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It is no secret that this blog largely believes that Congress, mostly the Senate, is an especially stupid place where all that is cheap and low rent about this country comes together to bludgeon us to death slowly with poorly thought out half-measures and cheap compromises. Hell, the entire function of TB is to catalog the dumbest parts in gape mouthed horror.
That's a chart of the projected deficit over the next few decades... barring the negation of this country and/or all life in a catastrophe. The top dotted line is the deficit if Congress decides to do what it always does: kiss ass to the richest part of the country and heap them with tax cuts. The bottom dotted line is what happens if they just do nothing and allow the tax cuts to expire. It amounts to a $4 trillion difference in the deficit over the next 10 years alone.
Congress, don't always feel you have to do things. Sometimes, we want you to sit around and twiddle your thumbs on issues. Sometimes, we need you to have those thumbs up your asses. This is one of those times. Godspeed.
Jon Stewart turns his eye to Wikileaks, BradAss87, Lady Gaga, and media apathy towards what should be a much bigger story.
In case you were worrying whether even something as damaging and enlightening as the document leak could spur our media into functioning again and maybe covering this war on terror thing, it hasn't. If you thought this might spur our elected betters into acting as if war was to be anything other than a outward projection of macho manliness and something that can never end, it didn't. The House approved and extra $59 billion to fund the wars yesterday.
Nothing changed? We learned nothing? Nicely done, America. At least we got a couple of good jokes out of it.
In case you missed the "big" story of the past week, let me recap. Dubious right wing smear merchant with a history of lying and editing videos in a misleading way, Andrew Breitbart, posts up video of a USDA employee, Shirley Sherrod, apparently claiming that she, a black woman, once denied help to white farmers because they were white. Outrage ensues, Fox News and the right wing media blow the story up, constantly trumpeting it. The NAACP and the Obama Administration, successfully baited, offer up statements of condemnation, with the Agriculture Department eventually firing Sherrod. Once again this proves to the Breitbart/Fox News crowd that black people are the true racists and that white people are currently the only true victims of racism.
But wait, it turns out that the liar with a penchant for editing videos in a misleading way, Andrew Breitbart, was a liar who edited a video in a misleading way. It turns out Sherrod was relay that story as the first half of a story in which she reveals in the second half that she realized the error of her ways, learned about racial harmony, and went on to help that white family save their farm. The white farmers were interviewed saying how Sherrod was a close friend and had helped them out tremendously. Oh, and this had happened 24 years ago. NAACP, the Obama Administration, and the news agencies that pilloried Sherrod and got her fired are forced to offer grudging apologies, and the Agriculture Department offers Sherrod her job back. This is all recounted here. And also here.
It was all a disgusting display of how lying, phony outrage, the 24-hour media cycle, and cowardice combine to turn this country into and awful and stupid place. It was even enough to get Keith Olbermann back from his vacation to pillory everyone involved for perpetrating this bullshit or falling for this bullshit. Truly a sight to behold. He's angry!
Well, you win this round, blacks. Sure you may still be able to intimidate whites with your New Black Panthers, but we're on to you and your racist ways. But it's important we come away with three thoughts in the aftermath of this: 1.) blacks are way more racist than whites, who, despite some foibles that ended in the 1800's, are totally not racist anymore. 2.) Andrew Breitbart is in no way to blame for any of this, the racist NAACP and black President are. 3.) It was wrong to fire Sherrod for being a racist, which she probably isn't. She should have been fired for being a dirty left-wing socialist liberal, with leftists liberal plots that seek to liberalize an un-liberal America. LIBERAL!
Are we clear? Now go back to living in constant fear that the blacks are coming to take our shit.
Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey (D-WI), explains how appropriations for the peasant class and budget negotiations work in this man's America. On education and government cheese:
We were told we have to offset every damn dime of [new teacher spending]. Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps. Now they were careful not to make an official budget request, because they didn’t want to take the political heat for it, but that was the first trial balloon they sent down here. … Their line of argument was, well, the cost of food relative to what we thought it would be has come down, so people on food stamps are getting a pretty good deal in comparison to what we thought they were going to get.
Well isn’t that nice. Some poor bastard is going to get a break for a change.
And these are supposedly the liberal communist socialists who are going to drown the American ideal in a bathtub full of government handouts. Karl Marx scoffs at their contempt for the proles.
With battles like this against a Democratic White House, it's hard to see why Obey would want to retire. Oh, no wait, it isn't. This seems to be the kind of stuff that would erode your soul over the course of four decades in Congress.
Ah well, hopefully the next guy in charge of the House Appropriations Committee won't be so concerned with poor people in a lousy economy eating. Or education. Seeing as he'll probably be a Republican, I think we can safely assume that to be the case.
Rep. David R. Obey (D-WI), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, discusses the economy and how our stupid government works in an interview lovingly titled I Leave More Discontented Than I Started.
The problem for Obama, he wasn’t as lucky as Roosevelt, because when Obama took over we were still in the middle of a free fall. So his Treasury people came in and his other economic people came in and said "Hey, we need a package of $1.4 trillion." We started sending suggestions down to OMB waiting for a call back. After two and a half weeks, we started getting feedback.
We put together a package that by then the target had been trimmed to $1.2 trillion. And then [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel said to me, "Geez, do you really think we can afford to come in with a package that big, isn’t it going to scare people?" I said, "Rahm, you will need that shock value so that people understand just how serious this problem is."
They wanted to hold it to less than $1 trillion. Then [Pennsylvania Senator Arlen] Specter and the two crown princesses from Maine [Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins] took it down to less than $800 billion. Spread over two and a half years, that’s a hell of a lot of money, but spread over two and a half years in an economy this large, it doesn’t have a lot of fiscal power.
Lesson two today in how government works: various smart people and experts come in and lay out The Smart Plan to tell you exactly what needs to be done to fix a problem, political hacks oppose The Smart Plan on the intellectual basis of "that sounds big", elected hacks take their hatchets to The Smart Plan on the intellectual basis of "that sounds big" and the added benefit of "looking like they're doing something to justify their existence to the press and voters", and then said New, Less Smart, Less Effective Plan passes to much circle jerking and back patting..... and fails to fully address all the problems. Everyone acts surprised, yet still refuses to do anything further. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Start as the Chief Counsel for the Senate Finance Committee in charge of health and entitlement issues.
Leave job to move to health insurance giant WellPoint to serve as its Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs, lording over their lobbying and other government-influencing activities.
Once it looks like Democrats are actually going to get off their asses on health care, move back to Senate to become top aide to Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee Chairman who would oversee the drafting of the healthcare bill, after his top aide leaves to become lobbyist for health care industry.
Effectively write the entire health care bill and fill it with all kinds of carve-outs and concessions to the insurance industry as well as killing the public option.
Join the Obama administration to help implement the new law.
I'm not sure of the next step, as it hasn't happened yet, but I'm pretty sure it's "go back to Wellpoint to earn millions for the work you did for them."
Isn't it wonderful? Join us next time when we recount how this exact same scenario happens in the financial reform process with an executive who works for... probably Goldman Sachs. Yeah, Goldman Sachs.
In recent months we've seen the debut of new election campaign strategies. Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle is taking a page out of Sarah Palin's book by not appearing on any network or allowing any media access to a journalist that will ask a hard question or not allow her to nakedly fund-raise on air. Ran Paul learned the lesson of allowing media access when the discovered that when he stated his positions near any type of recording device, they tended to make people angry. He has since remedied that situation with a media blackout.
Soon our elections will be conducted with voters only allowed to know the name and party of a candidate, with only a headshot providing the remaining information we're allowed to know. We'll make our decision on whether or not the name is cool and whether we think the person is properly dressed and has a good enough haircut in the photo. Like the founding fathers intended.
KING: So, It’s a combination of being against what Obama is for, and also giving certain specifics of what we are for. Having said that, I don’t think we have to lay out a complete agenda, from top to bottom, because then we would have the national mainstream media jumping on every point trying to make that a campaign issue.
That's right, the GOP can't release a policy platform or series of proposals for what they'd do if they win the upcoming election, otherwise the jerkoff media might go and make the proposed governing of this country a campaign issue. You know instead of what the GOP thinks an election is supposed to be about: bland statements about how things are going to be different, hoping no one remembers the fact that their policies, governing, and obstruction put the country in the deep hole that we're struggling to get out of now, finding an ethnic, socio-economic, or political group and blaming them for all the ills of the world, REPEAL EVERYTHING~!, and never articulating a thought that could be criticized once people understood what it would do to the country.
Great. Ah well, it's not like the coverage of those imaginary issues was going to be intelligent or enlightening anyway. Onward to voting on names, looks, and party affiliation. Whoo! America!
Via Glenn Greenwald, an Agence France-Presse wire story on Dick Cheney's exploding heart.
Whoops. Someone better get on the blower and tell France how realAmericanjournalism professionals sidestep that whole "torture" thingy dingy. Hint: they pretend it didn't happen and that torture isn't actually torture. Shh, pass it on.
I know, France. This whole "Debate" over who did what to whom with electrodes and barking dogs seems so cut and dried that even a Fox News analyst can see it for what it is and prescribe the correct line of action, but it isn't. Because. Try to bone up on your journalism standards. The objective isn't truth, it's covering for those in power. Remember that next time you go besmirching a man like Dick Cheney's record with an objective reporting of the facts.
By the by, it's nice to see Cheney finally have a heart type device implanted into his chest to replace the gaping black void of nothingness, avarice, and sadness that resided there before. A few years too late by my count, but still a nice gesture.
As the election season starts to ramp up, so does the whoring for political money season. Not that prostituting yourself out for big business' nickels is ever out of season, it's just that most candidate's internal whoring meter switches from "barely concealing the obviousness with which they sell out the average American voter" to "openly exchanging votes for a large burlap sack with a dollar sign on it, handed to them by a man with a monocle and spats on."
But what happens to a political party when they've spent the better part of a year trying to maybe kind of rein in the parties responsible for causing the global financial crisis? Plus maybe telling insurance companies that they shouldn't be such complete money grubbing shits and attempting to hold an oil company responsible for a massive environmental catastrophe? Sure, all of these attempts were half-assed, concession filled, compromise riddled, and willing bent over and inserted loopholes for the very industries they were attempting to regulate, but Democrats had the audacity to maybe question their corporate masters.
How did this go over with their moneyed betters? Not well, according to the Washington Post. With the Democratic campaign committees flagging behind their GOP brethren in the "raising money from the Monopoly guy's buddies" category.
Now normally, this would be time for Democrats to asses the situation, see how they're being openly criticized by unpopular industries and business leaders, see how close said unpopular business are to the GOP, and decide to make a stand on "standing up for the little guy against the evil excesses of the business world" no matter how dishonest that statement is. But no, this is Washington 2010 and these are Democrats.
In a Thursday interview, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that rather than recoiling against Obama, business leaders should be grateful for his support on at least a half-dozen counts... ... But, in the White House view, some business leaders listen only to Obama speeches being tough on BP or on the excesses of Wall Street and assume Obama is hostile to business across the board. “Rather than respond to atmospherics, they should look at policies where we have been supportive,” Emanuel said. ... Obama administration officials also are quick to point out that Corporate America hasn’t done so badly under Obama -- according to the most recent data, corporate profits are up 34 percent from first quarter 2009 to first quarter 2010.
That's how you lick some boot. Why position yourself as some sort of champion of the people, fighting against the excesses of big business... of which there a a litany of examples with massively negative consequences? That actually might be popular and helpful. Good thing you didn't do that then, Rahm.
We like to make fun of John Boehner for his tanning regimen. Why, because it's easy and we don't like to sweat for a joke. Besides, have you seen him? Motherfucker's orange. Thankfully, John likes easy humor as well, because he's serving up a nice opportunity for everyone to mock him for being a vain, self-obsessed Oompa Loompa. What's he up to this time? Why he's decrying the abominable health reform bill by blasting out a press release knocking an onerous tax on... tanning beds.
The new tax adds 10 percent to the cost of tanning services businesses provide. Some 30 million Americans visit a tanning salon at least once a year and 75 percent of the employees and customers are women, according to industry sources. ... According to this Wall Street Journal article, ObamaCare’s tanning tax is causing all kinds of problems for business owners who provide tanning services as well as other products or those who include tanning services as part of a gym membership.
And they call this America? Can't a man be uncommonly orange without the government trying to make him pay and extra buck for it? Is there an uncommonly weepy metaphor the GOP can use to complain about a tanning tax?
Unfortunately, no amount of sunscreen or Aloe will relieve the pain of the Democrats’ impending 10 percent tax on indoor tanning beds
The pain. The pain. Oh the pain. Does perhaps the former standard bearner and Presidential candidate of the Republicans have a Jersey Shore related pun he could unleash to complain about the tanning tax? Perhaps in a Tweet to Snooki?
@Sn00ki u r right, I would never tax your tanning bed! Pres Obama's tax/spend policy is quite The Situation. but I do rec wearing sunscreen!
SenJohnMcCain.
This is serious business, people! I mean, the outrage! People engaging in a luxury activity that increases their likelyhood of cancer by 74% should not be expected to pay minuscule taxes on that activity in order to pay for health care. Also, why would a Senator with a history of face tumors not want to get outraged over a tax that might decrease the amount of people who develop skin cancer?
Look, GOP... I know your minority leader is a tanning addict, but can't you let his unnatural obsession with looking like a citrus fruit be a personal thing? I mean you seemed to have organized a full court press from your leadership on this and even got the conservative media to go after it. Aren't you supposed to be a serious party concerned about serious issues? Isn't this supposed to be a serious country with adult leaders concerned about important business?
Oh, that's right, it isn't. Carry on then. OOOH THAT TANNING TAX! *shakes fist at sky*
President Obama: You know Stan, I'm glad to have you running things in Afghanistan. As I've said many times publicly: your strategies, leadership, and vision are absolutely integral to any future success our mission in Afghanistan will have. Especially now that we're entering one of the most critical "make or break" times in our offensive campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Again, you are absolutely integral to our mission.
General McChrystal: Thank you Mr. President and let me say how honored I am to be leading this vital charge against the Afghan insurgency. ... By-the-by, and this is just a little thing.... I may have given a tiny little interview to Rolling Stone where I maybe had a few too many Bud Light Limes and was maybe a little critical of your administration. Nothing serious, but maybe a few of my aides go a little too far in criticizing specific people in your administration. Not me, mind you, my aides. A little embarrassing? Sure. A little short sighted? Sure. Ripe for parody? Definitely. But nothing that would cause anyone to drastically reassess our geopolitical strategy vis-a-vis the war on terror and our counterinsurgency strategies and Afghanistan policies... right?
Nice to see that we won't let something like a war or a war strategy get dicked around over what amounts to an indelicate decorum gaffe combined with incessant, brainless 24-hour news outrage, right? Eh, at least we'll have those trillions from those Afghan minerals to spend soon.
A scene from Josh Fox's Gasland, a documentary on the natural gas industry, hydraulic fracturing/"Fracking", contamination of the water table, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, dead animals, illness, the environment, the EPA, and dangerous chemicals.
It debuted on HBO last night and was a horrifying look into how the natural gas industry's complete exemption from any and all environmental laws and the expansion of drilling all over the country has lead to increased water contamination and illness amongst the people living nearby. Of course the natural gas companies deny this is happening, that the hundreds of dangerous chemicals they pump into the ground in a process called hydraulic fracturing can't possibly be harming anyone, and how no one is essentially keeping an eye on this. It kind of makes you sick as you watch it over the nearly two hour running time of the film.
A sign of the times, although many may find it distasteful, or much worse: Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff used a mobile Twitter client to send out a tweet announcing the impending execution by firing squad of convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner.
As the BBC notes, quite a modern way to announce a very old-fashioned death.
In total, the AG sent out 3 tweets about the event from his iPhone only a couple of hours ago, the most recent one an all-too-familiar (on Twitter) self-promoting one.
1) A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice
2) I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner’s execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims.
3) We will be streaming live my press conference as soon as I’m told Gardner is dead. Watch it at www.attorneygeneral.Utah.gov/live.html
What, he couldn't also put up a few Twitpics of the body or a Twitvid of the execution? No blog post? I thought we were living in the 21st century.
And firing squad? Nice to see we live in a modern world. Did you think four horses tied to the man's limbs running in four different directions was too inhumane? Didn't want to build a wall to fall on him?
Nicely done. I guess next time Utah executes a guy (eaten by sharks?) they can spring for a clown with balloons to deliver an ice cream cake to the media that says "The execution was performed successfully at 7:00 PM." You can write it across Fudgy the Whale. You know, so you can fully embrace the moment and commemorate it with a dignity befitting the gravity of the situation. Maybe fireworks that spell out "R.I.P."? I don't know, I'm not the Utah Attorney General here.
A single photo which Wonkette deems captures all of America. "It’s all there, everything. Everything." I don't know, it's missing a Mexican putting up the sign. But otherwise, yeah, everything.
Long time readers of this blog know that both Sean and I have a great appreciation for those little moments in our political system when the veil is lifted and we get an awful look into all the horrid things our government does that are viewed as acceptable and standard operating procedure.
You know, like the close, almost overtly sexual relationship between our elected betters and our corporate masters on Wall Street. I say "almost' because I find it hard to believe that these doughy, asexual money creatures could take time out of humping piles of bank notes to start in on each other. Well, that's was before we saw them try to sell front row tickets to the pre-orgy celebration party.
A small Wall Street securities firm has teamed up with a lobbyist for the financial services industry to host an all-day event on June 15 -- right in the middle of the conference committee negotiations over the financial reform bill -- that will feature "the KEY House and Senate Conferees and majority and minority Committee staff, as well as leading financial lobbyists covering interchange, banks and major non-banks affected by so-called Wall Street Reform bill," according to an invitation obtained by TPM. ... The other firm helping to organize the event, according to the email invitation, is Federal Advisory LLC. The registered agent for Federal Advisory LLC is Tim Rupli, according to Virginia corporation records. Rupli is a former aide to Tom DeLay and now a high-powered Republican lobbyist for the payday lending industry and the community banks trade association, among other clients. ... While the invitation says the event will be on Capitol Hill, it doesn't not specify the exact venue. Rupli's Capitol Hill townhouse on New Jersey Avenue within easy walking distance of the House office buildings next to the Capitol, has been the frequent venue for fund-raising receptions, ranking as the 10th most popular congressional partying spot of 2008.
Aww yeah, come and get down with our financial elite and our government elite. Drinks will be served, party music will be played, and if the mood strikes, you might see Mitch McConnell balls deep in Jamie Dimon before the night is out. Or vice versa. See our leaders physically get it on with banks and financial giants this time, not metaphorically like before. Can you smell the eroticism?
Seems to me to be a waste of money. Why pay to have this get together when government is already doing everything the financial sector wants? Ah well, it's not like these guys are smart with money anyway. I think the past few years have borne that out.
So, if you're up for seeing how things in this country truly work, see pasty white septuagenarian flesh smash together as bizarre opera music plays, and get the stink of Ben-Gay and sex in your nostrils... June 15th at Tim Rupli's is the place. Place your keys in a bowl at the entrance and bring your own creepy masquerade mask. You will be sworn to secrecy at the conclusion of the events you will never be able to unsee, but you'll finally understand how things work. You'll just be killed if you try to explain it. Maybe the haunted look on your face will explain enough.
There are certain times when you just well up with pride over the state of American democracy. Like when lobbyists and business leaders talk openly to a newspaper about their "connections", "fundraising", and plans for if the the GOP takes back the House in November and John Boehner becomes speaker. You might otherwise know it as "bribery", "kickbacks", "Using the apparatus of government to fuck over citizens in favor of corporations" and "wanton open corruption." Business as usual.
Several GOP lobbyists said they are advising their clients to try to make inroads with Boehner before the 112th Congress, even though a Republican takeover next year is far from assured. ... “Being bullish on Republicans in the House is a good investment right now.”
For many lobbyists, that means advising clients to increase their campaign contributions to Republican incumbents — particularly to vulnerable Members whom Boehner has put at the top of his political priority list.
The message from K Street seems to be resonating. The Minority Leader, optimistic about the prospect of taking back the House, is raising money at a fast clip. ... Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, whom Boehner tapped earlier this year to serve as the chairman of the GOP leadership, said that when he announced Boehner would hold a fundraiser for him in Portland, he noticed an increased interest among his donors about meeting the Republican leader.
“Business leaders are saying, ‘I’d like to meet him,’ ‘I want to meet him,’ ‘I’ve seen him,’ ‘I like him,’” Walden said. “And they know they are not coming for free.”
Splendid. For his part, Boehner has assembled a massive array of lobbyists to run his fundraising efforts an court business leaders, while simultaneously talked about creating the openest and most transparentest Congress ever if he becomes Speaker. Apparently corporations will have to hand over burlap sacks with dollar signs on them on the floor of Congress now.
So... that bodes well. You just love it when a bunch of politicians and lobbyists will talk to a newspaper on the grounds that they really want you to know how well oiled their bribery and kickback machine is should you let them run things.
Politician: "Hey, would anyone like to trade money for access? We're willing to do your bidding in exchange for cash." Corporation: "Sure, we have money and would like access. Here is an incredible sum of money and a list of things we want done." Newspaper: "Isn't this interesting? We will make no comment about how shady this all seems and treat what seems like massive open corruption as business as usual."
Shit, I bet Democrats are still dirty dealing in smoky back rooms. Hah, just kidding. No one who gives money to Democrats gets what they want.
You know, it's been a while since we've openly mocked our elected betters in Washington for nakedly playing politics with important issues. It must be a few days now since we've done it. But we can only mock them when they give us fresh material. I mean we can't make the stuff up, right? I mean sure, I'd love for our legislative branch to somehow combine politicizing education, disrespect for the sciences, needlessly harming kids, actively trying to dumb down future generations, and add in massive dashes of cheap legislative tricks, political cowardice, and a healthy dose of repressed sexual puritanism, but that kind of stuff just doesn't happen everyday.
In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography. ... In this case, Republicans included a provision that would bar the federal government from paying the salaries of employees who've been disciplined for viewing pornography at work.
To proceed with the bill and bring it to a final vote, Democrats would have had to vote against the motion to recommit, and against the porn ban.
But they didn't have the stomach for it, and 121 Democrats jumped ship and voted with Republicans to kill the bill.
Eat it kids. "It" being 'Waste or excrement from the digestive tract that is formed in the intestine and expelled through the rectum'. You'd know about that whole process as well as the basic digestive process that would happen after you ate 'it'... if you didn't just have your science and biology curriculum needlessly fucked with by adults, that is. Well, legally they're adults, but in reality they're more childish than you'll ever be my dear, sweet, stupid, stupid children.
Ideally the bill is still able to be brought back up for a vote, but who knows what amendments supporting funds for the perverted arts, motions to support the rape of everyone's mother, and efforts to tack on riders that give away home makeovers and manicures to child murderers will have to be dealt with so that our children will not regress into fearing the fire orb in the sky and eating mud.
Wonderful. In order to look like they don't support the porn, our elected betters choose to support dicking over kids and education, all the while not actually doing anything to make themselves look less like conscienceless assholes and getting nothing done. I think that is the textbook definition of a win-win-win-win scenario. So good we have adults in Washington tackling the important issues in a serious manner.
If there's one thing I love about this country, it's how our political betters can take any tragedy, whether near or averted, and rise to the occasion... of using it in a completely petty way to make cheap political attacks and possibly hinder relief efforts.
Take for instance, the averted Times Square bombing. Instead of praising law enforcement for catching the man, civilian vigilance for pointing out the bomb, or noting how we're seeming to gets tons of information out of the guy, the GOP seems content to whine about stripping said terrorist of every right he has (except the right to bear arms) and informing would be terrorists of the world that all we are is lucky and that better planned attacks could easily get through because Democrats are weak. Classy.
But Republicans aren't the only ones to engage in this type of behavior. Take the recent decision by BP to replace water in the Gulf of Mexico with oil. As the oil slick menaces the shores of Louisiana, it would be prudent to extend to them certain federal protections, declarations of emergency, and relief, right? Even if the state is run by a Republican hypocrite who rages against federal money usage and government spending right up until the point where he needs a couple bucks? What? No? Fuck him? Well played.
In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has been a vocal critic of federal spending under President Obama, but as the state closest to the undersea leak, he already has requested various forms of federal disaster assistance. He's also anticipating the possibility that British Petroleum either won't, or won't have to under the law, foot the the full cost of all the damages associated with the spill.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) took a swipe at Jindal when I asked during a brief interview this week if Congress was considering any funding to add to what BP will do. "Well you know, here we go. You know, the governor of Louisiana says the federal government should stay out of the state's business," Menendez told me Tuesday night. ... "There is not the appetite for [and aid supplemental] right now," a House Democratic leadership aide told me bluntly in an interview. What's more, lawmakers don't view this as anything like the Katrina fallout since so much of the region's infrastructure had been wiped out and so many people were displaced.
Oooh, bet Jindal wishes he hadn't bashed the stimulus now.
It's just nice to know that in times of crisis this country's elected leaders can come together to put the screws to someone in an attempt to look good politically in an election year because that someone tried to put the screws to them in an attempt to look good politically in an election year. Except the part where this is an massive environmental disaster and not some simpleton yelling bullshit about The Socialism. Ah well, I'm sure Louisiana can take one for the team. They probably won't notice what with the Super Bowl celebrations still going on. They're good like that. Maybe David Simon will do an episode of Treme about it.
It's no secret that our elections are a comic horrorshow of stupidity unrivaled by any country in the world. We tend to have perfected the art of not making the process of electing our political betters about anything substantial; letting nearly every contest devolve into the cheap theatre of name calling, flag eating, and pretending to get offended at the low rent name calling.
And among the dumbest of the races in this especially dumb election year is the Senate race in California. Incumbent Barbara Boxer seems barely aware that she's going to have to contest this race, but I'm sure someone will tap her on the shoulder to remind her to put her name on the re-election form so she can waltz to victory. But in the GOP primary has been the typical shitshow of "You are insufficiently in love with tax cuts" "No, you are insufficiently in love with tax cuts and I deride your level of hatred for Mexicans and love levels of Reagan" "How dare you" and so on and so on. Perhaps you remember presumed frontrunner Carly Fiorina's "demon sheep" ad?
Well Carly is in trouble and may not even make it out of the primary. So, I assume, in an attempt to completely squash her and waste some of the money they have piled around, the DSCC and the California Democratic Party have decided to hoist her on her own demon sheep petard.
May I remind you that this is for a powerful seat in one of the most powerful institutions in one of the most powerful of China's subsidiary countries.... and there were so many mutton based puns that I gave up counting them halfway through after I killed myself.
So take pride America, on of the most important issues in one our largest Senate races is sheep and demon based mockery and mockery of previous crazy commercials. I'd weep, but that places the California Senate race as one of the most serious races in the country. It's actually about an issue that's not completely made up or distorted beyond all recognition. And the production values are top notch. I'm not pulling the wool over your eyes on that one.
That's a chart of the projected deficit over the next few decades... barring the negation of this country and/or all life in a catastrophe. The top dotted line is the deficit if Congress decides to do what it always does: kiss ass to the richest part of the country and heap them with tax cuts. The bottom dotted line is what happens if they just do nothing and allow the tax cuts to expire. It amounts to a $4 trillion difference in the deficit over the next 10 years alone.
