Obama Calls the Republi-CON Bluff to Balance the Budget

UPDATE V:  The only thing holding Obama back is a lack of will to confront the Republi-cons.  Read the Washington Post, The Green Lantern theory of the fiscal cliff.  

UPDATE IV:  Did you know that the Ryan budget would cut $897 billion from the federal government budget?

Since Obamney "has committed himself to keeping the Pentagon budget (Function 050) at 4 percent of G.D.P. By 2050, that would leave zilch under the Ryan plan for such separately funded programs as Veterans Benefits (Function 700); the administration of justice, including the F.B.I. (Function 750); Education, Train and Social Services (Function 500), and pretty much anything else."

Read The New York Times, The Ryan Sinkhole.  

UPDATE III:  The Naive-ocrats have finally gotten the chance to call the Republi-con budget bluff, and they are all-in.

"[T]o paraphrase H.L. Mencken, is that the Obama administration knew the fight they wanted, and now they’re going to get it good and hard.

Putting the Ryan budget at the center of the 2012 election has the tactical benefit of forcing Republicans to defend an unpopular proposal; more important, it has the long-term strategic benefit of potentially discrediting the Ryan budget as a political document. Prior to Ryan joining the ticket, a Romney loss seemed likely to strengthen the Republican Party’s conservative wing, because the defeat would be blamed on Romney’s moderate past. Now, if the Romney-Ryan ticket loses, it will vindicate skeptics of the party’s rightward shift, potentially strengthening the party’s moderates. That could produce a more cooperative opposition for Obama to work with in a second term.

But if Obama loses, Republicans will have won the presidency with a mandate to enact a deeply conservative agenda. Left to his own devices, Romney might have been a relatively pragmatic and cautious president. Instead, the Obama administration’s three-year effort to enshrine the Ryan budget at the heart of the Republican Party would prove to have been a crucial push toward enacting that budget into law."

Read the Washington Post, The White House’s huge gamble on Paul Ryan.

Actually, I bet that even if the Republi-cons win they won't even try to balance the budget, proving my theory it is all a con job.

UPDATE II:  It is "impossible to overstate how central the unjustified label of 'fiscal conservative' is to the Ryan brand and the GOP’s strategy."  Read the Washington Post, Recognizing Paul Ryan’s ‘tell’ when he is trying to avoid something.  

UPDATE:  "[H]ow will a Romney administration make its budget math add up? . .

[Obamney made] outlandish budget promises in order to win a Republican primary, . . . [and now he] is disavowing Ryan’s Medicare cuts mere days after naming him to the ticket?

This is simply not a credible budget plan, and Romney’s fast retreat from Ryan’s most unpopular cuts makes it even less credible. And yet Romney, who has never released the specific cuts that would make his numbers add up, repeatedly touts it on the campaign trail, and the media dutifully reports his promises to cut federal spending by more than $500 billion in 2016, and in fact to balance the budget by the end of his second term, which would require far larger cuts than what I’ve outlined here, despite the fact that everyone basically knows these cuts aren’t credible and will never happen.

I’m not sure what alternative there is, exactly, except to say, as clearly as possible, Romney’s budget plan is a fantasy, and it will never happen."

Read the Washington Post, Romney’s budget plan is a fantasy.  

I've been challenging Naive-ocrats to call the Republi-con bluff and balance the budget with tax cuts, a delusional fantasy of made-up facts and figures. 

You may remember, in 2003 the "prescription drug bill, creating a new federal entitlement that eased the financial burden on seniors while securing drug industry profits at taxpayer expense, with the legislation’s cost – $62 billion in 2010 alone, 12 percent of the federal government's Medicare's costs – covered by the same device used in the Romney and Ryan tax plans: a magic asterisk promising that somehow the numbers would work out.

The vote was contentious, with many conservatives voting against it. Ryan voted in favor. In doing so, he announced that he was a player. . .

The appetite for fantasy – the will to believe the magic asterisks really work – will be enormous. Ryan, the conservative icon, is the ideal emissary to inform the party's true believers that not everyone in this large, pluralistic, complex nation wants to dismantle the federal government at this particular moment. When you wish upon a magic asterisk, not all your dreams come true."

Now we'll get to see if the public really wants to dismantle the federal government.

But if "the [Romney-Ryan] ticket loses, the loss will discredit the Ryan budget, and empower those in the Republican Party who want to pivot back to the center."  

Are You Better Off? You Betcha!

From Bloomberg, Are You Better Off? Take a Look at the Stock Market:

"Do you remember the news four years ago? Banks collapsed, markets cratered, companies struggled to make payroll and millions of people lost their jobs. Your retirement savings were decimated, the value of your house plunged, credit was unobtainable. Politicians dithered and economists argued. Only confusion prospered.

Against this background, it’s surprising to hear Republicans returning to Ronald Reagan’s classic debate question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” To anyone whose memory extends a full electoral cycle, the answer is clearly yes. . .

When assessing our politicians, what matters isn’t just the here and now. It’s at least as important to consider how well we are set up for tomorrow, next year and the decades that follow.

This distinction is particularly important in assessing the aftermath of the last recession. The anxiety that gripped us in late 2008 wasn’t born out of a typical cyclical decline that hurts for a year or two before the economy returns to growth. Rather, it was a fear that something more fundamental had changed, altering our whole economic trajectory.

Only a forward-looking indicator can pick up both this fear and its ultimate resolution. Unfortunately, most economic statistics tell us only what happened last month, last quarter or last year.

The stock market, by contrast, is obsessively focused on the future. When investors decide whether to buy a company’s stock, they aren’t just thinking about its current earnings (if they were, a company like Twitter Inc. would be worthless). They are trying to figure out what its future earnings will be, and what that stream of income should be worth today. Their collective judgment, while far from perfect, tells a compelling story about how America’s prospects have changed over the past four years." 

Rosie Ruiz Republicans

UPDATE:  Lyin Ryan "has always resided in a counter-factual universe. He is a product of the hermetically sealed right-wing subculture. Many of the facts taken for granted by mainstream economists have never penetrated his brain. Ryan burst onto the national scene with a dense, fact-laden attack on the financing of Obama’s health-care bill that was essentially a series of hallucinations, pseudo-facts cooked up and recirculated by conservative apparatchiks who didn’t know what they were talking about or didn’t care. His big-think speeches reflect the influence of fact-free conservatives and collapse under scrutiny."  Read New York Magazine, Since When Did Paul Ryan Become a Liar?  

Another great op-ed from an economist and professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, and the winner of the 2008 the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Paul Krugman.  Read The New York Times, Rosie Ruiz Republicans, which states:

"Remember Rosie Ruiz? In 1980 she was the first woman to cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon — except it turned out that she hadn’t actually run most of the race, that she sneaked onto the course around a mile from the end. Ever since, she has symbolized a particular kind of fraud, in which people claim credit for achieving things they have not, in fact, achieved.

And these days Paul Ryan is the Rosie Ruiz of American politics.

This would have been an apt comparison even before the curious story of Mr. Ryan’s own marathon came to light. Still, that’s quite a story, so let’s talk about it first.

It started when Hugh Hewitt, a right-wing talk-radio host, interviewed Mr. Ryan. In that interview, the vice-presidential candidate boasted about his fitness, declaring that he had once run a marathon in less than three hours.

This claim piqued the interest of Runner’s World magazine, which noted that marathon times are recorded — and that it was unable to find any evidence of Mr. Ryan’s accomplishment. It eventually transpired that Mr. Ryan had indeed once run a marathon, but that his time was actually more than four hours.

In a statement issued by a spokesman, Mr. Ryan tried to laugh the whole thing off as a simple error. But serious runners find that implausible: the difference between sub-three and over-four is the difference between extraordinary and perfectly ordinary, and it’s not something a runner could get wrong, unless he’s a fabulist who imagines his own reality. And does suggesting that Mr. Ryan is delusional rather than dishonest actually make the situation any better?

Which brings us back to the real issues of this presidential campaign.

Obviously nobody cares how fast Mr. Ryan can run, and even his strange marathon misstatement wouldn’t be worth talking about in isolation. What makes this incident so striking is, instead, the way it resonates with the essential Rosie-Ruizness of Mr. Ryan’s whole political persona, which is built around big boasts about accomplishments he hasn’t accomplished.

For Mr. Ryan, as you may recall, has positioned himself as an icon of truth-telling and fiscal responsibility, while offering policy proposals that are neither honest nor responsible. . . "

That So-Called Republi-CON Leadership

If you listened closely, both Christie and Ryan used their campaign speeches to point out that Obamney is not the right man to elect because he lacks leadership and follows the polls.  Read the Washington Post, A very strange argument for Mitt Romney, which states:

"Chris Christie and Paul Ryan hit the same themes. We have hard choices facing us. We need leaders who won’t flinch before those choices. Leaders who won’t be deterred by the polls. Leaders who won’t compromise their principles. Leaders who won’t duck the tough issues. Leaders who won’t hide the hard truths.

That description arguably works for Christie and Ryan. That’s their brand, even if it’s selectively applied. But whether you love Romney or you hate him, do these lines really sound like a description of him? Is his political history really that of a bold, poll-defying, truth-talker?

Ryan was emphatic in his speech. 'So here is our pledge. We will not duck the tough issues,' he promised. 'We will lead.'

Christie was no less forceful. 'It’s easy for our leaders to say, ‘Not us, not now’, in taking on the really tough issues,' he said on Tuesday. 'And unfortunately we have stood silently by and let them get away with it.  But tonight, I say enough.'

Here is what Romney, so far in this campaign, has said. No changes to any entitlement programs for any seniors for the next 10 years. No specifics on how quickly his Medicare vouchers will grow for future seniors. No specifics on which tax breaks he’ll eliminate in order to offset the multi-trillion dollar cost of his tax cuts. No specific plan naming the cuts he’ll make to reach his $7 trillion target. No specifics on how he’ll equalize tax treatment of employer and individual health care. It is a campaign based on the principle of 'not us, not now.'

'Real leaders do not follow polls,' Christie continued. 'Real leaders change polls.'

And perhaps they do. But so far, the Romney campaign appears to have followed quite a number of polls.

In 2009, Romney wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he advised President Obama to apply 'the lessons we learned in Massachusetts' to his health-care reform. Among those lessons was that 'using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.' That is to say, among those lessons was to include an individual mandate in the plan. Romney later said the mandate was 'unconstitutional.'

In February, Romney said, 'The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.' In April, under fire for opposing the auto bailout, Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s top communications adviser, said, Romney’s 'position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed. I know it infuriates them to hear that. The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney’s advice.'

Tonight, Ryan said Obama didn’t do enough to 'correct' the housing crisis. Romney’s initial position on housing was, 'Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom.' Later, he said, 'The idea that somehow this is going to cure itself by itself is probably not real. There’s going to have to be a much more concerted effort to work with the lending institutions and help them take action, which is in their best interest and the best interest of the homeowners.' The campaign never released an actual housing policy.

During the debt ceiling debate, Romney remained silent for months on end. Critics — including on the right — joked that he’d joined 'the Mittness protection program.' Then, after the deal was struck and Congress was about to vote, he released a statement saying, 'while I appreciate the extraordinarily difficult situation President Obama’s lack of leadership has placed Republican members of Congress in, I personally cannot support this deal.' It is hard to see that episode as either a display of tough leadership or indifference to polls.

Indeed, it’s difficult to think of a single issue where Romney has defied the polls to tell his party something they didn’t want to hear. He raised his hand when Bret Baier asked the participants at a Fox News debate whether they’d oppose a deal that include $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in taxes. He backed off his once strongly stated belief that global warming was caused by humans. He moved from being pro-choice to pro-life, and from holding 'progressive' views to being 'severely conservative.' . .

[I]f you’re looking for a guy who doesn’t duck the tough issues, who never obscures the hard truths, who tells you the unpleasant facts you don’t want to hear, who isn’t deterred by the polls, Romney isn’t your guy."

No Surprise, A Republi-CON CONvention of Lies

UPDATE V:   Lyin Ryan delivered "a speech that is more about big ideas than it is about facts -- ideas like 'Lying is handy.'"  Watch the Colbert Report, Paul Ryan's Misleading GOP Convention Speech:

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UPDATE IV:  Obamney proved once again that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.  Read the Washington Post, The trends behind Romney’s numbers, which notes that while he didn't lie, his claims were misleading. 

UPDATE III:  Don't take my work for it.  Read Fox News, Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words, one of which was dishonest, noting that "to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech."

UPDATE II:  And a critique of the lies continues, after reading, watching and re-reading Ryan's speech, and using a 'definition of 'true'" that is loose, not "for arguments that were ironclad. It was just for arguments — for claims about Obama’s record — that were based on a reasonable reading of the facts, and that weren’t missing obviously key context. . .

Ryan’s claims weren’t even arguably true. You simply can’t say the president hasn’t released a deficit reduction plan. The plan is right here. You simply can’t say the president broke his promise to keep your GM plant open. The decision to close the plant was made before he entered office — and, by the way, the guy at the top of your ticket opposed the auto bailout. You simply can’t argue that the Affordable Care Act was a government takeover of the health-care system. My doctor still works for Kaiser Permanente, a private company that the government does not own. You simply can’t say that Obama, who was willing to follow historical precedent and sign a clean debt ceiling increase, caused the S&P downgrade, when S&P clearly said it was due to congressional gridlock and even wrote that it was partly due to the GOP’s dogmatic position on taxes.

Oh, and here’s one we missed: 'You would think that any president, whatever his party, would make job creation, and nothing else, his first order of economic business. But this president didn’t do that. Instead, we got a long, divisive, all-or-nothing attempt to put the federal government in charge of health care.' The stimulus — which was the administration’s major job creation package — came before health care. It was their first priority. That’s simply inarguable. . .

This has been a central challenge during this election. The Republican ticket, when it comes to talking about matters of policy and substance, has some real problems – problems that have nothing to do with whether you like their ideas. Romney admits that his tax plan “can’t be scored” and then he rejects independent analyses showing that his numbers don’t add up. He says — and Ryan echoes — that he’ll bring federal spending down to 20 percent of GDP but refuses to outline a path for how well get there. He mounts a massive ad assault based on a completely discredited lie about the Obama administration’s welfare policy. He releases white papers quoting economists who don’t agree with the Romney campaign’s interpretations of their research.

All this is true irrespective of your beliefs as to what is good and bad policy, or which ticket you prefer. Quite simply, the Romney campaign isn’t adhering to the minimum standards required for a real policy conversation. Even if you bend over backward to be generous to them — as the Tax Policy Center did when they granted the Romney campaign a slew of essentially impossible premises in order to evaluate their tax plan — you often find yourself forced into the same conclusion: This doesn’t add up, this doesn’t have enough details to be evaluated, or this isn’t true.

I don’t like that conclusion. It doesn’t look “fair” when you say that. We’ve been conditioned to want to give both sides relatively equal praise and blame, and the fact of the matter is, I would like to give both sides relatively equal praise and blame. I’d personally feel better if our coverage didn’t look so lopsided. But first the campaigns have to be relatively equal. So far in this campaign, you can look fair, or you can be fair, but you can’t be both."

Read the Washington Post, A not-very-truthful speech in a not-very-truthful campaign.  

 

UPDATE:  The consensus is that the Ryan speech "was a stunning display of dishonesty. In the twelve hours since Ryan gave his address, Slate, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, the Boston Globe, the New Republic, the New Yorker and the Associated Press have run scatching critiques.

The leading fact checkers — Politifact, Factcheck.org and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler — have followed suit."

Read the Washington Post, Will Paul Ryan's dishonesty matter to voters?

Of course, what did you expect, even the Obamney campaign declared that it was "not going to let [their] campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."

The article states that "Ryan started this race with a reputation for honesty. He’s on his way to losing it."

But I think he was a  Republi-con all along, his reputation only proved how good he was at conning people.

Read The New Yorker, The Paul Ryan Speech: Five Hypocrisies. 

Obamney Picks a Person He Doesn't Think Is Qualified to Be President

UPDATE:  Don't take my word for it.  Even Ryan's brother calls him a "career politician. . . [who has never had] a real job."

Read the Washington Post, Barack Obama spent a lot more time in the private sector than Paul Ryan.

"Three years ago, Mitt Romney proposed a constitutional amendment that would say 'the president has to spend three years working in business before he becomes president of the United States. Then he or she would understand that the policies they are putting into place have to encourage small business to grow.'"

By this standard, Ryan isn't qulified to be president.

Read the Washington Post, Mitt Romney’s constitutional amendment would bar Paul Ryan from the presidency.

The Republi-CON 'We Are Self-Sufficient' Myth

Did you know that federal "[t]axpayers directly contributed $18,248,300 million to the Republican and Democratic national committees, or a total of $36.5 million, to hold their presidential nominating conventions in Election 2012"?

And that Republican National Convention is being "held in a stadium that was financed with $86 million in public funds"?

In the meantime, Republi-con wonder boy, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal won't be participating in the government subsidized fun because he's too busy begging for federal government money.

The Republi-CON 'Gold Will Save Us' Myth

"In 1981, President Ronald Reagan created the Gold Commission. The purpose of the commission was to appease conservatives who wanted to see the country return to the gold standard. The conclusion of the Commission? That’s a clown idea, bro.

'Restoring a gold standard does not appear to be a fruitful method for dealing with the continuing problem of inflation,' the Commission reported. They even rejected the halfway measure of issuing a limited number of bonds backed by gold as a way of 'introducing gold into our monetary system.'

So, to recap, in 1981, amidst a serious inflation problem, Reagan created a commission to study a gold standard. You couldn’t have picked a more sympathetic president, or a more sympathetic moment, to the gold standard. And they still rejected it.

Now fast forward 30 years. There’s no inflation problem. The head of the Federal Reserve was originally appointed by George W. Bush and is credited by most observers as having headed off a potential Great Depression through creative monetary policy. And so what does the Republican Party want to do? Well, according to a draft of the party’s platform, they want another Gold Commission."

Read the Washington Post, The GOP has picked the wrong time to rediscover gold. 

Will Mormons Save America?

REPOST:

Will the election of  a Bishop of the Church of Latter Day Saints be the fulfillment of the White Horse Prophecy?

Also read The New York Times, Mormons’ First Families Rally Behind Romney, which notes that "descendants of Mormons who made the great trek to Utah in the 1840s, chased by Indians, cholera and United States troops, have turned out in strength to back" Obamney.

Surprise, Surprise (NOT), Prettyboy is a Flip-Flopper

First he was for the stimulus, before he was a against it. Read the Washington Post, Paul Ryan’s stimulus problem.

Then he was for Medicare savings, before he was against it.  Read the Washington Post, Paul Ryan: For Medicare cuts before he was against them?

Nice addition to the ticket for Obamney, the flip-flopper's flip-flopper.

Neo-Republi-CON McCarthyism

UPDATE:  "Yes, it takes a brave man to randomly accuse someone of something horrible, based on no evidence and then demand they refute the evidence that you don't have. So tonight, I am accusing [insert the name of your favorite demagogue] of being a baby-eating werewolf. There it is. It's out there now.

Do I have evidence? No. But someone has to stand up to him. Where do I find the courage?"

The Republi-con campaign veers "into frightening and familiar territory, a throwback to a part of life in the 1950s for which no one should harbor any nostalgia."  Read the Washington Post, Are Bachmann and Sununu attacks part of a new McCarthyism?

For those of you who forgot, McCarthy was a Republican party Senator who made "demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and/or patriotism of political opponents."

 Every town has a McCarthy.  Here in NW Florida, he's a pastor.

Republi-CON VP Speculation

UPDATE III:  Although he's a tea party darling, "it’s worth pointing out that Ryan’s home town of Janesville, Wis., where he still lives, is recovering economically in no small part because of money from the stimulus and other federal grants."  Read the Washington Post, Federal spending is helping drive recovery of Paul Ryan’s hometown.

Does this Republi-con hypocrisy surprise anyone.  

UPDATE II:  And the nominee is a perfect Republi-con, whose family owns a national road construction firm, the author of the Roadmap for America’s Future, "a comprehensive plan to reduce the welfare state and radically curtail the government’s role in protecting citizens from life’s misfortunes," but who, after his father died, collected and used Social Security survivor's benefits to pay for college, one of the very social programs he wants to eliminate.

Should be an interesting election.

UPDATE:  Of course, there is always Mr. Nice Guy.  Read the Washington Post, Tim Pawlenty waits to see if his campaigning will lead to vice presidential nod. 

Who will it be?

Someone who has 'no skeletons in the closet, can give a solid convention speech, shine in the vice presidential debate -- and otherwise stay discreetly in the background — while helping carry a key state in November?  (See the Los Angeles Times, Romney will pick Portman -- and here's why.)

Or should the pick make it a "Jersey vs. Chicago" election?  (See the Washington Post, The best VP for Romney.)

Or someone "to make this a big election over big issues"? (See the Washington Post, Why do conservatives want Paul Ryan to be vice president?)

As the Los Angeles Times article notes a "surprise VP pick would be out of character for the cautious, conventional Romney, but if he’s got one up his sleeve, he’s likely to reveal it very soon. The last thing his campaign wants is a media scramble over his running mate that overshadows the carefully scripted national convention at the end of the month.

A safe and boring pick, by contrast, might only be good for burst of publicity that would fade in a matter of days--which argues for waiting, perhaps until the week before the delegates gather in Tampa, Fla.

That’s why each day that passes without an announcement from Romney makes it more likely that Ohio’s junior senator will get the call."

Porn Stars for Obamney

Because ya gotta protect those assets.

Read ABC News, Retired porn star Jenna Jameson supports Mitt Romney. 

P.S. Don't expect to see this reported on HedgeHog News.

I Say Again, Call the Republi-CON Bluff

"In today’s Wall Street Journal, the Columbia economist Glenn Hubbard, who is one of Mitt Romney’s top economic advisers, has an op-ed piece entitled 'The Romney Plan for Economic Recovery.' . . .

[But] there is no easy way to square the circle. Far from putting forward a 'recovery plan,' Romney remains tied to a grab bag of proposals that won’t do anything to promote spending and job creation if they are fully enacted, and which could well tip the economy into another outright slump. Is it any wonder that he is failing to capitalize on lacklustre growth and eight-per-cent unemployment?"

Read The New Yorker, Romney’s 'Recovery Plan' Could Bring On Another Recession.

I said it before, I'll say it again, call the Republi-con bluff.

Punography

From an email:

I changed my iPod name to Titanic. It's syncing now.

Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.

This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity . I can't put it down.

I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

They told me I had type A blood, but it was a Type- O.

Class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there's no pop quiz.

Energizer battery arrested. Charged with battery.

I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

How do you make holy water? Boil the hell out of it!

Did you hear about the cross eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

Broken pencils are pointless.

I tried to catch some fog. I mist.

What do you call a dinosaur with a extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool .

I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

All the toilets in New York's police stations have been stolen. Police have nothing to go on.

I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

Velcro - what a rip off!

Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.

Venison for dinner? Oh deer!

Earthquake in Washington obviously government's fault.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Be kind to your dentist. He has fillings, too.

The Obamney Tax Plan Doesn't Add Up

The "Tax Policy Center report assessing Mitt Romney's tax plans was a big, big deal. So big a deal, in fact, that [one writer interupted his summer] vacation to draw out a couple of its key points."

For example, point # 2:  "The reason Romney’s plan doesn’t work is very simple. The size of the tax cut he’s proposing for the rich is larger than all of the tax expenditures that go to the rich put together. As such, it is mathematically impossible for him to keep his promise to make sure the top one percent keeps paying the same or more."  

Read the Washington Post, Nine takeaways on Romney’s tax plan, which also notes that the "fact that they couldn’t make Romney’s numbers work even when they stacked all these scenarios on top of one another shows just how impossible Romney’s promises are."

Me, oh my, Republi-con lies, I am utterly shocked (NOT).  

Obamney's Economic Plan: Currency Devaluation and Inflation

How does Obamney plan to stimulate the economy? Currency devaluation and inflation.

Read the Washington Post, Does Romney want to be a debaser? and the Los Angeles Times, The idea that inflation might be our friend is gaining traction.

This after years of sacrificing workers to appease their imaginary inflation god.

BTW, I've suggested a little inflation for years.  

The Obamneys, The First Family of Amercia Dressage, ‘It’s Basically NASCAR In A Velvet Top Hat’

UPDATE:  "John Kerry was made to look effete in 2004 by Republican mockery of his windsurfing, his Turnbull & Asser shirts and his French fluency. Now Democrats have a chance to do something similar to Romney, with his Swiss bank account, his Grand Cayman and Bermuda tax havens, his multiple homes, his $10,000 bet, his friends who own NASCAR teams, and now the six-figure horses his wife imports from Europe. Nothing says 'man of the people' quite like horse ballet."

Read the Washington Post, The politics of horse ballet.

Speaking of horses and Obamney, there is the White horse Prophecy.

The Romneys' horse Rafalca makes the Olympic team.

You must agree that "there is no better way to dispel the myth that Romney is detached patrician elite than competitive horse prancing."

Watch the Colbert Report, Mitt Romney's Champion Horse & Dressage Tribute:

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SUA, SUA!

More on the Birthers Racists Fantasies

Birthers are part of a "sick political culture where 'facts are so easily twisted for political purposes and where strange armies of ideological pseudo-historians roam the biographical fields in search of stray ammunition.' . . . they disregard facts and common sense and undermine the role of serious history as they concoct conspiracy theories that portray the president as dangerous, alien and less than American.

What drives them? . . . [F]ears of demographic changes in this country, and out of racism."

Read the Washington Post, What drives the Obama doubters and haters?

Republi-CON "Property Rights" Hypocrisy

Republi-cons have "made unsuccessful efforts to force a permit for the [Keystone XL] project, including adding language in the Houseversion of a highway spending bill" claiming that the pipeline "would create thousands of jobs and increase U.S. energy security."

But what they failed to mention is that building the pipeline would require "taking of private property for public use — all along its proposed route" and not all of the landowners want to sell.

Read the Washington Post, Keystone XL pipeline is issue of property rights for some ranchers. 

Obamney Praises Governmwent Takeover of Health Care System

In Israel, which "regulates its health care system aggressively, requiring all residents to carry insurance and capping revenue for various parts of the country’s health care system.

Israel created a national health care system in 1995, largely funded through payroll and general tax revenue. The government provides all citizens with health insurance: They get to pick from one of four competing, nonprofit plans. Those insurance plans have to accept all customers—including people with pre-existing conditions—and provide residents with a broad set of government-mandated benefits."

Read the Washington Post, Romney praises health care in Israel, where ‘strong government influence’ has driven down costs. 

Republi-CONs Wrong Again

Whatever happened to those Republi-con Bond Vigilantes'

A "funny thing happened on the way to the predicted fiscal crisis: instead of soaring, U.S. borrowing costs have fallen to their lowest level in the nation’s history. . .

The experience of the past few years — above all, the spectacular failure of austerity policies in Europe — has been a dramatic demonstration of Keynes’s basic point: slashing spending in a depressed economy depresses that economy further.

So it’s time to stop paying attention to the alleged wise men who hijacked our policy discussion and made the deficit the center of conversation. They’ve been wrong about everything — and these days even the financial markets are telling us that we should be focused on jobs and growth."

Read The New York Times, Money for Nothing.

The Republi-CON 'Tax Hike Prevention Act' Tax Hike

The Act states that "There is no extension of the payroll tax cut in the amendment.  In addition, the increased spending through the tax code from the partisan 2009 stimulus law (ARRA) is not included in the amendment."

As you might have guessed, these tax cuts were passed during the Obama administration to benefit the poor and working class.  As the Republi-cons tried to explain, if "Obama passed it into a law, it’s not a tax cut."

Read the Washington Post, Republicans want to raise taxes on the poor. Why?

Expect a campaign ad on this topic soon.

Republi-CON "I Don't Need No Government Help" Hypocrisy

"The star of a recent Romney ad, who criticized President Obama for saying that businesses aren’t built alone, got some government help for his business in the 1980s. Jack Gilchrist’s Gilchrist Metal got $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds from New Hampshire Business Finance Authority, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports. The company has also got some government contracts more recently.  'As far as I’m concerned, I’m getting some of my tax money back,' Gilchrist told ABC News."  Read the Washington Post, The Fix, What You Might Have Missed.

Run or Walk, What is the Best Strategy If You Are Caught in the Rain Without An Umbrella?

As with most of life's problems, it depends. 

In this case, how big are you, and which way is the wind blowing?  Read the Washington Post, Physicists tackle a crucial issue: How to stay dry in the rain.

Another Republi-CON Flip-Flop

"[M]any [Republi-con] notables, such as Mitch Daniels, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush and, of course," Obamney, were for state welfare waivers before they were against them.  Read the Washington Post, The Obama administration fires back on welfare, which notes that "this is hardly the first time a previously widely held Republican policy position has become anathema almost overnight, but it’s a stark change nonetheless."

What to Expect If It Is Obama v. Romney

UPDATE II:  It's déjà vu all over again.

Read the Washington Post, Is the 2012 election the 2004 election all over again?

UPDATE: "He was for it before he was against it, and against it before he claimed credit for it." Read The New York Times, Romney and the Bailout.

Ronmey, the flip-flopper's flip-flopper.

Funny isn't it, what goes around comes around.

"He’ll have hundreds of millions of dollars, the bully pulpit, Air Force One and high-profile supporters from Warren Buffet to Lady Gaga behind him. But President Obama’s chances of re-election could come down to a single strategic question: To what degree can the history of 2004 be repeated in 2012? . . .

The Obama team, he said, 'wants to make Mitt Romney into the Republican version of John Kerry.'"

Read The New York Times, Can Obama 2012 Replicate Bush 2004?

That's why the base hopes it is anyone but Romney.

The Bane of Obamney's Existence

UPDATE:  Limpy thinks "there might be a sinister connection between Bane, the villain in the new Batman movie, and Bain, the villain in the new Obama campaign narrative."  Read the Washington Post, Bane/Bain of Romney and Rush Limbaugh’s existence.

"Holy atomic pile," the only problem, as the article notes, is that "Bane was created in 1993.

'So? If Mitt Romney can retroactively retire, what’s to prevent Barack Obama from going back in time to alter history too?'"

"You've tripped on one of your tricks this time," Limpy!

He was there, before he wasn't there.

But, "he wasn’t even there when they did those bad things that he was in no way associated with but it was fine if he was. . .

Who knows what’s true? It’s a simple case of 'He said, He filed SEC documents that contradict what he said' . . .

[Obamney didn't commit a felony.] Lying to the SEC is not a felony, it’s an entire industry. . .

[As his campaign explained, in 2002 Obamney 'retired retroactively to February of 1999.']  So he was not responsible for firing all those people whose jobs were outsourced. He was responsible for retroactively not hiring them. . .

If Obama wins the race in November, Mitt can just say he retroactively retired from the race in 2009."

Watch The Colbert Report, Mitt Romney's Retroactive Retirement from Bain Capital:

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I guess that Etch-a-Sketch reset ain't working as hoped.

P.S.

I told ya to expect this if Obamney won the nomination.  

Obama's just starting to use "McCain's entire, 200-page opposition research file — or 'book' — on Mitt Romney from 2008, the year they were bitter rivals."

Republi-CONs "Vote to Repeal Medicare Cuts They Voted For and Are Campaigning Against"

"That headline is not an exaggeration or a parody."  Read the Washington Post, Republicans vote to repeal Medicare cuts they voted for and are campaigning against, which notes that "it really takes an astonishing amount of chutzpah to run against a spending cut in dozens of races across the country, to come to Congress and vote for that cut anyway, and then to continue to rail against it as though you still think it’s the worst thing Congress has ever inflicted on the American people. Even if they hadn’t voted for these exact cuts, it’s really impossible to square general GOP rhetoric about cutting spending, specifically on entitlements, with their insistence that every dollar that Obamacare cuts either through the Medicare Advantage cuts or from the Independent Payment Advisory Board is the end of the world for seniors."

The Republi-CON "Socialism Destroys Growth" Myth

What is the relationship between social programs and growth?  None.

Read The Atlantic, The Myth That Entitlements Destroy a Nation's Growth, Busted in 1 Chart.

How American Are You?

"To become a US citizen, immigrants must past a test that includes questions on government, history, and geography.

But what really makes someone "American?" Many would argue it is our common culture. Do you eat hot dogs on Independence Day? What do you really know about the Simpsons? . .

Just how American are you? Take [The Christian Science Monitor] alternative citizenship quiz and find out!"

Will It Be a Neo-Republi-CON Party-Line Vote?

UPDATE XI:  After the case that "could never be cited as precedent," did Chief Justice Roberts decide for the sake of the Court's public legitimacy and historic legacy, not to play politics with the decision?  Read the Washington Post, John Roberts, umpire and The New York Times, John Roberts’s Political Decision. 

UPDATE X:  Did the Supreme Court split the difference, by rejecting the Commerce Clause reasoning, but find the mandate is a tax?  This possibility was suggested before the ruling was announced.  Read the Washington Post, Four ways the Supreme Court could split the difference on health care.

UPDATE IX:  If the Supreme Court does overturn the health care law in the face of decades of precedent,would it be yet another case showing the "today's Supreme Court is moving toward the confederationist framework of protecting corporate interests. From its decision authorizing corporations to spend unlimited political money in the Citizens United case to its assaults on equal pay for women and job security for older workers, the Court's five conservatives have left no doubt about their willingness to obviate the commerce and general-welfare clauses of the Constitution to protect powerful corporate interests"  Read The Atlantic, The Real Affordable Care Act Battle: Constitutionalists vs. Confederates, which notes:

"[T]hat, throughout the last century, when the corporatist strand has conflicted with the state's-rights position -- from Lochner (in which the Court infamously overturned New York's public health regulations in 1905) to the current Court's reversal just this week of Montana's anti-corruption campaign-finance law -- the corporatist side has won.

Respected conservative constitutionalists have all but begged the Supreme Court to stay loyal to the document. Judge Laurence Silberman, a Reagan appointee who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, warned that the case against the Affordable Care Act has no basis "in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent." Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a runner-up for the Supreme Court nomination that eventually went to Chief Justice John Roberts, warned that striking down health reform "is a prescription for economic chaos that the framers, in a simpler time, had the good sense to head off."

During his confirmation hearing, Chief Justice Roberts claimed the mantle of these conservative constitutionalists, as an umpire calling balls and strikes. But if he and the other four conservative justices overturn the Affordable Care Act, they will effectively be taking the umpire off the field. In historical context, this amounts not to a reinterpretation of the Constitution but rather its rejection. If the law is upheld, the real victory is not for President Obama but for that most durable of governing documents, the U.S. Constitution."

UPDATE VIII: If the Supreme Court does overturn the health care law in the face of decades of precedent, will it be because:

"The post-New Deal consensus about the scope of federal power has broken down amid national, and global, concern over the welfare state’s cost and intrusiveness — a sea change of which the tea party is but one manifestation" or 

The 2000 presidential election was 'decided by five people, who don’t even try to explain their choice in normal legal terms. Then the beneficiary of that decision appoint[ed] the next two members of the court, who present[ed] themselves for consideration as restrained, humble figures who care only about law rather than ideology. Once on the bench, for life, those two actively second-guess[ed] and re-d[id] existing law, to advance the interests of the party that appointed them. Meanwhile their party’s representatives in the Senate abuse[d] procedural rules to an extent never previously seen to block legislation — and appointments, especially to the courts. And, when a major piece of legislation g[ot] through, the party’s majority on the Supreme Court prepare[d] to negate it — even though the details of the plan were originally Republican proposals and even though the party’s presidential nominee endorsed these concepts only a few years ago.' 

Read the Washington Post, Redefining American government through Obamacare and The Atlantic, SCOTUS Update: La Loi, C'est Moi.

UPDATE VII:  Republi-con only hate Obamacare because he passed it.  Read the Washington Post, Poll: Republicans hate ‘Obamacare,’ but like most of what it does.

UPDATE VI:  If it does overturn the health care law in the face of decades of Supreme Court precedent, then how to explain the change.  By creating a 'permission structure.'   Read the Washington Post, How Republicans made it possible for the Supreme Court to rule against the mandate.

 

UPDATE V:  "Bloomberg surveyed 21 top constitutional scholars and found that, while 19 think the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act ought to be upheld on the basis of legal precedent, just eight think the Supreme Court will actually do so ."  Read the Washington Post, Poll: Legal scholars think the mandate is valid, will fall anyway.

UPDATE IV:  Citing The New Yorker article below, a writer asks what is going on in Washington.  He concludes, " — based both on [his] experience as a reporter in Washington and on an increasingly voluminous psychological literature about how partisans form opinions — is that human beings are very good at convincing themselves of whatever their self-interest would have them believe, and that Washington has become an increasingly sophisticated machine for encouraging and accelerating this sort of 'motivated reasoning.' That is to say, strategic incentives do drive shifts in opinion, but the new opinions are sincerely held.

This distinction is, I think, crucial to make, because there’s a real difference between bargaining with a political party that has fixed policies it would like to achieve but shifting strategic incentives and a party that has shifting policy and strategic incentives. In the former case, the fixed policy preferences give you something to hold onto, something you can use to fight against the shifting strategic incentives. In the latter case, there’s nothing to hold onto, and in a political system where elections are zero-sum and so compromise is rarely in the minority party’s strategic interest, it’s very difficult to see how many major compromises can be reached. This model, I think, does a much better job explaining the previous few years."

Read the Washington Post, The individual mandate: What happened?

And what is the Republi-con's interest, as noted in February 2009, Republi-cons hope Obama will fail.

UPDATE III:  Another Republi-con flip-flop, "the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act -- better known as the DREAM Act ."  Read the Washington Post, DREAMing of bipartisanship. 

UPDATE II:  Of course, the flip-flop is a tried-and-true Republi-con tactic,  Read the Washington Post,  A GOP bait-and-switch on disclosure. 

UPDATE:  So why did the Republi-cons propose a mandate?  Because "[i]t became pretty clear that, if you want a market to work, you need a mandate."  Read the Washington Post, Health reform without a mandate: Lessons from Washington state.

I say neo, the ancient Greek prefix meaning new or young, because Republi-cons were for the individual mandate for two decades, before they were against it.  To understand why they changed their minds, read The New Yorker, Unpopular Mandate.

Republi-CON Fear, Anger and Hatred At Work Before the Election

"It was a blood-boiler of a story, a menacing tale of government gone too far: The Environmental Protection Agency was spying on Midwestern farmers with the same aerial 'drones' used to kill terrorists overseas.

This month, the idea has been repeated in TV segments, on multiple blogs and by at least four congressmen. The only trouble is, it isn’t true."

Read the Washington Post, Reining in the rumor about EPA 'drones'.

Is God a Bacteria?

I ask because Genesis 1:27 (KJV) states that "God created man in his own image."  Read The New York Times, In Good Health? Thank Your 100 Trillion Bacteria. 

Who Cares About the Economy, the 'Single Most Important thing is for President Obama to be a One-Term President'

For years now the Republi-cons have been sacrificing workers to appease their imaginary inflation god.  They want to crucify the middle class 'upon a cross of gold'. It's all part of the Republi-cons war on the middle class. 

So, of course, the Republi-cons have been trying to tank the economy, because good news for the economy is bad news for their election hopes.

Now others have started to notice that the Republi-cons have "blocked pro-growth policy and backed job-killing austerity – all while blaming Obama."  Read The Guardian, Did Republicans deliberately crash the US economy?

Republi-CON Solyndra Half Truths

UPDATE IV:  Ricj Perry and Ron Paul weren't the only Republi-cons that were for government subsidies of clean energy, before they were against them.  Read the Washington Post, Romney’s conflicting remarks on Solyndra-like investments.

UPDATE III: "House Democrats on Wednesday called for Congress to expand its investigation into federal loan programs to include a Bush-era loan to the bankrupt broadband Internet firm Open Range.

Open Range went bankrupt earlier this month after receiving the federal government’s biggest broadband loan totaling $267 million. Its collapse has put in jeopardy $74 million in money doled out to the firm."

Read the Washington Post, Democrats call for investigation into bankrupt Open Range federal loans.

Another example of what goes around comes around.


UPDATE II: More Republi-con hypocrisy, shocking, NOT.

Two Republican presidential candidates who have spoken out against federal subsidies for energy projects tried to obtain such benefits three years ago. Read the Washington Post, Rick Perry, Ron Paul have mixed record on energy subsidies.


UPDATE: "Today, the Republican-led Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating Solyndra, forcing its executives to take the Fifth Amendment, and releasing embarrassing White House e-mails. I looked it up: every single Republican on that committee who was in office in 2005 voted for the loan guarantee program that they are now so gleefully condemning." Read The New York Times, Hooray for Federal Loans!

Did you know "that Solyndra was cleared to participate in this loan-guarantee program by President George W. Bush’s administration [and] that the legislation creating the loan-guarantee program, approved by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2005, received yes votes from — wait for it — DeMint, Hatch and McConnell. . .

Bush’s Energy Department apparently adjusted its regulations to make sure that Solyndra would be eligible for the guarantees. It hadn’t originally contemplated including the photovoltaic-panel manufacturing that Solyndra did but changed the regulation before it was finalized. The only project that benefited was Solyndra’s."

Read the Washington Post, The birthing of Solyndra, which notes that the Obama "administration gave the company the loan guarantee, deserves the black eye that Republicans have given him over the half a billion dollars squandered on the company. But the Republican paternity of the program that birthed Solyndra suggests some skepticism is in order when many of those same Republicans use Solyndra as an example of all that is wrong with Obama’s governance."

Local Republi-CON Voted Twice for FL Septic Tank Inspections Before He Voted Against Them

"A campaign ad for Sen. Don Gaetz touches on jobs, education and septic tanks.

Florida’s next Senate president is telling voters in a new campaign ad that he fought to overturn a "fast one" pulled by Tallahassee lawmakers.

"When Tallahassee pulled a fast one on septic tanks, Gaetz fought back," a TV advertisement says.

That’s partially true.

But Sen. Don Gaetz, a loquacious Republican from the Panhandle, is leaving something out when he discusses a never-enforced and now largely repealed measure requiring septic tank inspections every five years.

He voted for the inspections. Twice."

Read In TV ad, PolitiFact Florida, Don Gaetz distorts debate over septic tank inspections.

All That Talk About the Federal Deficit and Debt Is Just a Republi-CON CON Game

UPDATE V:  Congresses action regarding the looming taxmageddon will be prof that all that hysteria about the federal defisit and debt is just a Republi-con con game. 

"Taxmageddon is the popular nickname given to a series of policies set to lapse or take effect in January, immediately slicing more than $500 billion out of next year’s federal budget deficit. While it includes about $100 billion in spending cuts, most of the changes involve higher taxes for every American taxpayer, primarily from the expiration of President Obama’s payroll tax holiday and broad tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush."

Read the Washington Post, CBO: Taxmageddon would bring tax pain but debt relief and The budget outlook in one graphic, with this graph:

 

The article notes:

"Remember: The 'extended baseline scenario' means we let the Bush tax cuts expire, the spending sequester take effect, etc. The 'alternative' scenario means we extend everything.

In the 'extended baseline scenario,' which is the one currently written into law, we don’t have a debt problem, but we have much higher taxes and, in the short-term, a likely recession. In the 'alternative' scenario, we’ve got a huge debt problem, but lower taxes and less short-term austerity. "

UPDATE IV:  Even Obamney recently admitted that balancing the federal budget would throw the U.S. "into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course."  Read the Washington Post, Mitt Romney, Keynesian, which references this comment by Jon Chait: "'Romney says this as if it’s completely obvious that reducing the deficit in the short term would throw the economy back into recession, even though he and his party have been arguing the opposite case with hysterical fervor.'"

Even Republi-cons don't believe their own lies about the myth of expansionary austerity. 

UPDATE III: More proof that the Republi-cons are all talk when it comes to the deficit, they're all hiding from Paul Ryan's latest budget plan.

Read the Washington Post, Paul Ryan’s budget is bad politics. Just ask Republicans.


UPDATE II: Republi-cons have never been concerned with merits of thier proposals, only the 'political possibilities.' As a result, "the budget deficit rose to 6 percent of gross domestic product in 1983 from 2.7 percent in 1980" under Reagan. Since he won re-election in 1984, Republi-cons have never been concerned about deficits, "only tax cuts mattered for political success." Read The New York Times, The Origin of Modern Republican Fiscal Policy.


UPDATE: "[A]s Republicans yell about Obama’s deficits and cry that we’re turning into Greece, Greece I tell you, all of them, all of them, propose making the deficit bigger.

And for what? For reverse Robin-Hoodism, taking from the poor and the middle class to lavish huge tax cuts on the rich.

And I believe that all of them know this, too. It’s pure hypocrisy – and it’s all in the service of class warfare waged on behalf of the top 0.1 or 0.01 percent of the income distribution."

Read The New York Times, Four Fiscal Phonies, which includes this graph showing "debt as a percentage of GDP in 2021 (using the OMB numbers (pdf) for Obama and CRFB for the others):"

"The national debt is likely to balloon under tax policies championed by three of the four major Republican candidates for president, according to an independent analysis of tax and spending proposals so far offered by the candidates.

The lone exception is Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who would pair a big reduction in tax rates with even bigger cuts in government services, slicing about $2 trillion from future borrowing.

According to the report — set for release Thursday by U.S. Budget Watch, a project of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and former House speaker Newt Gingrich would do the most damage to the nation’s finances, offering tax and spending policies likely to require trillions of dollars in fresh borrowing.

Both men have proposed to sharply cut taxes but have not identified spending cuts sufficient to make up for the lost cash, the report said. By 2021, the debt would rise by about $4.5 trillion under Santorum’s policies and by about $7 trillion under those advocated by Gingrich, pushing the portion of the debt held by outside investors to well over 100 percent of the nation’s economy."

Read the Washington Post, Debt will swell under top GOP hopefuls’ tax plans.

As I've said for years now, the Republi-CONs conned the tea party, there will be no balanced budget, there won't even be a $100 billion budget cut as promised in 2010. So let's admit the obvious, the Republi-CONs are not serious about deficits.

The Republi-CON Continue to Try to Tank the Economy

UPDATE II:  "The aversion to government spending, and government activity generally, which animates many Americans isn’t actually based on economics, or logic: it is an emotionally driven belief system, founded upon a cockeyed view of American history and buttressed by a variety of right-wing shibboleths.

In the real world that rarely intrudes upon conservative economists and voters, both parties (and all Presidents) are Keynesians. Whenever the economy falters and private-sector spending declines, they use the tax-and-spending system to inject more demand into the economy. In 1981, Ronald Reagan did precisely this, slashing taxes and increasing defense spending. Between 2001 and 2003, George W. Bush followed the same script, introducing three sets of tax cuts and starting two wars. In February, 2009, Barack Obama introduced his stimulus. The real policy debate isn’t about Keynesianism versus the free market, it is about magnitudes and techniques: How much stimulus is necessary? And how should it be divided between government spending and tax cuts?

On both questions, Obama took the middle ground. His $800 billion stimulus program was smaller than many Keynesians, such as Christine Romer and Paul Krugman, wanted. (Romer reportedly pushed first for a $1.8 trillion package, then for $1.2 trillion.) Concentrated over a three-year period, it amounted to 1.1 per cent of G.D.P. in 2009, 2.4 per cent of G.D.P. in 2010, and 1.2 per cent of G.D.P. in 2011. So far, some $750 billion in stimulus money has been paid out: about $300 billion went to tax breaks for individuals and firms; roughly $235 billion was dispersed in the form of government contracts, grants, and loans; and another $225 billion was spent on entitlements—unemployment benefits, Medicaid, food stamps, and so on.

And what impact did the stimulus have? Without rehashing the entire debate—we’ve got another five months for that—here are three things to keep in mind.

1. It gave a much-needed boost to spending and growth. . .

2. The rise in federal spending under Obama was pretty modest. . .

3. Paul Krugman is right. To some extent, we already have a Republican economy. With the flow of stimulus money having all but dried up, and with continuing budget cutbacks at the state and local levels, government spending on many goods and services—the government spending that directly impacts G.D.P.—is falling.

You don’t believe it? Take a look at Table 1 in the Commerce Department’s latest report on G.D.P., and focus upon the section labelled “Government consumption expenditures and gross investment.” In 2011, you will notice, these expenditures declined at an annual rate of 2.1 per cent. In the first three months of this year, the rate of decline accelerated—to 3.9 per cent. The cutbacks have extended to all the major areas of government. Federal non-defense spending fell at an annual rate of 0.8 per cent in the first quarter; federal defense spending declined at an annual rate of 8.3 per cent, a shocking figure; state and local spending fell at a rate of 2.5 per cent.

It is a central tenet of Keynesian economics that when the government sector cuts back its expenditures in an economy with slack resources, worried households, and cautious business enterprises, output and growth will stall. That, of course, is precisely what has happened. In a saner world, we would be talking about what should be done right now, rather than after November, to rectify the situation."

Read The New Yorker, Reagan, Bush, and Obama: We Are All Still Keynesians.  

Read also, The Myth of Expansionary Austerity.  

UPDATE:  "[T]he best argument against Republicans’ claims that they can fix the economy. The fact is that we have already seen the Republican economic future — and it doesn’t work."  Read The New York Times, This Republican Economy.  

Republi-cons well know that any good news for the economy is bad news for their election hopes.

Their attacks on the Federal Reserve are "an effort to bully the Fed into doing exactly the wrong thing. The attackers want the Fed to slam on the brakes when it should be stepping on the gas; they want the Fed to choke off recovery when it should be doing much more to accelerate recovery. Fundamentally, the right wants the Fed to obsess over inflation, when the truth is that we’d be better off if the Fed paid less attention to inflation and more attention to unemployment. Indeed, a bit more inflation would be a good thing, not a bad thing."

Read The New York Times, Not Enough Inflation.

Since Obama was elected, Republi-cons have shown their willingness to sacrifice workers to appease their imaginary inflation god.

But there is not need to fear 'the invisible Republi-CON bond vigilantes'.

SoS Donald Trump and the Gullible Obanmey

If Obanmey is elected president, Donald Trump expects to be Secretary of State.  Read the Washington Post, Romney plays his Trump card, which goes on to note, and I quote at length:

"Romney thinks that Trump actually has the Romney campaign’s best interests in mind? Really? If so, one has to wonder whether Romney is too gullible to be president.

The idea that Trump cares about anything bigger than Trump is absurd. In his mind, from all evidence, there is nothing bigger than Trump.

If Trump really wanted Romney to win, he wouldn’t have done an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that deserves a prominent place in the annals of lunacy. Trump begins by slamming a taped introduction as 'totally inappropriate' and 'actually very dishonest' because it focused on the birther nonsense. He goes on to tell Blitzer that Obama 'uses reverse psychology' and pretends nonchalance about discussions of his origins when actually 'it’s not an issue that he likes talking about.'

I should interject that, back here on Planet Earth, the Obama campaign did all it could this week to focus attention on Trump and birtherism. The mood of top advisers seemed to approach unrestrained glee.

Poor Blitzer notes that Hawaii has formally certified Obama’s birth certificate. Trump contends that 'many people' do not believe the document is authentic.

'Like who?' Blitzer asks.

'There are many people,' says Trump.

'Give me a name of somebody,' demands Blitzer.

'There are many people,' says Trump. 'I don’t give names.'

Indeed, Trump refuses to violate the Super-Secret Birther Code of Silence by naming a single person who doubts the facts of Obama’s birth. He does pin himself down, however, when Blitzer asks whether 'the conspiracy' is supposed to have begun in 1961, when announcements of Obama’s birth were published in two Honolulu newspapers.

'That’s right,' Trump says.  'And many people put those announcements in because they wanted to get the benefit of being so-called born in this country. Many people did it. It was something that was done by many people, even if they weren’t born in the country. You know it, and so do I, and so do a lot of your viewers.'

This is transparently crazy — and also stupid. It is a bald-faced lie that 'many people' — or any people, far as I can tell — ever published fake birth announcements in hopes of establishing citizenship.

Moreover, Obama has to be a U.S. citizen, even if he were born on the moon, because of his mother’s citizenship. Trump needs to hire some writers to come up with better material.

As for Romney, he needs to decide whether Trump is the sort of person on whom he wants to rely for support and advice — if he’s one of the 'good people' Romney would be proud to have at his side if he becomes president.

Oh, sorry. Looks as if that choice has already been made."

SUA, SUA! Are You a Ronmey Amercian?

"Mitt Romney’s digital team debuted 'With Mitt,' an app that lets supporters share their support for the Republican presidential hopeful, on Tuesday. At first, the app received little fanfare.

By Tuesday night, however, the app’s users had drawn attention to one glaring mistake: one of the 14 text overlays available within the app stated that Romney is for 'A Better Amercia.' Yes, you read that right: 'Amercia.'"

Read Mashable, Amercia the Meme: Why Romney’s Gaffe Won’t Die


You too can join Amercia is with Mitt!

And of course, as Colbert noted, the "innovative iPhone app doubles his presidential odds" and "There's definitely no proof Obama was born in 'Amercia'.  Watch the Colbert Report, starting at the 3:36 mark:

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The Republi-CON Modus Operandi: Barefaced Lies

UPDATE III:  The Republi-con Party, aka The Just Make Stuff Up Party. 

Read the Washington Post, Romney’s unsubstantiated quote from union leader. 

UPDATE II:  The Chevrolet Volt, the European Car of the Year, is another subject of repeated Republi-con lies.

First, "the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had given the Volt its highest crash-safety rating. . ."

[Next, w]hat is the connection between President Obama and the Volt? There is none. The car was the brainchild of Bob Lutz, a legendary auto executive who is about as liberal as the Koch brothers. The tax credit — which is part of the reason conservatives hate the car — became law during the Bush administration.

'It's nuts,” said Lutz, when I spoke to him earlier in the week. 'This is a significant achievement in the auto industry. There are so many legitimate things to criticize Obama about. It is inexplicable that the right would feel the need to tell lies about the Volt to attack the president.'

In his regular blog at Forbes, Lutz has tried to counter what he has called the 'rabid, sadly misinformed right.' But he has largely given up. The last straw came when his conservative intellectual hero, Charles Krauthammer, described the Volt as 'flammable.' Krauthammer, Lutz felt, had to know better. Although he remains deeply conservative, Lutz told me that he has become disenchanted with the right’s willingness to spread lies to aid the cause. . .

Not to worry, though. With seven months to go before the election, Cavuto and his Fox News brethren will have plenty of opportunities to denigrate an innovative car, employing American technology and creating American jobs, in order to besmirch a president who had nothing to do with it.

It is, after all, what they do."

Read The New York Times, The Right Flames the Volt.



UPDATE:  "Mitt Romney is developing a Mirlande Wilson problem.

Wilson, for those not acquainted with the name, is the Maryland woman who claimed to have a winning lottery ticket worth $218 million. She had agreed to buy lottery tickets with money pooled from her co-workers at McDonald's, but then she claimed that the winning ticket was one she bought separately. As the New York Daily News has documented, she has since claimed she's not sure she won, she hasn't checked the ticket, the ticket is at her home, the ticket is hidden at McDonald's, the ticket is secreted away somewhere else, and now she can't find it.

On Wednesday, she called a news conference, only for her lawyer to tell reporters to 'go home.'

This was developing, by chance, on the same day I watched Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, give a speech in Washington. Like Wilson and her golden ticket, Romney was having some trouble getting out the facts. . .

No fewer than three Romney claims in that one speech merited PolitiFact's 'Pants on Fire' rating: that Obama led 'a government takeover of health care,' has been 'apologizing for America abroad' and is ending 'Medicare as we know it.' Romney's assertions that Obama 'is the only president to ever cut $500 billion from Medicare' and that eliminating Obamacare saves 'about $100 billion' were rated false.

That Romney resorts to such gratuitous falsehoods discredits his leadership more than his opponent's."

Read the Washington Post, The facts vs. Mitt Romney.

 
A barefaced lie "is one that is obviously a lie to those hearing it."

Watch Santorum "pull one out of his [bare] ass," at the Colbert Report, Rick Santorum Speaks from His Heart - California Colleges:

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All part of the Republi-CON "not intended to be a factual statement" and "misinformation" propaganda industry