republicans in reliably Republican seats - expected to confront them when they return to their districts to stand for re-election in November 2014.

The party got some cover from Grover Norquist, a leading anti-tax figure who described the bill, which preserved a series of tax cuts for most incomes, as "clearly a tax cut."  Even so, the tea party wasn't on board. Neither were many of the party's most conservative lawmakers in Washington.  "It's a really tough vote. And it's a really tough vote to explain to Republicans," Michigan Republican consultant Stu Sandler said.

Lawmakers who could be vulnerable to a challenge include Michigan Rep. Dan Benishek and South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem, who bucked her tea party base and backed the bill, calling it "damage control."   "This makes her vulnerable and there will be discussion that she should have a primary challenge," former South Dakota Republican chairman Joel Rosenthal said. "Whether it materializes depends on votes down the road."

Rep. Steve Womack, in just his second term representing heavily conservative northwest Arkansas, could be forced to answer to tea party concerns over his yes vote if he seeks a third term. And he will almost certainly face questions about it should he run for U.S. Senate or governor, the subject of GOP speculation on which Womack has been silent.

Michigan Rep. Fred Upton's backing of the measure might rile up conservatives enough in his right-leaning district in the western part of the state that he could face a challenger. But his stature may be enough to prevent a serious one: he has easily fought off recent primary opponents and, as chairman of the Energy and Commerce commission, would likely have the fundraising edge.

Upton's Michigan colleague, Benishek, also voted for the bill and could have a bigger concern. He eked out re-election to a second term in November, carrying less than 50 percent of the vote in his northern district, and spurning tea party activists there could invite a threat from an opponent.

Among Senate Republicans, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia backed the measure and may have further agitated conservatives who were already cranky with him over his participation last year in the so-called "Gang of Six," a bipartisan group that discussed fiscal plans including tax increases and changes to entitlement programs.

What ought to frighten sane Americans is the fact that the GOP extremist would rather have potentially damaged the nation's economy, sent the country back into recession and left millions of the unemployed literally out in the cold rather than raise taxes.  And sane Americans need to understand that it is those who most often wrap themselves in religious piety and feigned worship of the Gospel who are at the heart of these greed driven mean spirited elements of the GOP base.  They are horrible people plain and simply, not to mention total hypocrites who make the Biblical Pharisees pale in comparison. 

Will The GOP Threaten a Partial Government Shutdown?

The GOP establishment, as noted in a prior post today, seems to have realized that it needs to retake control of the party primary process to lessen the odds of lunatics and anarchists being elected to Congress.  However, that does nothing to rein in those lunatics, rabid dogs and near anarchists Republicans already in Congress, particularly in the House of Representatives who seem hell bent to destroy the nation's economy - along with the finances of countless American families - in their quest to cut government programs and federal spending on programs the Christofascists and Tea Party loons dislike.  The country has made it past the "fiscal cliff" crisis, but now there is the upcoming debt ceiling crisis where some wonder how much damage the Congressional Republicans will do in their quest to pander to extremists.   A piece in Huffington Post looks at this question and speculates on what may be upcoming.  Here are excerpts:

The just-completed deal to resolve the so-called fiscal cliff has created an even greater cliff down the road. By the end of February, lawmakers will have to grapple with $1 trillion in sequestration cuts that are scheduled to take effect and the need for a debt limit increase. Shortly thereafter, they will have to deal with the end of a continuing resolution to keep the government funded

Any one of these issues on its own would be difficult to resolve. Taken together, they could produce complete gridlock, which itself would have deep economic consequences.

President Barack Obama has pledged that he won't negotiate over the debt ceiling as a matter of principle. But Republicans are still insisting that they will extract as many concessions from the talks as they can.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this week, "we Republicans need to be willing to tolerate a temporary, partial government shutdown" in order to achieve spending cuts and entitlement reforms.

On Friday morning, meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told members that he was prepared to use the debt ceiling fight as leverage to get spending cuts.

A Republican Senate aide added on: "We all know this deadline is coming. In regards to the CR [U. S. government credit rating] vs the debt ceiling, a downgrade will likely occur if spending is not cut, not if Congress were to refuse to debt ceiling temporarily."

But there would, indeed, be different consequences depending on which event is used to extract spending cuts. If, for example, Congress passes a debt limit increase but fails to pass a continuing resolution, the government can continue to borrow funds to pay its existing bills. But it would cease to operate as normal. As the Congressional Budget Office noted in a 1995 report:

Failing to raise the debt ceiling would not bring the government to a screeching halt the way that not passing appropriations bills would. Employees would not be sent home, and checks would continue to be issued. If the Treasury was low on cash, however, there could be delays in honoring checks and disruptions in the normal flow of government services.

On the other hand, if Congress were to pass a continuing resolution but not raise the debt ceiling, the government would be operating on dwindling funds. Over time, the Treasury would fail to meet its obligations on salaries and wages, retirement funds and social security benefits.

And then there would be the macro and global impact. As a 1979 Government Accountability Office report noted:

At a minimum, however, the government could be subject to additional claims for interest on unredeemed matured debt and to claims for damages resulting from failure to make payments. But even beyond that, the full faith and credit of the U.S. government would be threatened. Domestic money markets, in which government securities play a major role, could be affected substantially.

More recently, JP Morgan's managing director outlined the consequences in a letter to the Treasury Department. Among the impacts projected were the following:

• A rise in Treasury's long-term funding costs;
• A contraction of credit;
• A reduction in the purchase of Treasuries by foreign investors on a permanent basis or even sell off exiting holdings;
• A downgrading of the U.S. sovereign credit rating;
• A possible run on money market funds;
• The destruction of market confidence.

Every American needs to be concerned about what the GOP extremists may do - and needs to understand that we are no longer dealing with rational individuals when it comes to the Tea Party members of Congress.  These individuals live in some alternate universe.

Obama Gives Republicans an Ultimatum on the “Fiscal Cliff.”

The game of chicken in Washington continues as the Congressional Republicans - some of whom are insane themselves in my view - continue to pander to the Neanderthal know nothings and modern day Pharisee like extremists of the admittedly toxic base.  Rather than offend these ignorance embracing, hate filled and down right horrible elements of the party that the party leadership cynically allowed to gain ascendancy, the GOP members of Congress are willing to allow the nation to go over the "fiscal cliff" and possibly start a new great recession, throw countless unemployed Americans literally to the wolves, and allow draconian cuts to social programs.  Once again, I find myself ashamed that I was ever a Republican and I wonder how anyone decent can continue any party affiliation with the GOP.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the latest effort by Barack Obama to avert this disaster and to set the stage where Congressional Republicans will be forced to show their real priorities to the American people.  Here are excerpts:

President Obama, during a brief statement to the press just now [yesterday], said Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are in the process of working out a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” tax hikes, and pronounced himself optimistic about the talks. The key to Obama’s statement, though, is that he spelled out the political reality Republican leaders will be left facing if a deal is not reached:

Senators Reid and McConnell are working on such an agreement as we speak. But if an agreement isn’t reached in time between Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, then I will urge Senator Reid to bring to the floor a basic package for an up or down vote, one that protects the middle class from an income tax hike, extends the vital lifeline of unemployment insurance to two million Americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future cooperation on more economic growth and deficit reduction. I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities, as long as those leaders allow it to actually come to a vote. If members of the House and Senate want to vote No, they can.

The key word there is “majorities.” Obama is demanding that Mitch McConnell allow a straight up-or-down vote on Harry Reid’s fallback proposal, if the two sides cannot reach a deal. If no deal is reached, Obama is daring McConnell to filibuster a continued tax cut for the middle class and daring Boehner not to hold a vote on it.

A senior Senate Dem aide tells me that the fallback proposal Reid is working on would extend tax cuts on income just up to $250,000, not up to $400,000, as Obama’s most recent compromise proposal did. What this means is that if Senate Republican leaders fail to agree with Senate Dems on a proposal, the fallback plan Reid will offer will essentially rescind Obama’s offer to raise the income threshold to $400,000.

[B]y daring Republicans one last time to refuse to allow simple majority votes on extending the middle class tax cuts, Obama is signaling that if we do go over the cliff, he intends to extract maximum political pain for it.

The GOP needs to experience severe political pain.  It has become the chief obstacle to improving the nation's economy and future prospects.  It is also the chief proponent of throwing the Gospel message of aiding the poor, the sick, and the homeless down the toilet.  The hypocrisy of these alleged "family values" politicians is shocking.  In truth, they only care about the wealthy and white male conservative Christians.  Given their preference, the rest of us are simply supposed to disappear from America.

 

The GOP Crisis Point

The New Face of House Republicans

With the revolt of the GOP House members last week Michael Tomasky correctly notes that Republicans have now clearly shown that they would rather sabotage democracy and the country  than govern responsibly.  The question thus becomes how do the rest of us stop this metastasizing cancer in the country that the GOP has become?  Sadly, there is no clear answer, although one can only hope that non-Kool-Aid drinking Americans ranging from working class people to corporate executives will contact their GOP representatives in Congress and read them the riot act.  It must be made clear that either the GOP reforms itself now and cease catering to the foulest elements in America - e.g., the Christofascists, white supremacists and Tea Party loons - or that a blood bath for Congressional Republicans at the polls will ensue come 2014. Here are highlights from Tomasky's column in The Daily Beast that looks at the toxicity of the GOP:

Really, what is to be done about this Republican Party? What force can change it—can stop Republicans from being ideological saboteurs and convert at least a workable minority of them into people interested in governing rather than sabotage? With the failed Plan B vote, we have reached the undeniable crisis point. Actually we’ve been at a crisis point for years, but this is really the all-upper-case Undeniable Crisis Point.

They are a direct threat to the economy, which could slip back into recession next year if the government doesn’t, well, govern. They are an ongoing, at this point almost mundane, threat to democracy, subverting and preventing progress the American people clearly desire across a number of fronts. They have to be stopped, and the only people who can really stop them are corporate titans and Wall Streeters, who surely now are finally beginning to see that America’s problem is not Barack Obama and his alleged “socialism,” but a political party that has become psychologically incapable of operating within the American political system.

[T]he Republican Party has gone nutso. You know this story, too, so I needn’t rehearse the details, except to describe the current end point, which is that to the GOP today, the Democrats must be denied any victory by any means necessary. The Republicans unwilling to vote for Plan B weren’t in the main loathe to give Boehner a win. The problem was that that particular Boehner win might have led to an Obama win. That was the issue that drove them.

Their ideas are unpopular, their America is dying. But by God, they’re standing until the last man!   .  .  .  .  So they’ll give no ground. People are now saying that the only way to avoid going off the cliff is for Boehner to let the Senate bill come to the floor and let it be passed mostly by Democrats. But what reason is there to believe that even 20 or 25 Republicans would vote for a bill? And please, don’t tell me “because a large majority of Americans would support it.” That doesn’t matter to them.

They didn’t come to Washington to govern. They came to sabotage. So our working assumption must be whatever the issue, sabotage is what they’re going to do.

And they can do it all they want. Our founders didn’t assume that a cadre of people of such immense bad faith and cynicism would ever come to control key levers of government; they built a system that would work, albeit slowly, in the hands of people of reasonably good will. It’s a system that people of bad will can subvert and stop from functioning.

Someone has to tell them enough. The only people I can think of with the power to do so are the high-profile figures of Wall Street and the corporate world. They’re the only people these Republicans might conceivably listen to.  .  .  .  .  Once upon a time, the statists—Roosevelt and his brains trusters—helped save capitalism from the Bolsheviks of the left. Today, the capitalists have to help save the state. This time the enemy is the Bolsheviks of the right, our current GOP. They’re taking us over the fiscal cliff, and they’ll do far worse without an intervention.

Why Marco Rubio Won't Be The GOP's Savior

Since the election earlier in the month we've heard increased chatter from Republicans about the future role Florida Senator Marco Rubio can play for the party: putting a Hispanic face on the GOP's otherwise batshit crazy and unpopular policies.  These folks still don't get that it's not the GOP's messaging or the skin color of its candidates that is the problem.  And an equality huge problem for the GOP continues to be the party's slavish pandering to and ass kissing of the Christofascists.  The majority of Americans do not want their lives run by those who still cling to Neolithic creation myths and want to police other peoples bedrooms and bodies.  A piece in Forbes looks at Rubio's recent failure to reject the Christofascists - Rubio did everything but drop his pants and bend over for them - and embarking on the same road that led Mitt Romney to kill whatever chances he might have had of winning the White House.  If one wants to be leader of the world's sole super power, science and objective reality cannot be flushed down the toilet in order to please religious extremists.  Here are column highlights:

Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who many political observers think has a strong shot to be a 2016 Presidential candidate, just finished a lengthy interview with GQ that you can read here. One thing that struck my interest here, as someone who often reports on science, was Rubio’s answer when he was asked the question, “How old do you think the Earth is.”

In response, Rubio told GQ that, “I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all.

[L]arge parts of the economy absolutely depend on scientists being right about either the age of the Universe or the laws of the Universe that allow scientists to determine its age. For example, astronomers recently discovered a galaxy that is over 13 billion light years away from Earth. 

Marco Rubio’s Republican colleague Representative Paul Broun, who sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology, recently stated that it was his belief that the Universe is only 9,000 years old. Well, if Broun is right and physicists are wrong, then we have a real problem.

That means that the fundamental physics underlying the Internet, DVDs, laser surgery, and many many more critical parts of the economy are based on bad science. The consequences of that could be drastic, given our dependence on optics for our economic growth.

Here’s an even more disturbing thought – scientists currently believe that the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old because radioactive substances decay at generally stable rates. .  .  .  . However, if the Earth is only 9,000 years old, then radioactive decay rates are unstable and subject to rapid acceleration under completely unknown circumstances. This poses an enormous danger to the country’s nuclear power plants, which could undergo an unanticipated meltdown at any time due to currently unpredictable circumstances. Likewise, accelerated decay could lead to the detonation of our nuclear weapons, and cause injuries and death to people undergoing radioactive treatments in hospitals. Any of these circumstances would obviously have a large economic impact.

If the Earth is really 9,000 years old, as Paul Broun believes and Rubio is willing to remain ignorant about, it becomes imperative to shut down our nuclear plants and dismantle our nuclear stockpiles now until such time as scientists are able to ascertain what circumstances exist that could cause deadly acceleration of radioactive decay and determine how to prevent it from happening.

If the Earth is 9,000 years old, then virtually the entire construct of modern science is simply wrong. Not only that, most of the technology that we rely on most likely wouldn’t work – as they’re dependent on science that operates on the same physical laws that demonstrate the age of the universe.

Now, this doesn’t mean that our representatives to the Congress and to the Senate should be scientific experts. But if they hold ideas about the world around us that are fundamentally at odds with scientific evidence, then that will ultimately infringe on their ability to make reasoned judgments about a host of issues where the economy touches technology. And that could end up harming the economy as a whole.

Rubio and other political prostitutes in the GOP don't get to have it both ways.  Either they embrace reality and science and kick the Christofascists to the curb or they will continue down the path to increasing irrelevance and be viewed with growing contempt and fear by those of us who don't fear knowledge and modernity.  So far, Rubio has failed the test to even hold a seat in the Senate.

The Economist Endorses Obama - Math Does Still Matter

I continue to be amazed at the Republicans who keep saying the nation's budget deficit has exploded under Obama - obviously they have "romnesia" about the real budget busters: Chimperator George Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney.  Worse yet, the foam at the mouth about what will happen to the budget deficit if Obama is reelected.  Meanwhile, they have done nothing to check the impossible math of Mitt "I'm a Liar" Romney's proposals.  Between the promised tax cuts and huge increases in defense spending Romney has promised, the budget deficit would utterly explode.  One can only assume that they have imbibed far too much Kool-Aid laced with mind altering drugs or that they live in an alternate universe where simple math doesn't exist.  Well, the Economist HAS done the math and in large part because Romney would be a financial disaster deficit wise, the Economist has endorsed Barack Obama for reelection.  The entire endorsement is worth a read because it looks honestly - and critically - at Obama's record but nonetheless concludes that Romney/Ryan would be far worse.  Here are some excerpts:

[T]his choice turns on two questions: how good a president has Mr Obama been, especially on the main issues of the economy and foreign policy? And can America really trust the ever-changing Mitt Romney to do a better job? On that basis, the Democrat narrowly deserves to be re-elected.

Mr Obama’s first term has been patchy. On the economy, the most powerful argument in his favour is simply that he stopped it all being a lot worse. America was in a downward economic spiral when he took over, with its banks and carmakers in deep trouble and unemployment rising at the rate of 800,000 a month. His responses—an aggressive stimulus, bailing out General Motors and Chrysler, putting the banks through a sensible stress test and forcing them to raise capital (so that they are now in much better shape than their European peers)—helped avert a Depression. That is a hard message to sell on the doorstep when growth is sluggish and jobs scarce; but it will win Mr Obama some plaudits from history, and it does from us too.

Two other things count, on balance, in his favour. One is foreign policy, where he was also left with a daunting inheritance.  .  .  .  .  The other qualified achievement is health reform. Even to a newspaper with no love for big government, the fact that over 40m people had no health coverage in a country as rich as America was a scandal.

Mr Obama’s shortcomings have left ample room for a pragmatic Republican, especially one who could balance the books and overhaul government. Such a candidate briefly flickered across television screens in the first presidential debate. This newspaper would vote for that Mitt Romney, just as it would for the Romney who ran Democratic Massachusetts in a bipartisan way (even pioneering the blueprint for Obamacare). The problem is that there are a lot of Romneys and they have committed themselves to a lot of dangerous things.

Take foreign policy. In the debates Mr Romney stuck closely to the president on almost every issue. But elsewhere he has repeatedly taken a more bellicose line.   .  .  .  .  Mr Romney seems too ready to bomb Iran, too uncritically supportive of Israel and cruelly wrong in his belief in “the Palestinians not wanting to see peace”. The bellicosity could start on the first day of his presidency, when he has vowed to list China as a currency manipulator—a pointless provocation to its new leadership that could easily degenerate into a trade war.

[F]ar from being the voice of fiscal prudence, Mr Romney wants to start with huge tax cuts (which will disproportionately favour the wealthy), while dramatically increasing defence spending. Together those measures would add $7 trillion to the ten-year deficit. He would balance the books through eliminating loopholes (a good idea, but he will not specify which ones) and through savage cuts to programmes that help America’s poor (a bad idea, which will increase inequality still further). At least Mr Obama, although he distanced himself from Bowles-Simpson, has made it clear that any long-term solution has to involve both entitlement reform and tax rises. Mr Romney is still in the cloud-cuckoo-land of thinking you can do it entirely through spending cuts.

Mr Romney’s more sensible supporters explain his fiscal policies away as necessary rubbish, concocted to persuade the fanatics who vote in the Republican primaries . . . . However, even if you accept that Romneynomics may be more numerate in practice than it is in theory, it is far harder to imagine that he will reverse course entirely. . . . . Mr Romney, like Mr Hollande, will have his party at his back—and a long record of pandering to them.

Indeed, the extremism of his party is Mr Romney’s greatest handicap. The Democrats have their implacable fringe too: look at the teachers’ unions. But the Republicans have become a party of Torquemadas, forcing representatives to sign pledges never to raise taxes, to dump the chairman of the Federal Reserve and to embrace an ever more Southern-fried approach to social policy.

As a result, this election offers American voters an unedifying choice. Many of The Economist’s readers, especially those who run businesses in America, may well conclude that nothing could be worse than another four years of Mr Obama. We beg to differ. For all his businesslike intentions, Mr Romney has an economic plan that works only if you don’t believe most of what he says. That is not a convincing pitch for a chief executive. And for all his shortcomings, Mr Obama has dragged America’s economy back from the brink of disaster, and has made a decent fist of foreign policy. So this newspaper would stick with the devil it knows, and re-elect him.

Battleground Tracking Poll: President Obama Retakes Lead

Besides the bad news that Hurricane Sandy represents for many Americans, there is something to be happy about: a new poll shows that Barack Obama has pulled ahead of Mitt "I'm a lying sack of shit" Romney by 1 percentage point, 49 percent to 48 percent.  Yes, I wish the lead was larger, but it is nonetheless an improvement.  And I hope that voters wake up to the fact that Romney would eliminate federal disaster relief programs as noted in an earlier post today.  Fortunately, women seem  to be trending back towards Obama after initially believing Romney's feigned move towards the center in the first presidential debate.  Here are highlights from Politico:

MARION, Ohio — With eight days to go until the election, President Barack Obama has recaptured a narrow national lead over Mitt Romney, riding increased support from women and an edge in early voting.

A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll of 1,000 likely voters — taken from last Monday through Thursday — shows Obama ahead of Romney by 1 percentage point, 49 percent to 48 percent. That represents a 3-point swing in Obama’s direction from a week ago but reflects a race that remains statistically tied.

Obama leads by 8 points among those who have already voted, 53 percent to 45 percent. These early voters represent 15 percent of the electorate, with many more expected to vote in the next few days

Obama leads among women by 11 points, 54 percent to 43 percent. The gap had narrowed to 6 points a week ago, but much of that survey was conducted before the GOP nominee’s comment at the second debate that he had reviewed “binders full of women” as part of a gender diversity effort as Massachusetts governor. Obama and his allies have also been hitting full swing at Romney as an enemy of women’s rights on abortion and contraception in advertising and speeches.

The president is now closer in standing to where he’s been the past few months, and the swing is due to female support. On every issue and question of character, women now favor Obama over Romney.

While Obama’s overall favorability is roughly the same, 51 percent, he finds himself underwater in the suburbs. Only 44 percent of suburban voters view Obama positively, compared with 54 percent who see him unfavorably. It’s a significantly bigger spread in rural America, but it’s offset by his 65 percent favorability in urban areas.

Obama maintained the 9-point foreign policy advantage he carried into the third and final debate last Monday, which focused on the subject. Asked which candidate has a better foreign policy, Obama is ahead 52 percent to 43 percent.

That debate in Florida also helped the president retake the lead on which candidate is the stronger leader, 49 percent to 46 percent, a 4-point swing his direction from last week. Obama also grew his lead on the question of who “shares your values” from 2 points to 3 points.

Obama retains an edge on other substantive issues. He’s up 2 points on which candidate has the better tax policy, 6 points on who is better for Medicare and 13 points on who stands up more for the middle class.

New York Times: Re-elect Barack Obama

In a well reasoned (at least in my view) and lengthy editorial the New York Times has endorsed Barack Obama for re-election.  Not surprisingly, the editorial notes Mitt Romney's shape shifting and willingness to change his position - dare we say blatantly lie? - depending upon the audience he is addressing.  The editorial also notes that Romney would be a disaster for efforts at deficit reduction.  In short, the best bets for further improvements in the economy and fixing the nation's budget problems lie with Obama.  Here are editorial highlights:

The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold. The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster. An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives. Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to a selected group of us. Astonishingly, even the very right to vote is being challenged.

That is the context for the Nov. 6 election, and as stark as it is, the choice is just as clear. 

President Obama has shown a firm commitment to using government to help foster growth. He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless. Mr. Obama has impressive achievements despite the implacable wall of refusal erected by Congressional Republicans so intent on stopping him that they risked pushing the nation into depression, held its credit rating hostage, and hobbled economic recovery. 

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear. But he has tied himself to the ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas.

 

In the poisonous atmosphere of this campaign, it may be easy to overlook Mr. Obama’s many important achievements, including carrying out the economic stimulus, saving the auto industry, improving fuel efficiency standards, and making two very fine Supreme Court appointments. 

Health Care

Mr. Obama has achieved the most sweeping health care reforms since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The reform law takes a big step toward universal health coverage, a final piece in the social contract. 

Mr. Romney has no plan for covering the uninsured beyond his callous assumption that they will use emergency rooms. He wants to use voucher programs to shift more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and block grants to shift more Medicaid costs to the states.  

The Economy

Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression. The economy was cratering when he took office in January 2009. By that June it was growing, and it has been ever since (although at a rate that disappoints everyone), thanks in large part to interventions Mr. Obama championed, like the $840 billion stimulus bill. Republicans say it failed, but it created and preserved 2.5 million jobs and prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent.

Last year, Mr. Obama introduced a jobs plan that included spending on school renovations, repair projects for roads and bridges, aid to states, and more. It was stymied by Republicans. Contrary to Mr. Romney’s claims, Mr. Obama has done good things for small businesses — like pushing through more tax write-offs for new equipment and temporary tax cuts for hiring the unemployed.  

Mr. Romney’s economic plan, as much as we know about it, is regressive, relying on big tax cuts and deregulation. That kind of plan was not the answer after the financial crisis, and it will not create broad prosperity. 

Foreign Affairs

Mr. Obama and his administration have been resolute in attacking Al Qaeda’s leadership, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. He has ended the war in Iraq. Mr. Romney, however, has said he would have insisted on leaving thousands of American soldiers there. He has surrounded himself with Bush administration neocons who helped to engineer the Iraq war, and adopted their militaristic talk in a way that makes a Romney administration’s foreign policies a frightening prospect.

Mr. Obama gathered international backing for airstrikes during the Libyan uprising, and kept American military forces in a background role. It was smart policy.

In the broadest terms, he introduced a measure of military restraint after the Bush years and helped repair America’s badly damaged reputation in many countries from the low levels to which it had sunk by 2008. 

The Supreme Court

The future of the nation’s highest court hangs in the balance in this election — and along with it, reproductive freedom for American women and voting rights for all, to name just two issues. Whoever is president after the election will make at least one appointment to the court, and many more to federal appeals courts and district courts.

 Mr. Obama, who appointed the impressive Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, understands how severely damaging conservative activism has been in areas like campaign spending. He would appoint justices and judges who understand that landmarks of equality like the Voting Rights Act must be defended against the steady attack from the right. 

There is no doubt that he [Romney] would appoint justices who would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Civil Rights

 .  .  .  .   Mr. Obama, however, has reversed Bush administration policies that chipped away at minorities’ voting rights and has fought laws, like the ones in Arizona, that seek to turn undocumented immigrants into a class of criminals. 

The military’s odious “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule was finally legislated out of existence, under the Obama administration’s leadership. There are still big hurdles to equality to be brought down, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the outrageous federal law that undermines the rights of gay men and lesbians, even in states that recognize those rights. 

Mr. Romney opposes same-sex marriage and supports the federal act, which not only denies federal benefits and recognition to same-sex couples but allows states to ignore marriages made in other states. His campaign declared that Mr. Romney would not object if states also banned adoption by same-sex couples and restricted their rights to hospital visitation and other privileges. 

Mr. Romney has been careful to avoid the efforts of some Republicans to criminalize abortion even in the case of women who had been raped, including by family members. He says he is not opposed to contraception, but he has promised to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood, on which millions of women depend for family planning. 

For these and many other reasons, we enthusiastically endorse President Barack Obama for a second term, and express the hope that his victory will be accompanied by a new Congress willing to work for policies that Americans need.

 

Romney’s Dangerous Economic Model

The results of GOP economic policy

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan keep on whining that the economy has not improved as much as voters would have liked under Barack Obama.  Of course, they conveniently leave out the fact that the GOP controlled House of Representatives has continually blocked efforts by the Obama administration that would have made the economy better.  The GOP goal from day one has been to see Obama not re-elected and whatever economic mayhem that might be needed to do this - or the number of Americans harmed in the process - has never been an issue for the GOP.  They done all they can to destroy the economy and then complain about the outcome and say that it's Obama's fault rather than their own.  But there are additional reasons to fear the GOP and a Romney/Ryan administration: they want to do precisely what has failed to work in Europe.  It's another case of GOP arrogance - or should we say stupidity? - where they can never learn from the experience of others.  A column in the New York Times looks at the potential disaster of a Romney/Ryan administration.  Here are excerpts:

Mitt Romney’s best argument on the campaign trail has been simple: Under President Obama, the American economy has remained excruciatingly weak, far underperforming the White House’s own projections.

But Obama’s best response could be this: If you want to see how Romney’s economic policies would work out, take a look at Europe. And weep. 

In the last few years, Germany and Britain, in particular, have implemented precisely the policies that Romney favors, and they have been richly praised by Republicans here as a result. Yet these days those economies seem, to use a German technical term, kaput. 

Is Europe a fair comparison? Well, Republicans seem to think so, because they came up with it. In the last few years, they’ve repeatedly cited Republican-style austerity in places like Germany and Britain as a model for America. 

Let’s dial back the time machine and listen up: “Europe is already setting an example for the U.S.,” Representative Kenny Marchant, a Texas Republican, said in 2010. (You know things are bad when a Texas Republican is calling for Americans to study at the feet of those socialist Europeans.)

The same year, Karl Rove praised European austerity as a model for America and approvingly quoted the leader of the European Central Bank as saying: “The idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect.” 

O.K. Let’s see how that’s working out. New Jersey isn’t overseas, but since Sessions and many other Republicans have hailed it as a shining model of austerity, let’s start there. New Jersey ranked 47th in economic growth last year. When Gov. Chris Christie took office in 2010 and began to impose austerity measures, New Jersey ranked 35th in its unemployment rate; now it ranks 48th.

The International Monetary Fund this month downgraded its estimates for global economic growth, with only one major bright spot in the West. That would be the United States, expected to grow a bit more than 2 percent this year and next. 

In contrast, Europe’s economy is expected to shrink this year and have negligible growth next year. The I.M.F. projects that Germany will grow less than 1 percent this year and next, while Britain’s economy is contracting this year.

All this is exactly what economic textbooks predicted. Since Keynes, it’s been understood that, in a downturn, governments should go into deficit to stimulate demand; that’s how we got out of the Great Depression. And recent European data and I.M.F. analyses underscore that austerity in the middle of a downturn not only doesn’t help but leads to even higher ratios of debt to economic output. 

So, yes, Republicans have a legitimate point about the long-term need to curb deficits and entitlement growth. But, no, it isn’t reasonable for Republicans to advocate austerity in the middle of a downturn. On that, they’re empirically wrong.

The results are in. And, as Representative King suggested, the lessons “ought to hit all of us here in this country.”

Unhappy with the economy?  Vote GOP for change and watch the economy get worse, not better.  Oh, and remember, there will be less of a safety net for those who crash and burn financially thanks to GOP policies.

Jobless Numbers Fall - GOP Conspiracy Claims Rise

It is almost entertaining to watch the spittle and bewilderment emanating for Romney/Ryan and the usual demagogues of the GOP as the react to the latest unemployment figures which show improvement notwithstanding all of the efforts of the GOP to destroy the U.S. economy in the hope of defeating Barack Obama.  All those efforts of total obstruction and throwing millions of Americans down the financial toilet and yet the economy is improving.  They simply cannot deal with it and as a result are claiming that somehow Obama conspired to cook the numbers.   To me, it's yet the latest example of how low and untethered to reality today's Republican Party has become.   The GOP would rather see the nation in a depression rather than see Obama re-elected.  Pretty f*cked up priorities in my book.  The Washington Post looks at yesterday's jobs report and why the GOP demagogues are so flummoxed.  Here are highlights:

For Mitt Romney, it was the number that proved everything. Since the very first speech of his campaign, the Republican candidate has used a simple figure to bolster his argument that President Obama couldn’t fix the U.S. economy: 8 percent.  For Romney, any number above 8 percent proved he was right and Obama was wrong.

Obama had promised, Romney told audiences repeatedly, never to let unemployment get that high. Instead, Romney said, the jobless rate blew past 8 percent and got stuck there.  Until Friday.

The 0.3 percent dip in unemployment in September, from 8.1 to 7.8 percent, deprived Romney of one of his central campaign themes.  It was enough to put him on the defensive just as he was basking in the afterglow of his debate performance Wednesday . . . . the economy had crossed a threshold that Romney had implied it would never cross without him.

The political importance of the 8 percent threshold was driven home, in a backhanded way, by a few conservatives who floated a conspiracy theory that Friday’s dip had been engineered to give Obama a boost.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a branch of the Labor Department, uses two main sources. One is a survey of 141,000 businesses. The other looks at 60,000 households, asking if the people in those households were working or looking for work in the last month. The household survey captures data that the business survey doesn’t, such as people who are self-employed or who work on farms.

The September survey of businesses indicated a relatively modest gain in hiring: Payrolls rose by about 114,000. But the household survey indicated a much greater boost in hiring, with about 456,000 people no longer unemployed.

Later in the day, Welch told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that he had no hard evidence that the data had been fudged.  But he said he stood by his suspicions. “I don’t want to take back one word in that tweet,” Welch said. “These numbers defy logic.”

It is truly frightening that Republicans want to see the economy in decline and more Americans in dire straits solely so that they can be political opportunists.  It is truly sickening.  But then, the GOP leadership doesn't care about nearly half the population anyways.  Romney said so himself and said it wasn't his job to worry about such citizens.

Reactions to the Presidential Debate

I hate to say it, but in my opinion Obama blew it tonight.  Romney lied through his teeth repeatedly - e.g., his claim that he would not seek a huge tax cut for the wealthy, that he'd lower the number of those without health care and the utterly farcical claim that small businesses can effectively negotiate with big insurance companies for heath care plans - and Obama failed to effectively call him out.  The end result was that Romney looked commanding and those not aware of his total dishonesty likely had their opinion of the man enhanced.  As for the moderator, he completely lost control of the situation.  Obama had better regain his game quickly and Romney's shocking lies of the evening need to be exposed.  In sum, I am NOT a happy camper.

P.S. I cannot help but note that Romney, who claims to be the protector of traditional values and religious values, proved to be the biggest liar of the evening.  Of course, that's really no surprise given that the "godly Christian" crowd and professional Christians are the worse lairs one will likely ever encounter.

Former GOP Governor of Florida Endorses Obama

I'm sure the Christfascist/Tea Party base of the GOP is shrieking and spraying spittle as they get wind of the fact that a popular former GOP governor of the state of Florida has endorsed Barack Obama over the out of touch and "let them eat cake" ticket of the Republican Party.  True, Charlie Crist has his detractors and many believe he is gay notwithstanding his relatively marriage a woman, but in the final analysis he recognizes the extremism and toxicity of today's Republican party.  In a column today in the Tampa Bay Times, Crist endorsed Obama and laid out his reasoning, much of which coincides with my own views as a former GOP activist before the Christofascists high jacked the GOP.  Here are highlights:

I’ve studied, admired and gotten to know a lot of leaders in my life. Across Florida, in Washington and around the country, I've watched the failure of those who favor extreme rhetoric over sensible compromise, and I've seen how those who never lose sight of solutions sow the greatest successes. 

As America prepares to pick our president for the next four years — and as Florida prepares once again to play a decisive role — I'm confident that President Barack Obama is the right leader for our state and the nation. I applaud and share his vision of a future built by a strong and confident middle class in an economy that gives us the opportunity to reap prosperity through hard work and personal responsibility. It is a vision of the future proven right by our history.

Many have already forgotten how deep and daunting our shared crisis was in the winter of 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated. It was no ordinary challenge, and the president served as the nation's calm through a historically turbulent storm.

The president's response was swift, smart and farsighted. He kept his compass pointed due north and relentlessly focused on saving jobs, creating more and helping the many who felt trapped beneath the house of cards that had collapsed upon them.

[O]nly one candidate in this race has proven a willingness to navigate a realistic path to prosperity.
As Republicans gather in Tampa to nominate Mitt Romney, Americans can expect to hear tales of how President Obama has failed to work with their party or turn the economy around.

But an element of their party[the GOP] has pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they've proven incapable of governing for the people. Look no further than the inclusion of the Akin amendment in the Republican Party platform, which bans abortion, even for rape victims.

The truth is that the party [the GOP] has failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership or seriousness voters deserve. 

President Obama has a strong record of doing what is best for America and Florida, and he built it by spending more time worrying about what his decisions would mean for the people than for his political fortunes. That's what makes him the right leader for our times, and that's why I'm proud to stand with him today. 

Mississippi on the Brink of Total Shut Down - But GOP Denies Climate Change

One only need look around at the weather this summer to realize that something is happening: record heat and record drought, rising sea levels and changing weather patterns.  Yet the far right and its political whores in the Republican Party continue to deny that global warming is happening.  Calling such folk as ignorant cretins is perhaps being kind since their denial goes beyond merely being inherently ignorant.  They are choosing ignorance.  Some due to religious based insanity and others - especially in the GOP - due to shameless pandering with no concern for the consequences.  What's happening to the Mississippi River - which is in some places 20 feet below normal - is but another example of objective reality being rejected in favor of ideology and partisanship.  Here are some highlights:

America’s record-breaking drought is drying up the Mississippi River, which is vital for commercial travel. If the country’s largest river system continues to rapidly shrink, all river traffic could get shut down and cost the US $300 million a day.

The Mississippi, which has become thin and narrow, is used for cargo vessels to transport goods. In the US, 60 percent of grain, 22 percent of oil and natural gas and 20 percent of coal travels down the river.  But its reduced size and now-shallow waters are forcing barges to either stop running or reduce the weight of the goods they carry – leading to longer waits for those products in grocery stores. Some areas of the river have dropped 20 feet below normal – and the drop is expected to continue.

“A lot of those barges have had to lighten their loads, and even doing that, they are still running aground. There is a real fear that there could be a possibility of closing the Mississippi River,” said CNN correspondent Martin Savidge. “If that happens, well, all that product that used to be carried cheaply by barge is now going to be carried more expensively by truck or train. And guess who is going to pay for all that.”

If the Mississippi River is closed to all water traffic, goods like grain, oil, natural gas and coal will need to be transported by truck or train – costing the US an additional $300 million a day.

[M]illions of fish are dying as the bottom of the river transforms into an exposed desert. The river flows into lakes and streams across the US, carrying the devastation to all corners of the Midwest. About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon fish were killed in Iowa in one week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees. In Illinois, fish carcasses clogged an intake screen near a power plant, causing it to shut down one of its generators.

Frankly, I am waiting for Pat Robertson and the other lunatics of the Christofascist crowd to blame all of this on gays and gay marriage - oh, and abortion and a rejection of Jesus, even though they themselves make a mockery of the Gospel message.