Comedy Tonight: The only problem with laughing at the GOP candidates is that one of them is very likely our next president

[Click on either cartoon to enlarge.]

by Ken

THIS JUST IN, ON THE "TEABAGGERS'
DELIGHT" PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

From Andy Borowitz's report, "Obama: 'Best Debate Ever'" ("‘First Good News I’ve Had Since I Nailed bin Laden,’ President Says"):

Gov. Perry of Texas made the biggest impression by questioning the existence of Social Security, climate change, earth, wind and fire.



Also notable were his pro-execution comments, which tonight won him the coveted endorsement of the National Association of Electric Chair Manufacturers.

"We don't have high unemployment in Texas," he noted with pride, "because if you don't have a job, we kill you."



And in perhaps the most revealing moment of the debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) explained why she does not believe in evolution: “It’s really let me down.”

As the presidential-reelect juggernaut juggers on with its ingenious strategy of effectively double-dog-daring anyone to vote for their guy, the Republicans pursue a parallel strategy of assembling a field of candidates for whom no one could conceivably vote unless beset by severe mental defects.

So now we're reduced to projecting ahead to imagine when there might be any chance at all of reversing the death spiral now apparently irrevocably set in motion. Already 2016 seems a wipe-out, with not a lot more hope for in 2020 or 2024. Um, 2028, anyone?


POSTSCRIPT: CAN RICK PERRY REALLY GET AWAY WITH
LYING EVERY TIME HE OPENS HIS MOUTH? (MAYBE SO)

I just noticed a tweet that Howie posted on the site, reporting the appalling doodyhead Perry's debate claim that more and more scientists are questioning climate change. This is so flagrantly untrue that you have to wonder why the ground doesn't tremble under him and swallow up his loathsome carcass. But then, every word out of his mouth is a lie -- or at least a flagrant untruth (allowing for the scarifying possibility that he himself believes some of his blundering bullshit).

But then, as I've been noting since the 2008 presidential campaign, the right wing has somehow won itself unmitigated license to lie at will. Of course as I've also pointed out frequently, it all comes back to the American public's seemingly unlimited demand for lies. People are insisting that they be lied to about matters from climate change to, well, every damn thing in the universe.

#

Is Rick Perry A Crook? Well, Absolutely-- But Will Voters Even Care... IF They Find Out?

Tuesday we wondered aloud if Rick Perry is too stupid to win the presidency. Many people confuse "cunning" for intelligence. Perry may be lacking in education and even in intellectual capacity but he's an astute, instinctive and very cunning politician. He also seems to have figured out how to become a millionaire on a civil servant's modest salary... and stay out of prison while doing so. Right-wing polemicist David Frum explains how he did it:

Discharged from the Air Force in 1977 aged 27, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives seven years later, in 1984. At that time, the Perry family reported income of $45,000, largely from Mrs. Perry’s work as a nurse.



Rick Perry served in the legislature until elected Agriculture Commissioner in 1990. He climbed the ladder to Lt. Governor in 1998, then ascended in the governorship after George W. Bush was elected president in 2000.



Now it’s 2011, and Perry reports a net worth of $2.8 million. How’d he do it?



The Fort Worth Star-Telegram tells the story.



Perry made his money in real estate through deals like this:



Back in 1993, there was a piece of ground that computer billionaire Michael Dell needed to connect his new house near Austin to city water mains. Dell neglected to appreciate the land’s importance. But Perry did discern it. He bought the land for less than $120,000-- then sold it to Dell two years later for a $343,000 profit. Uncanny. True, some detractors have wondered whether the sale was entirely on the level:



Texas Democrats have repeatedly questioned the sale over the years, in part because Mike Toomey-- an influential lobbyist who would later become Perry’s chief of staff-- closed the deal for Perry while Perry was out of town. Perry has always maintained he didn’t know that the land would be so valuable to Dell when he purchased the property.



Perry repeated similarly shrewd investments again and again in the years ahead.



Look at this transaction from the 2000s. A Texas real estate developer sells land to a Texas state senator-- the senator who happened to represent the development’s district. The state senator sold the land to Gov. Perry. Gov. Perry then sold then land-- back to the real estate developer’s business partner. Perry scored a profit of $823,000. Tidy. And how remarkable that Perry and his state senator friend could see a value proposition that the two professional real estate developers overlooked.



So it goes through investments in stock, load, and energy properties. Perry just kept seeing things that other people apparently didn’t.



Even more impressive: how Perry managed to find the time. There he was, governor of the second biggest state in the country, creating jobs from morning to night. Yet somehow he also was able to scour the vast landscape of Texas for under-appreciated little parcels of land with the potential to triple or quadruple in value in just a few months.

Clearly Rick Perry is a two-bit criminal and he should have been charged with accepting bribery. But he wasn't... and now he's the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination against the weakest and most pathetic Democratic president in our lifetimes. Yesterday Frum followed up on his post by complaining that Republicans are now citing Perry's corrupt practices as "an affirmative credential" in his thin resume. He doesn't personally want to charge Perry with an offense that could land him in prison but writes that "it’s asking a lot of the voters to believe that Gov. Perry scored these successes by acumen alone. The coincidences just pile up too thick... Rick Perry is not the first politician to emerge from public life a lot richer than he started."

There’s more going on here than an issue of appearance of impropriety. There’s also a question about where a politician invests his time and energy. Successful real estate investing is difficult and time-consuming. Rick Perry may claim that his investments did not benefit from insider information and special favors, and as Jim notes, Texas voters have accepted his story sufficiently to elect and re-elect him. But Perry obviously cannot claim to have been 100% focused on Texas business during his many years in office.



At a minimum, the attempt to reinvent Perry’s business career as a rebuttal to negative allegations about Perry’s brainpower is … let’s say … ill-advised. Perry’s real-estate fortune is one of those subjects about which you’d expect Perry supporters to take the view: the less said, the better.

There's virtually no chance the anti-inspiring Obama can win reelection. The only hope he has for another term is for the Republicans to nominate someone patently unelectable. The White House always hoped for Palin and then for Bachmann. Will Perry do the trick? Probably.

[I]f Perry ignores the growing questions about his record, he risks damaging the electability quotient that has helped rocket him ahead of Michele Bachmann by appealing more to Republicans beyond the Tea Party. But if he bows too much to critics, shifting his stances to be more in line with a mainstream electorate, he risks alienating those Tea Partiers who are still the voters Republicans running for president are afraid of.



So far, it seems that Perry is sticking with the Tea Party and letting the attacks fall where they will.



Here's an example: when his campaign attempted to back away from his book Fed Up!-- which contains attacks on Social Security that might make mainstream voters skittish-- Perry publicly rejected it, doubling-down on his claim that the popular program is a Ponzi scheme and maybe unconstitutional.



Democrats certainly seem to think talk like this is playing into their hands.



"For Rick Perry, the way he matches up with [Republican] voters has proven to be at least a short-term political bonanza for him," Bill Burton, the former White House spokesperson and head of Priorities USA Action told reporters in an email over the weekend. "But in the long term, his ideology could have devastating consequences for our country. Especially the middle class."



That's the fight Democrats want. And Perry faces a lot more than questions about his book. As ABC News cataloged Monday, Perry is coming under increasing scrutiny from all fronts. That's not surprising considering he's the frontrunner-- but it means awkward questions. Perry's dodged some and swaggered his way past others.

But will it be enough for Democrats, many of whom are beyond dismayed with what a grotesque disappointment Obama has been, to actually turn out and vote? They sure didn't in 2010... and Obama has just gotten worse and worse and worse. Before then, some think it's to early to recite Kiddish over Romney's political corpse and yesterday Bill Galston showed him a path to rebirth: going for Perry's very exposed jugular:

Perry’s entrance into the race has highlighted your key weakness: People still don’t know who you are and what you stand for. They’re yearning for clear, strong, unapologetic leadership, but they don’t know where your red lines are. And efforts to placate opponents-- such as fudging your long-held views on climate change-- will only make matters worse.



But Perry’s emergence also gives you a unique opportunity to define yourself-- against him. If you take it, you have a fighting chance of prevailing. If you duck it, you’ll lose, just as Tim Pawlenty did when he booted away his chance to take you on.



How should you do it? Well, to the extent that the Republican nominating contest is a rational process, it’s a search for a candidate with three characteristics. The nominee must be competent to serve as president, reliably conservative, and electable. You’re never going to be able to make your party believe that the longest-serving governor in Texas history isn’t fit to serve as chief executive. And despite some facts to the contrary, it won’t be any easier to challenge Perry’s conservative credentials. That narrows it down to one option: You must persuade the decisive portion of your party that Rick Perry is too extreme to be elected president.



Here’s your theme: Rick Perry wants to repeal the 20th century. I don’t. And neither do the American people.



That terrain of battle offers a target-rich environment. Where to begin? With Perry’s stated desire to repeal the 16th amendment? With his opposition to the 17th amendment, based on the odd view that taking the power to elect senators away from state legislators and giving it to the people of each state somehow amounts to a national power-grab? Maybe. But if I were you, I’d begin with Social Security. Here are Governor Perry’s considered views on the subject:



Certain [New Deal]programs massively altered the relationship between Americans and their government with regard to critical aspect[s] of their lives, violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles of federalism and limited government. By the far the best example of this is Social Security … . Social Security is something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now … . By any measure, Social Security is a failure. (Source: Rick Perry, Fed Up!, pp. 48, 50, 62)



So … Perry believes that Social Security is (a) unconstitutional, (b) an undemocratic imposition on an undefined “we,” and (c) a failure, however you look at it.



To be sure, there are real problems with Social Security, and lots of us have spent a good deal of time figuring out how to address them. In the long term, significant adjustments are necessary and unavoidable. But if you can’t figure out how to refute Perry, you don’t have the political intelligence to be an effective candidate. And if you’re not willing to say it, starting in September’s debates, you don’t have the guts to be an effective candidate. And you won’t be your party’s nominee.

Paddy Power

Paddy Power, founded in 1988, is Ireland’s biggest bookmaker best known for publishing odds for horse racing, football betting, rugby, cricket, as well as for its online poker and casino operations. But they're also somewhat famous for offering odds on controversial subjects that help bring their business attention. Right after Obama was elected in November 2008, 16-1 was laid that he 'would not finish' his first term; yes, odds on assassination. This week they're offering odds that Obama will win the next presidential race.



Actually, Monday they were in the news because they had added Matt Damon to the list of possible 2012 U.S. presidential victors. They're offering 66/1 odds that Damon will get the Democratic nomination and 100/1 odds that he'll be the next president-- not as good as Joe Biden, Rand Paul and Newt Gingrich (each at 80/1), but better than Paris Hilton, Laura Bush and Will Smith (each at 500/1).

Paddy Power have today inserted Matt Damon at 100/1 to be the next US president after he received a glittering endorsement for the role from fellow Hollywood star Michael Moore! Damon has proven far more articulate on Liberal issues than his Team America puppet would suggest and is also available at 66/1 to receive the Democratic nomination for the race.



Obama remains the strong favourite at 4/6 in the race for the White House followed by Texan Rick Perry and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney who are at 7/2 and 5/1 respectively while Tea Party darling Michelle Bachman is available at 16/1.



...Paddy Power said "There’s been a strong tradition of Hollywood stars making the transition into politics since Ronald Reagan, Matt Damon has never been afraid to express his political views and would surely garner some high profile supporters if he chose to run."



Meanwhile former on screen US President Martin Sheen is available at 250/1 to be the next Irish President! Sheen who is an Irish citizen through his Irish mother has been subject to a Facebook campaign pushing for him to enter the race.

Here are all the odds, as of now. Even with Obama's approval ratings sinking, people still prefer him to any Republican. Paddy Power warns that "all prices remain subject to fluctuation."



Next US President



4/6 Barack Obama

7/2 Rick Perry

5/1 Mitt Romney

16/1 Michele Bachman

20/1 Jon Huntsman

25/1 Hilary Clinton

33/1 Herman Cain

40/1 John Boehner

40/1 Paul Ryan

50/1 Ron Paul

66/1 Rudolph Giuliani

80/1 Rand Paul

80/1 Thaddeus McCotter

80/1 Marco Rubio

80/1 Rick Santorum

80/1 Michael Bloomberg

80/1 Gary Johnson

80/1 Joe Biden

80/1 Newt Gingrich

100/1 Matt Damon

150/1 John McCain

500/1 Laura Bush

500/1 Paris Hilton

500/1 Jimmy McMilan

500/1 Will Smith

Outlandish American Fascists Making The World Safe For Obama's Conservatism

I missed the Republican debate in Iowa. I hear I didn't miss much. Instead I was at a gathering of future progressive leaders (Young People For). It was very inspiring to meet some of these idealistic young men and women who were taking part in a week-long training conducted by People For the American Way but to hear the inspiration of the organization's founding generation-- talks by Norman Lear and Dolores Huerta-- being handed down to future leaders. Meanwhile all I needed to know about the Iowa debate was, oddly enough, on the Fox website in the form of a post by Juan Williams, Debate Shows GOP Is Out of Step With Realities of Today's America.

Last night's debate put on display a Republican Party that still looks like a 1950s Oldsmobile as they prepare to run against one of the hip, new hybrids coming out the multi-national car companies that now run Detroit.



Despite his troubles, President Obama looks sleek, fast and so very hip as compared the Republicans on view in Iowa. The President remains the mixed-race, son-of-an immigrant, in touch with the under 30 crowd that makes up about half of 2011 America.



It was not just the absence of dynamic people of color and women at the GOP debate that rankle young Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, working women, and immigrants. The answers coming from the candidates felt like the voice of your grandfather's GOP.



It is hearing the only woman on the stage talking about being "submissive," and "obedient."



One of the most astounding parts of the debate for me was when the moderators polled the candidates and asked if they would oppose a deficit reduction package that included government spending cuts to tax increases by a ratio of 10:1. Every single candidate on the stage raised their hand in opposition. No tax increases under any circumstances.



This puts the candidates out of step with the realities of America today, and American public opinion. As a CBS/New York Times poll from last week showed, a majority of Americans - in both political parties-- want to see tax increases on the wealthiest Americans in addition to spending cuts. By taking the no-new-taxes-pledge the candidates are even in disagreement majority of the Republicans-- the very people who will choose the nominee. 



A review of the GOP ideas debated last night for improving on President Obama's disappointing first term reveals a patchwork of proposals that led to economic problems, antagonism towards immigrants, especially Hispanics, and indifference to the poor and seniors.



On immigration reform the candidates offered only knee-jerk, talk radio sound bites about building even bigger walls, complete with electrified barb wire-- oh, that was supposed to be a joke. Do these candidates think only the most hateful, anti-immigrant bullies are listening?



Where are serious proposals about how to deal with 12 million illegal immigrants who add economic vitality, youthful energy, and transformative culture to America? What about the oppressive laws passed in Arizona to allow harassment of people who look Hispanic? How about the talented people who can’t get into this country because the immigration system is broken? Not one serious answer from the Republicans on stage last night.



These "Back to the Future" Republicans also called for supporting privatization of Medicare and Social Security. They support banning abortion and-- with the exception of Ron Paul-- doing nothing to reduce spending on the military-industrial complex.



One of the few substantive contributions of the evening came from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who declared, to wild applause: "Congress should come back Monday. They should repeal the Dodd-Frank bill. They should repeal Sarbanes Oxley."



Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley were arguably the two most important pieces of legislation in recent years to regulate Wall Street and punish the kind of mass fraud that tanked the world economy in 2008.



A Harris Interactive Poll from earlier this summer showed an overwhelming majority of Americans-- 83% to 14% - believe recent events have shown "Wall Street should be subject to tougher regulation." The same poll found 64% of adults do not believe that what is good for Wall Street is good for the country. 31% take the opposite view.



Hours before the debate, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney was heckled by left-wing protesters at a rally in Iowa. He was tripped up over the question about taxing corporations and he shot back at the questioner: "Corporations are people, my friend."



I cannot believe the GOP wants to be seen as the reactionary party whose devotion to the failed economic theories of the past benefit the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else.



In 2012, 2016 and beyond, the electorate will be younger, more racially diverse and increasingly supportive of higher taxes on the wealthy-- and tougher regulation of Wall Street.



While it is still early and there are other potential entrants to the race, I do not see how any Republican candidate pushback against the Democrats and President Obama while solely dedicated to bringing back an America that is half a century in the past.

Ah, yes, "other potential entrants to the race." That would refer to Rove's pick to knock Bachmann out of the race so the superficially mainstreamish candidate, the weird Mitt Romney, has a clear shot at Obama without the GOP baggage of being a party essentially even right of the kind of fascism America mobilized to defeat 7 decades ago-- Rick Perry, the Texas governor who makes George W. Bush seem almost coherent and bright. In Perry-world everything post-Civil War is unconstitutional-- from clean air laws to public education and, now, Social Security and Medicare, which he calls a "Ponzi scheme," something the far right has been yelling since the 1930's when most Americans were fighting fascism but the GOP was actively helping Hitler as the standard-bearer for the kind of world they have always wanted.

I challenge anybody to stand up and defend the Social Security program that we have today-- and particularly defend it to a 27-year-old young man who’s just gotten married and is trying to get his life headed in the right direction economically. I happen to think that the Progressive movement was the beginning of the deterioration of our Constitution from the standpoint of it being abused and misused to do things that Congress wanted to do, and/or the Supreme Court wanted to implement. The New Deal was the launching pad for the Washington largesse as we know it today. And I think we should have a legitimate, honest, national discussion about Washington’s continuing to spend money we don’t have on programs that we don’t need. 



...I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. Not the federal government. I stand very clear on that. From my perspective, the states could substantially better operate those programs if that’s what those states decided to do.

People are very disappointed with what Obama has been able to accomplish. Many of us have come to see that he's not a liberal or a progressive but a mainstream conservative in a world where the GOP has moved the conversation so far to the right, by transforming themselves into a reactionary or even fascist party, that Obama seems, as Williams put it for Fox above, "sleek, fast and so very hip as compared the Republicans." This morning he delivered his Saturday address to the nation about new ideas, creativity and innovation, while the Republicans argue among themselves about Bronze Age fairy tales and long bankrupt Gilded Age ideology. Obama:

On Thursday, I visited a new, high-tech factory in Michigan where workers are helping America lead the way in a growing clean energy industry. 

 

They were proud of their work, and they should be. They’re not just showing us a path out of the worst recession in generations-- they’re proving that this is still a country where we make things; where new ideas take root and grow; where the best universities, most creative entrepreneurs, and most dynamic businesses in the world call home. They’re proving that even in difficult times, there’s not a country on Earth that wouldn’t trade places with us. 

 

That doesn’t mean we don’t face some very tough economic challenges. Many Americans are hurting badly right now. Many have been unemployed for too long. Putting these men and women back to work, and growing wages for everyone, has got to be our top priority.

 

But lately, the response from Washington has been partisanship and gridlock that’s only undermined public confidence and hindered our efforts to grow the economy.

 

So while there’s nothing wrong with our country, there is something wrong with our politics, and that’s what we’ve got to fix. Because we know there are things Congress can do, right now, to get more money back in your pockets, get this economy growing faster, and get our friends and neighbors back to work. 

 

The payroll tax cut that put $1,000 back in the average family’s pocket this year? Let’s extend it.  Construction workers who’ve been jobless since the housing boom went bust? Let’s put them back to work rebuilding America. Let’s cut red tape in the patent process so entrepreneurs can get good ideas to market more quickly. Let’s finish trade deals so we can sell more American-made goods around the world. Let’s connect the hundreds of thousands of brave Americans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan to businesses that need their incredible skills and talents.

 

These are all things we can do right now. So let’s do them. And over the coming weeks, I’ll put forward more proposals to help our businesses hire and create jobs, and won’t stop until every American who wants a job can find one.

 

But we can no longer let partisan brinksmanship get in our way-- the idea that making it through the next election is more important than making things right. That’s what’s holding us back-- the fact that some in Congress would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.

 

So you’ve got a right to be frustrated. I am. Because you deserve better. And I don’t think it’s too much for you to expect that the people you send to this town start delivering.

 

Members of Congress are at home in their districts right now.  And if you agree with me – whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican or not much of a fan of either-- let them know.

 

If you’ve had it with gridlock, and you want them to pass stalled bills that will help our economy right now-- let them know. 

 

If you refuse to settle for a politics where scoring points is more important than solving problems; if you believe it’s time to put country before party and the interests of our children before our own – let them know. 

 

And maybe they’ll get back to Washington ready to compromise, ready to create jobs, ready to get our fiscal house in order-- ready to do what you sent them to do.

 

Yes, we’ve still got a long way to go to get to where we need to be. We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and it’s going to take time to get out of it. That’s a hard truth-- but it’s no excuse for inaction. After all, America voted for divided government, not dysfunctional government, and we’ve got work to do. And when we come together and find common ground, there’s no stopping this country. There’s no stopping our people. There’s no holding us back. And there is every reason to believe we’ll get through this storm to a brighter day.

See why Rove and Fox are worried?

Yeah, Romney's Worse Than Obama, But America's Real Enemy Is Our Political Elite

I'm envisioning next year's presidential race being about how Romney really and truly is worse-- even much worse-- than an admittedly truly horrible Barack Obama. Romney may have been correct when he told the Wall Street Journal that Obama is worse than Carter but Obama is certainly not as bad-- at least he hasn't been so far-- as George W. Bush, who Romney has backed to the hilt. And, more to the point, Romney's record indicates he would be an even worse president than Obama-- on every level. I'm not going to talk about Lily Ledbetter; it's almost embarrassing. And I'm not going to talk about the basically conservative approach to healthcare reform that both Romney and Obama enacted. Instead... start by taking a look at the Rachel Maddow segment above that airs a series of ads that focus on Mitt Romney's record as a destroyer of American jobs.

There's nothing I would say to defend Obama's approach to the presidency. He just plain sucks. But Romney just makes him look... merely mediocre.

Republican Mitt Romney often says, as he did at three campaign stops here Thursday, that he wants to create jobs by lowering taxes. He says he wants to loosen federal regulations on businesses. And he says he has a unique skill set from 25 years in the private sector to develop innovative solutions that can revive the sputtering U.S. economy.

What Romney doesn’t say is which taxes he would lower and by how much. He doesn’t say which regulations he would loosen. And he doesn’t say what his solutions are other than general principles that for years have been Republican Party orthodoxy.

It’s not that the former Massachusetts governor doesn’t have ideas. It’s just that he hasn’t shared them yet.

At a lively town hall meeting here Thursday night, Romney methodically plowed through about 15 questions over the course of an hour, including one from a woman wondering whether he would continue to subsidize big oil companies if elected president.

“What I would like to see us do philosophically is to bring our [corporate] tax rates down to be competitive with the world but get rid of a lot of these special breaks that exist,” Romney answered. “We ought to look industry by industry and say, ‘Where are the lobbyists striking special deals for companies?’ Let’s get rid of that stuff and bring our rate down.”

The audience of about 300 gave him a friendly applause and Romney moved on to the next question, leaving behind a slew of unanswered questions. What would the corporate tax rate be? How does he define a “special break”? Which industry loopholes would he eliminate? And, of course, the original query: Would he continue oil subsidies?

By making the economy an almost exclusive focus of his campaign, Romney has raised the expectations for what he eventually will propose and has some policy gurus in his own party openly wondering whether the presidential front-runner has sound proposals to deal with the big problems he says he is uniquely positioned to solve.

And where will Romney be getting his macroeconomic guidance from? Well, the Team that tanked the economy under Bush, of course. Theirs is exactly the kind of voodoo economics, trickle down nonsense that Romney is comfortable with. He's already started recruiting an economic team-- the worst of the worst: N. Gregory Mankiw, who was chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers; Glenn Hubbard, who preceded Mankiw on the council and currently is dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; and former Missouri senator Jim Talent.

So... right back into the toilet. And there is just no subtly or shades of grey in Teabagworld:

Still Not Too Late For Obama To Get On The Right Path

Early this year a Democratic consultant sent me a memo on Democratic Party positioning based on polling and economic data. I ran across it by chance while I was trying to make sense out of the reports that President Obama's Grand Bargain that he had offered the GOP included something most rational people would interpret as "cuts" to popular core middle class programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (not to even mention public education, also under increasing threat).

The memo made clear that the upcoming elections-- for the presidency, for Congress and for state governments-- may well be determined on whether hard-pressed Americans in the middle class feel like Democrats are on their side. Voters who abandoned the Democrats in the 2010 midterms were from the working and middle classes most pressed by the economic trauma of the last few years. In 2008, voters who said they were worse off economically in the previous couple of years voted for Obama by 42 points, but in 2010, they voted Republican by 29 points. That 71 percent swing is gargantuan-- and it's why Boehner is Speaker and why the GOP is in a position to block everything progressives would like to accomplish in the House. According to recent polls, Obama's approval rating with these economically downscale, working-class independents’-- swing voters-- has remained flat. Yet, when you look at the key issues in the same polling that shows the Democratic Party in danger of being swamped by Obama's poor job approval numbers, you can't help but notice these voters back a progressive agenda-- far more so than an Obama agenda in fact. Findings from the Stan Greenberg poll done for the Campaign for America's Future found:

* Swing voters supported a message about challenging China on trade, ending subsidies to corporations that send jobs overseas, and stopping NAFTA-like trade deals over a message about increasing exports, passing more trade agreements, and getting government out of the way by 59-28

* Swing voters supported a message about ending tax cuts for those making over $250,0000 a year, adding a bank tax to curb speculative trading, cutting wasteful military spending and ending subsidies to oil companies over a message about cutting 100 billion dollars from domestic programs, raising the Social Security retirement age, and turning Medicare into a voucher program by 51-37

* Swing voters supported a statement about politicians keeping their hands off Social Security and Medicare over a statement about raising the retirement age by 62-36

* 89% of swing voters supported a statement about full disclosure of campaign donations and limiting the power of lobbyists

* 90% of swing voters supported a statement about cracking down on outsourcing and creating jobs by fixing schools, sewers, and roads in disrepair

* Even when framed in direct opposition to a statement about stopping increasing government spending and tax increases, swing voters said they were more worried that we will fail to make the investments we need to create jobs and strengthen the economy by 54-44

The Republicans are on the wrong side of every one of these issues. But where is President Obama? At best, unclear. When he addressed the nation about the dismal jobs numbers last week, he couldn't resist putting a plug in for immensely unpopular NAFTA-like trade agreements that he's promised to deliver for Big Business, the types of trade agreements he and other corporate politicians try selling as job creators when American voters see them as job destroyers. So whose side is he on? To voters focussing on that issue, he's just another Establishment political selling out to the big corporate donors who are so loathed by so many.

Obama didn't fight to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy-- at least not hard enough to make it happen. Obama didn't fight for any of these populist measures to curb Big Banks and Big Oil-- or if he did, he fought and failed (or didn't fight well or strongly). His positioning on keeping hands off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is muddled and confusing. Who's side is he on? It's impossible for an average voter to tell. It's impossible to miss where Bernie Sanders stands on the issue. Is he just a more effective communicator?

The swing voters who moved toward the Republicans in 2010 were mostly white, independent, working- and middle-class, older (seniors went from voting 8 percent for McCain to voting by 22 percent for Republicans in 2010), economically hard-pressed, and economically populist. They hate the biggest banks and tended to blame Wall Street for the economic crisis but still voted Republican-- 35 percent said Wall Street was mostly to blame for the economy, more than any other person or institution (and many of that 35 percent were white, working-class independents, because base Democrats blamed Bush and base Republicans blamed Obama), but those voters went Republican 56-42. They are wary of trade deals, hate outsourcing, and don’t like Big Business. They also hate deficit spending, big government, and government waste (they are swing voters, after all), but they sure don’t have any interest in cutting Social Security, Medicare, education, or infrastructure spending. Perhaps what they hate most of all is business as usual in Washington: lobbyists, special interests, corporate tax loopholes, sweetheart deals for government contractors. The reason they think government doesn’t work for them anymore is that the special interests have taken it over.

Obama seems to have made himself into a posterboy for everything these people hate. What's he's got going for him is how extreme the GOP is trending and how he looks reasonable and sensible compared to a party that has been captured by teabagging radicals. Obama and the Democrats running for other offices need to show both Democratic base voters-- many of whom sat out the 2010 midterms-- and the hard-pressed middle class that Democrats are on their side. Here’s how the memo suggested they should be talking about an agenda leading up to November, 2012:

1. Entrepreneurial populism. Both Democratic base voters and working- middle-class swing voters are angry at the powers that be: a government that never seems to get things done on their behalf; Wall Street mega-bankers who crashed the economy, demanded a bailout, and never showed a moment of remorse; a media establishment more concerned with trivia and sensationalism than with anything really important; and big businesses that ship jobs overseas and have their lobbyists cut sweetheart deals with the government. But a purely angry message going after bankers and tax breaks for the wealthy only brings Democrats into a 45-45 tie with an angry anti-government message from the Republicans. Americans right now are first and foremost very pragmatic, very focused on jobs and the things that will help them make it in tough times. However angry they are at the establishment, they want to be sure that politicians are focused on pragmatic policies that create more jobs and economic growth. Voters are looking for policies that help small-business entrepreneurs get investment capital and create more jobs; policies that help manufacturing companies, big or small, create jobs here in America; and policies that invest in the jobs of the future: infrastructure, R&D, green energy, technology. The winning political formula is what I call entrepreneurial populism: taking on the big Wall Street banks, the jobs outsourcers, and other powerful special interests on behalf of both the middle-class workers and the business innovators who want to create American jobs here and now. President Obama’s investment agenda is a good start, but it needs to be bigger and bolder in terms of job creation, and it would be far more powerful if Obama were taking on wealthy special interests who are keeping things from moving forward.

2. Emphasize job creation at every turn. President Obama and Senate Democrats should be pushing forward a new jobs bill practically every week: more infrastructure spending, more loans and grants to small businesses, more help for solar and wind companies, universal broadband. Whatever the policy is, the connection with jobs should be obvious and repeated over and over again. If the Republicans want to stand in the way on all these jobs bills, let them. If the fight in front of the public is about jobs, even if we lose on the Hill, we still win.

3. Stand up for homeowners in fights with bankers. The combination of the housing bubble and the worst recession since the Great Depression has resulted in a devastating foreclosure crisis. Millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, and banks have been cooking their books, and presenting made-up paperwork and falsified affidavits in order to avoid helping homeowners keep their homes. Our economy has no chance of significantly improving if the housing crisis is allowed to continue. The government should implement a foreclosure freeze until they are able to sort through the mess that is the current mortgage title system. Additionally, it makes sense to push the banks, along with Freddie and Fannie, very hard to institute widespread mortgage write-downs that reflect current housing prices to underwater homeowners. This can be done without going to Congress, because the Obama administration has plenty of tools to pressure the banks to write down mortgages, and they actually control Freddie and Fannie right now. These policies would dramatically reduce the need for foreclosures and cut the stresses on our economy. Democrats need to counteract the daunting political power held by the big banks and side with the middle class.

4. Fight for the government programs that benefit the middle class. There are certain government programs that are overwhelmingly popular with the public, including with swing voters, because they benefit the broad middle class so much. Among them are Social Security, Medicare, student loan programs, and public education and infrastructure funding. For example, according to a variety of polls done over the last couple of months: 67 percent oppose spending cuts on health care or education; 56 percent oppose reducing the money spent on student loans; 64 percent oppose raising the retirement age for Social Security; 66 percent oppose any benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare; 71 percent oppose cuts in federal aid to states for education or road building. And as people understand the health care law more and more, and start to take advantage of the benefits being phased in, they will be much more likely to support its funding as well. Obama and the Democrats should fight like tigers for all these programs, resisting Republican attempts to slash and radically restructure them.

5. Change Washington by taking on the special interests. One of the things that was clear from Democracy Corps and other pollsters in the last cycle was that in order for Democratic arguments on the economy to be taken more seriously, Democrats need to make clear that they have the courage to take on wealthy special interests and change the way government does business. For example, in a Sept. 20, 2010 memo, Stan Greenberg and James Carville laid out a series of Democratic frameworks for moving the election in the right way. They found in their testing that a message that leads with reforming D.C. and taking on the big money lobbyists, and then goes straight to a strong pro-middle class and pro-small business economic message was by far the most powerful frame for Democrats, moving voters a remarkable +9 points. As Stan and James put it:

"The respondents are a little skeptical of candidates who describe themselves as 'champions of the middle class,' but fighting for change in Washington, bucking privileges, being for small business and American jobs and against breaks for Goldman Sachs makes this an authentic claim.

6. Reform government contracting. The Center for American Progress, US PIRG, and other reform groups have estimated that the federal government could save enormous amounts of money ($100 billion annually or even more) simply by reforming the way they do government contracting. With more and more government services privatized, the amount of government contracting has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last couple of decades, and these contracts have been noted for the waste and corruption entailed in them. No-bid contracts, sweetheart deals, cost overruns, a lack of accountability for getting them done on time, easy to achieve bonus clauses written into most contracts, and special-interest language in appropriations bills favoring one firm over all others have generated enormous amounts of waste. By demanding reform of this process, Democrats could burnish our credentials in terms of cutting waste in government as well as opening up contracting to more innovative and efficient firms.

This kind of agenda-- populist in taking on the D.C. and Wall Street establishment and other corporate special interests, but clearly pro-jobs, small business and the middle class-- has appeal to both swing and working class voters and Democratic-base voters. Even if the economy remains flat for average Americans, which unfortunately is a distinct possibility, it creates a narrative in which the President and Democrats in Congress are clearly fighting for the middle class against powerful special interests.

That was sent to the White House and to Democratic Party leaders almost half a year ago. You tell me... have they taken these finding and suggestions seriously? One week ago former Labor Secretary Robert Reich described President Obama's forays into job creation as fluff and indicated that the White House still doesn't get it.

The President has to have a bold jobs plan, with specifics. Why not exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes for the next year? Why not a new WPA for the long-term unemployed, and a Civilian Conservation Corps for the legions of young jobless Americans? Why not allow people to declare bankruptcy on their primary residences, and thereby reorganize their mortgage debt?

Or a hundred other ways to boost demand.

Fluff won’t get us anywhere. In fact, it creates a policy vacuum that will be filled by Republicans intent on convincing Americans that cutting federal spending and reducing taxes on the rich will create jobs.

Most Americans are smart enough to see through this. But if the Republican snake oil is the only remedy being offered, some people will buy it. And if the President and Democrats on Capitol Hill continue to obsess about reaching an agreement to raise the debt limit, they risk making the snake oil seem like a legitimate cure.

Frank Rich Is Back! And I Bet Obama Wishes He Never Existed

Rich is now in New York and even if the Times can ignore the treasure they lost, Obama isn't likely to. Obama's Original Sin isn't part of the program to make progressives resigned to choosing the lesser of two evils. As Frank's editor points out, "the president’s failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second." And as Frank reminds us, "Obama arrives at his reelection campaign not merely with a weak performance on Wall Street crime enforcement and reform but also with a scattershot record (at best) of focusing on the main concern of Main Street: joblessness. One is a consequence of the other. His failure to push back against the financial sector, sparing it any responsibility for the economy it tanked, empowered it to roll over his agenda with its own. He has come across as favoring the financial elite over the stranded middle class even if, in his heart of hearts, he does not."

What haunts the Obama administration is what still haunts the country: the stunning lack of accountability for the greed and misdeeds that brought America to its gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression. There has been no legal, moral, or financial reckoning for the most powerful wrongdoers. Nor have there been meaningful reforms that might prevent a repeat catastrophe. Time may heal most wounds, but not these. Chronic unemployment remains a constant, painful reminder of the havoc inflicted on the bust’s innocent victims.

...After the 1929 crash, and thanks in part to the legendary Ferdinand Pecora’s fierce thirties Senate hearings, America gained a Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Utility Holding Company Act, and the Glass-Steagall Act to forestall a rerun. After the savings-and-loan debacle of the eighties, some 800 miscreants went to jail. But those who ran the central financial institutions of our fiasco escaped culpability (as did most of the institutions). As the indefatigable Matt Taibbi has tabulated, law enforcement on Obama’s watch rounded up 393,000 illegal immigrants last year and zero bankers. The Justice Department’s bally­hooed Operation Broken Trust has broken still more trust by chasing mainly low-echelon, one-off Madoff wannabes. You almost have to feel sorry for the era’s designated Goldman scapegoat, 32-year-old flunky “Fabulous Fab” Fabrice Tourre, who may yet take the fall for everyone else. It’s as if the Watergate investigation were halted after the cops nabbed the nudniks who did the break-in.

Even now, on the heels of Bank of America’s reluctant $8.5 billion settlement with investors who held its mortgage-backed securities, the Obama administration may be handing it and its peers new get-out-of-jail-free cards. With the Department of Justice’s blessing, the Iowa attorney general, Tom Miller, is pushing the 49 other states to sign on to a national financial settlement ending their investigations of the biggest mortgage lenders. What some call a settlement others may find a cover-up. Time reported in April that the lawyer negotiating with Miller for Moynihan’s Bank of America just happened to be a contributor to his 2010 Iowa reelection campaign. If the deal is struck, any truly aggressive state attorneys general, like Eric Schneiderman of New York, will be shut down before they can dig into the full and still mostly uninvestigated daisy chain of get-rich-quick rackets practiced by banks as they repackaged junk mortgages into junk securities.

Those in executive suites at the top of that chain have long since fled the scene with the proceeds, while bleeding shareholders, investors, homeowners, and ­cashiered employees were left with the bills. The weak Dodd-Frank financial-reform law that rose from the ruins remains largely inoperative, since the actual rule-writing was delegated to understaffed agencies now under siege by banking lobbyists and their well-greased congressional overlords. The administration’s much-hyped Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being sabotaged by Washington Republicans intent on blocking any White House nominee, whether Elizabeth Warren or some malleable hack, to lead it. “We can’t let special interests win this fight,” said Obama when he proposed the agency in October 2009. Well, he missed his moment to fight for both it and Warren, and the special interests won without breaking a sweat.

Rather than purge the crash’s crimes, Wall Street’s leaders are sticking to their alibi: Everyone was guilty of fomenting this “perfect storm,” and so no one is. Too-big-to-fail banks are bigger than ever, and ­Masters of the Universe swagger is back. Even Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, about the only bank chief not to be caught with a suspect balance sheet or a $1,400 office trash can, has taken to channeling Schwarzman. In June, he publicly challenged Ben Bernanke about the intolerable burdens of potential regulation—this despite a 67 percent surge in JPMorgan’s first-quarter profits and a 1,500 percent raise in his own compensation from 2009 to 2010. As good times roar back for corporate America, it’s bad enough that CEOs are collectively sitting on some $1.9 trillion in cash-- much of it parked out of the IRS’s reach overseas-- instead of hiring. (How many jobs can you buy for $1.9 trillion? America’s total expenditure on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over a decade has been $1.3 trillion.) But what’s most galling is how many of these executives are sore winners, crying all the way to Palm Beach while raking in record profits and paying some of the lowest tax rates over the past 50 years.

The fallout has left Obama in the worst imaginable political bind. No good deed he’s done for Wall Street has gone unpunished. He is vilified as an anti-capitalist zealot not just by Republican foes but even by some former backers. What has he done to deserve it? All anyone can point to is his December 2009 60 Minutes swipe at “fat-cat bankers on Wall Street”-- an inept and anomalous Ed Schultz seizure that he retracted just weeks later by praising Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein as “very savvy businessmen.”

Obama can win reelection without carrying 10021 or Greenwich in any case. The bigger political problem is that a far larger share of the American electorate views him as a tool of the very fat-cat elite that despises him. Given Obama’s humble background, his history as a mostly liberal Democrat, and his famous résumé as a community organizer, this would also seem a reach. But the president has no one to blame but himself for the caricature. While he has never lusted after money-- he’d rather get his hands on the latest novel by Morrison or Franzen-- he is an elitist of a certain sort. For all the lurid fantasies of the birthers, the dirty secret of Obama’s background is that the values of Harvard, not of Kenya or Indonesia or Bill Ayers, have most colored his governing style. He falls hard for the best and the brightest white guys.

Frank's villain in this tragic story: Wall Street huckster and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who seems to have sold Obama not just a bill of goods, but an entire Wall Street-oriented economic team to kill any hopes for embracing a populist solution to the Wall Street caused cataclysm of the final Bush years.

By failing to address that populist anger, Obama gave his enemies the opening to co-opt it and turn it against him. Which the tea party did, dishonestly but brilliantly, misrepresenting Obama’s health-care-reform crusade as yet another attempt by the elites to screw the taxpayer. (The Democrats haplessly reinforced the charge with marathon behind-the-scenes negotiations with insurance and pharmaceutical-­industry operatives.) Once the health-care law was signed, the president still slighted the unemployment crisis. A once-hoped-for WPA-style public-works program, unloved by Geithner, had been downsized in the original stimulus, and now a tardy, halfhearted stab at a $50 billion transportation-infrastructure jobs bill produced a dandy Obama speech but nothing else.

Obama soon retreated into the tea-party mantra of fiscal austerity. Short-term spending cuts when spending is needed to create jobs make no sense economically. But they also make no sense politically. The deficit has never been a top voter priority, no matter how loudly the right claims it is. At Obama’s inaugural, Gallup found that 11 percent of voters ranked unemployment as their top priority while only 2 percent did the deficit. Unemployment has remained a stable public priority over the deficit ever since, usually by at least a 2-to-1 ratio. In a CBS poll immediately after the Democrats’ “shellacking” of last November-- a debacle supposedly precipitated by the tea party’s debt jihad-- the question “What should Congress concentrate on in January?” yielded 56 percent for “economy/jobs” and 4 percent for “deficit reduction.”

Geithner has pushed deficit reduction as a priority since before the inauguration, the Washington Post recently reported in an article greeted as a smoking gun by liberal bloggers. But Obama is the chief executive. It’s his fault, no one else’s, that he seems diffident about the unemployed. Each time there’s a jolt in the jobless numbers, he and his surrogates compound that profile by farcically reshuffling the same clichés, from “stuck in a ditch” to “headwinds” (first used by Geithner in March 2009-- retire it already!) to “bumps in the road.” It’s true the administration has caught few breaks and the headwinds have been strong, but voters have long since tuned out this monotonous apologia. The White House’s repeated argument that the stimulus saved as many as 3 million jobs, accurate though it may be, is another nonstarter when 14 million Americans are looking for work.

...There’s not much Obama can do to alter the economy by 2012, given the debt-ceiling fight, the long campaign, and nihilistic Capitol Hill antagonists opposed to any government spending that might create jobs and, by extension, help Obama keep his own. But the central question before the nation couldn’t be clearer: Who pays? The taxpayers bailed out the elite; now it’s the elite’s turn to return the favor. Massive cuts to the safety net combined with scant sacrifice from those at the top is wrong ethically and politically. It is, in the truest sense, un-American. Obama knows this, and he hit a welcome note last week when he urged some higher corporate taxes for hedge funds and the like. But his forays in this direction are tentative and sporadic. You have to wonder why he isn’t seizing the moment to articulate and fight for the big picture instead of playing a lose-lose game of rope-a-dope with the Republicans on their budgetary turf.

Some Obama fans think it’s tactical genius that’s holding him back-- his fabled long ball. Americans are no longer as angry as they were in January 2009 so much as they are defeated, depressed, and jaded by the slow recovery and by four decades of raging inequality that tells them the deck is stacked no matter who’s in Washington. Better, then, not to ruffle these still waters-- or those easily rattled independents fetishized by political consultants-- and instead scare seniors about imminent Medicare cutbacks and plot deep-think policy initiatives that (like health-care reform) might fix America over time. But the voters’ placidity hardly augurs well for Democratic turnout in 2012. And it may not last. All that’s required is one more economic panic to shatter the phony peace and whip the rage back to center stage, once again to the right’s advantage.

“A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous,” Obama declared at his inauguration. What he said on that bright January morning is no less true or stirring now. For all his failings since, he is the only one who can make this case. There’s nothing but his own passivity to stop him from doing so-- and from shaking up the administration team that, well beyond the halfway-out-the-door Geithner and his Treasury Department, has showered too many favors on the prosperous. This will mean turning on his own cadre of the liberal elite. But it’s essential if he is to call the bluff of a fake man-of-the-people like Romney. To differentiate himself from the discredited Establishment, he will have to mount the fight he has ducked for the past three years.

The alternative is a failure of historic proportions. Those who gamed the economy to near devastation-- so much so that the nation turned to an untried young leader in desperation and in hope-- would once again inherit the Earth. Unless and until there’s a purging of the crimes that brought our president to his unlikely Inauguration Day, much more in America than the second term of his administration will be at stake.

Blue America never endorsed Obama in 2008, when there was a slim chance he might turn out to be a progressive. I'd say there's far less of a chance we'll be working towards his reelection next year. Instead, as you probably know, we'll be working to raise campaign funds for proven progressive leaders running for Congress. We've endorsed 5 who are running for the House so far and starting later this month we'll be adding to that list with candidates from Arizona and Wisconsin. Meantime, can you give us a hand? No matter who wins the presidency, we're going to need smart, aggressive progressives in Congress.

I voted for Obama and all I got was . . .

by Noah

. . . and all I got was this T-shirt. (If I cough up a mere $30, that is.)

Like many of you, I get a lot of mass e-mails asking me for money. Many of them come from politically progressive groups that can and do make good use of the money. Environmental groups? OK. Moveon.org? No problem. ActBlue? You bet.

Today’s e-mail, however, came from Juliana Smoot of the White House. It included an offer of a T-shirt in return for a contribution of $30 or more to President Obama’s 2012 campaign. Not that it’s a bad T-shirt or anything, but I expect more.

Forget the T-shirt! How about a president that doesn’t roll over for the Repugs and Wall Street, and tells his party not to roll over too? How about a president leading a Democratic Party that realizes they are dealing with absolute fascists that could make Mussolini rise from the dead with pride. Instead we have a party of Neville Chamberlain weenies. They are either naïve or in cahoots. I’m convinced, of course, that it’s the latter and no amount of money that I can afford to give the status quo politicians of the burgeoning New World Order is going to offset the bribery setup that is standard operating procedure in D.C.

I also get almost daily appeals from Blue Dog Dem stealth-Republican groups such as the DSCC and the DCCC who feel that I should contribute money for the reelection of fetid balls of slime with names like Ben Nelson, Heath Shuler, and Mary Landrieu just so they can have Democratic majorities that end up rubber-stamping the dark desires of Republicans anyway. Anyone remember Senator Schumer kissing John Roberts’s butt at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. All that did was fast-track Citizens United. Thanks, Chuckie!

Apparently, the bribes from K Street and Wall Street just aren’t enough. Last I looked, no banksters or hedge-fund scum have been hauled into court. Can’t imagine why! Can’t jeopardize the status quo now, can we? Gotta keep those good middle-class jobs moving out of the country while Congress vacuums up all that nice green cash from the K Street Bribery Battalions! Nudge nudge wink wink. Ain’t NAFTA grand? Screw the people! But ask them for their money first.

You know, I happen to think that I and millions of other middle-class voters might have more to give these people if they would first do something about the massive wealth distribution upward that Washington has been engineering for decades; more specifically, our wealth. While the wealth of the top 1% has gone through the roof and productivity has climbed impressively, middle-class wages have stagnated for 30 years. And we all know that a dollar isn’t what it was back then! It’s obviously social engineering Washington can believe in. When it comes to Washington, money can buy a lot of belief. All you have to do is be amoral and fool enough voters into thinking that you are a respectable humanoid of good character.

Instead of a T-shirt, I, like so many people, think repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be a good start. Stopping the war on the middle class in its tracks would work for me! Oh, and stopping some other wars might be good too. We seem to be spending more on building roads and schools in Afghanistan than we do here.

Afghanistan is reportedly costing us $2 billion a week -- $2 billion a week for schools where young girls aren’t welcome and roads that only serve to get Afghanistan’s drugs to world markets at a faster, more profitable pace. That $2 billion could go a long way here, including paying for some teachers at some new schools! Just tonight (as I write this), President Obama announced that he’s bringing home 10,000 troops. It was the least he could do, and he did it.

If people like Juliana Smoot could tell me that House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer had changed his mind and now says that Medicare should be off the table instead of on it, that would work for me too. If she could tell me that her boss had decided to tell Alan Simpson to shove his Cat Food anti-Social Security Commission up his sagging fat white-haired 90-year-old ass, that would also work for me. If all of these things were done, we middle-class suckers and pawns might even actually have enough money to spread around, even to politicians.

So, Washington, why ask me for money when you are not doing enough things that will help me save money or earn money? A dollar doesn’t even get me a quart of milk or half a dozen eggs anymore. Are there suddenly less cows and chickens? Now I have to think long and hard about buying some eggs to hurl at your limos!

To be fair, saving the auto industry and the 3 million related industry jobs along with it was damn good. Some minor improvements in the health care system may help, but no, it’s not enough, and I don’t buy that it’s the best you could do. Some of the improvements won’t even kick in until 2014, and that’s gonna be up in the air for awhile anyway.

What’s going on is that Washington is trying to get away with doing just enough to keep the wolf (us) from the door. That’s the system that's in place. Buying voters off with the offer of a T-shirt is very symbolic. It’s symbolic of the paltry amount of respect Washington has for those who live outside the Beltway. Sure, I’ll never have enough money to stay out of jail if I foul up an ocean with crude oil while 11 employees lose their lives like Tony Hayward did, but that’s not what we’re asking for.

Our so-called representatives get tens and ten- times-tens of thousands of dollars stuffed into their pockets every day, and the White House offers me a T-shirt. That’s rich. Pun intended. Hell, the T-shirt doesn’t even have a pocket. No pocket for me! Look. I know that Obama is better than any Republican and a Democratic Congress is marginally better than a Republican one, but that’s like saying Americans have a choice of two parties and it's a choice that one can equate with being given a choice of "what kind of cancer would you like?"

The Republicans will kill you and the whole damn country and smile about it as long as they get enough cash out of the deal. They are a disease. The Democrats, on the other hand, might keep you alive but it looks like the most they want to do is just enough to keep you in the state of misery you’re in. Put a kinder, gentler way: The Dems will give you a T-shirt for a cold day. The Repugs will rip the one you have off your back on the coldest day of the year while they give money that should go to your family to the top 1% instead, and they'll get the Dems to go along with it.

Some freedom of choice that is. Keep the T-shirt, Juliana, you can use it to wipe the eggs off the White House windows. Blue America isn't offering any fancy t-shirts in exchange for contributions... just actual real life progressives who will stand up to the right, like Eric Griego, Norman Solomon, and Nick Ruiz. Please take a look... and give them a hand.

#

Tom Tomorrow says: "Welcome to the Never-Ending Conservative Carnival of Crazy"

And just imagine, this was before the news of Jon Huntsman's entry into the fray! (Jon Huntsman? Do any U.S. voters outside Utah even recognize the name?)

Jon Huntsman to seek Republican nomination for White House race
Former US ambassador to China served under Obama and had praised the president in the leaked diplomatic cables

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 June 2011 20.30 BST

Jon Huntsman announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and intention to take on former boss Barack Obama.

There are only a few positive remarks about Barack Obama dotted about in the embassy cables sent by former American ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, and subsequently leaked to WikiLeaks.

But they will be enough to cause problems for the latest Republican president candidate in the months ahead.

Huntsman, from a podium in New Jersey, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, announced on Tuesday that he would join the race to take on his old boss for the White House next year.

Confirming his intention to seek the nomination, he criticised the president's record and, in contrast with his time as ambassador when he projected American strength, portrayed the US as vulnerable.

"For the first time in our history, we are passing down to the next generation a country that is less powerful, less compassionate, less competitive and less confident than the one we got. This, ladies and gentlemen, is totally unacceptable and totally un-American," he said.

Huntsman, 51, could be a formidable presidential candidate, given his experience in foreign affairs and as a former governor of Utah. But many Republicans cannot forgive the fact that he served in the Obama administration.

The president approached Huntsman in 2009 and asked him to be the ambassador to Beijing, and Huntsman accepted, serving until this April. In that time, he worked alongside the Obama on issues ranging from climate change to human rights, and stood side by side with him when the president visited China.

It is rare in US politics for someone who worked for one president to turn around and challenge him. Huntsman's work in the Obama administration is almost certain to be raised by Republican rivals. It could also undercut his attacks on the president. . . .

COMMENTERS, PLEASE KEEP YOUR
FINGER OFF THE "CAPS LOCK" KEY

As I indicated in my reply, I had a tough call on a comment that didn't seem to me really on topic -- but that seemed heartfelt and not definitively off topic. I gave the commenter the benefit of the doubt, but with this proviso:

"What will be a deal-breaker next time is the use of all caps. That's an unforgivable imposition on readers, and please don't you or anyone else do that again. I didn't know till now that I have a rule against it. Now I know, and you do too."

#