Another Sunday

Most of the news is about tough times. But it is also about a president focused on doing precisely what he told us he would do. But first, humor .


Tom Tomorrow says Now it can be told:

At some point back in 2005 or so, I was exchanging email with a few friends, kicking around this idea that I’d had to start up a parody right wing blog — not actually an outright obvious satire like Jesus’ General, but rather, something that would walk the fine line between plausibility and idiocy, so that readers would never quite be sure if we were serious or not.

And we called it “Red State.”

No, I kid. The idea kind of fizzled out, though somebody at that point — maybe me, but I don’t want to take credit where it’s not due — came up with the name “Freedom Fist!”

In March, 2006 I wrote a cartoon about the “Nitpicking Squad” — based on the prevalent right-wing-blog tactic of, well, nitpicking. You know: “The President never said that specific word, so clearly liberals are completely wrong about everything, nyah nyah nyah.” And that got me to thinking once again about the mighty Fist. And to make a long story short, I snagged a few more people into my little scheme, and for about a month we had a great deal of fun. For instance: ...

DemfromCT has your Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up including this gem:

Maureen Dowd: Oh, goody! I get to talk about 42 advising 44. Nothing makes my day like a good disrepecting of both.

digby on one of Obama's truly bad choices: I'm not sure what the legal or moral distinction between Guantanamo and Bagram might be, but the history of both hellholes is so bad that they not only shouldn't they try to legally justify holding people there, they should destroy them completely.

FRANK RICH on the American habit of denialism: Pity our new president. As he rolls out one recovery package after another, he can’t know for sure what will work. If he tells the whole story of what might be around the corner, he risks instilling fear itself among Americans who are already panicked. (Half the country, according to a new Associated Press poll, now fears unemployment.) But if the president airbrushes the picture too much, the country could be as angry about ensuing calamities as it was when the Bush administration’s repeated assertion of “success” in Iraq proved a sham. Managing America’s future shock is a task that will call for every last ounce of Obama’s brains, temperament and oratorical gifts.


Benen on Obama planning for DEFICIT REDUCTION...: the White House is "putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget" that aims to cut the deficit in half over the next four years. Republicans who opposed the economic stimulus plan built their arguments around fears of long-term debt (I believe "generational theft" was the phrase of choice). So, will the GOP be thrilled to hear Obama's deficit reduction plan?

Probably not.

"Obama also seeks to increase tax collections, mainly by making good on his promise to eliminate some of the temporary tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. While the budget would keep the breaks that benefit middle-income families, it would eliminate them for wealthy taxpayers, defined as families earning more than $250,000 a year. Those tax breaks would be permitted to expire on schedule in 2011. That means the top tax rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, the tax on capital gains would jump to 20 percent from 15 percent for wealthy filers and the tax on estates worth more than $3.5 million would be maintained at the current rate of 45 percent.
Obama also proposes "a fairly aggressive effort on tax enforcement" that would target corporate loopholes, the official said. And Obama's budget seeks to tax the earnings of hedge fund managers as normal income rather than at the lower 15 percent capital gains rate."

Yglesias on Obama’s Budget:

Clearly the big story of the day is the deliberate leakage of Obama budget plans. The highlights:

1. Obama wants the 2013 deficit to be half the size of the 2009 deficit he inhereted.
2. The 2010 deficit is going to be large.
3. Specifically, we’ll go from $1.2 trillion in 2009 to $1.5 trillion in 2010 to $533 billion in 2013.
4. Spending cuts are expected to come from the expiration of stimulus money, from a reduction in “emergency” appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan, from reductions in Medicare Advantage giveaways to private insurance firms, and I believe from some other form of medical efficiencies.
5. Revenue enhancements are projected to come from the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, from ending the hedge fund manager’s loophole, and from carbon auction permits.
6. Overall, the idea is to get back down to a deficit of about 3 percent of GDP, but to have a better health care system when we do it.

I assume more and more info on this will become available in the next few days.

• Matt has Some Predictions:
  

• I endorse the following propositions:

1. At the end of Barack Obama’s administration, like at the end of Bill Clinton’s administration but unlike at the end of George W. Bush’s administration, the top marginal income tax rate will be higher than it was at the beginning.
2. At the end of Barack Obama’s administration, like at the end of Bill Clinton’s but unlike at the end of George W. Bush’s administration, median income will be higher than it was at the beginning.
3. At the end of Barack Obama’s administration, conservatives will still be obsessed with reducing the income tax burden on the wealthiest Americans as the key to sound economic policy.

hilzoy on Obama's Housing Plan:I've been puzzled by the response to Obama's housing plan. There seem to be a whole lot of people who think that it's mainly designed to help out people who knowingly got themselves into trouble by living beyond their means, while those of us who were financially responsible are left out in the cold. (There's a decent sample of these reactions here. Sample : "Obama has one word for those who didn't get in over their heads during the recent housing boom and have paid their mortgages on time: Suckers!")

I just don't get this. Obama's plan is not primarily aimed at people who acted irresponsibly. Recall that it has three main parts ...

• hilzoy on Obama's Housing Plan: The Second Time As Farce: One of the dumbest things I've heard about Obama's housing plan was on CNN last night ...
  

  "TOM FOREMAN: Many who oppose the bill, however, seem to understand it fine. They just think it's wrong.

  (on camera) Opponents argue this plan simply has no clear way to determine if a troubled homeowner added to his mortgage problems by spending too much money on other things, for example, sending his kids to private school or buying expensive cars or taking lavish vacations."

  Anyone who thinks that the mortgage plan should have a way to determine whether the people it's trying to help sent their kids to private schools or took expensive vacations or put in marble countertops is presumably willing to spend the large sums of money it would take to find that sort of thing out about the 3-4 million people the loan modification program is designed to reach. Moreover, s/he should be willing to accept the serious intrusion into people's privacy that this sort of investigation into people's past spending would entail. And s/he should also be prepared to reach many fewer people, since presumably a number of people would not be able to document that all their spending fell within whatever guidelines we deem acceptable. ... There are circumstances in which I'd be in favor of erring on the side of letting people who deserve help go unassisted. But for the reasons stated in my last post, these aren't them.

• AmericaBlog on CNBC & MSNBC agree - Santelli and CNBC are the best!
  ... Who needs to hear what others really think of a Wall Street apologist when they can simply ask fellow wingnuts? More fair and balanced.
  
  "Without providing any substantive response, on February 20, MSNBC twice promoted CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli's February 19 rant over what Santelli said was the government's "promoting bad behavior" and "subsidiz[ing] the losers' mortgages" through President Obama's proposed foreclosure reduction plan."

Benen on Obama KEEPING HEALTHCARE REFORM ON TRACK....: There's been ample speculation as to whether the Obama administration will pursue healthcare reform this year, but as the White House budget comes together, the issue remains very much on the front burner. ...

• Ezra Klein - IS OBAMA ABANDONING THE OFFICE OF HEALTH REFORM?:

  To calm my e-mailers down: The fact that the White House might dump the Office of Health Reform does not mean they're dumping health reform. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  The White House Office of Health Reform was an agency created at Tom Daschle's request to carry out Tom Daschle's vision of health reform. Its deputy director, Jeanne Lambrew, was co-author of Daschle's book on health care. Mark Childress, who would be jointly serve as chief of staff at HHS and the other deputy director at the Office of Health Reform, was Daschle's former chief counsel. This was Daschle's show -- his structure, his people, his strategy. ...
  

If you could invest in Repuglican stoopidity, it would be a growth stock in this dismal market. Take Richard Shelby for example:

• Benen - Why is it so painfully difficult to take the Republican Party seriously in the 21st century? Because they haven't quite figured out that credibility comes with a degree of political maturity. Another local resident [in Cullman County, Alabama] asked Shelby [yesterday] if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama's U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof. "Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate," Shelby said. "You have to be born in America to be president." ... It's far more annoying to have elected Republican officials in Tennessee signing on as plaintiffs in a lawsuit "aimed at forcing" the President to "prove he is a United States citizen." But the Shelby example is a different magnitude of idiocy. Shelby isn't just some random yahoo with a right-wing radio talk-show; he's a four-term United States senator. He's the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, for crying out loud. It's incumbent on him to be somewhat coherent and conduct himself with at least a little sanity. ... It seems a little early in Obama's presidency to see Republicans become this deranged. I shudder to think how unhinged they'll be in, say, a year.
• UPDATE: John Aravosis notes: I'm sure they say Dick Shelby has never been arrested for pedophilia, but I haven't seen any police records. You have to not be a pedophile to be a US Senator.
• And then, of course, there is this: Jindal rejects $98 million in stimulus spending

• Joe Klein on Bobby Jindal's Blustery Day:

Bobby Jindal is a very smart fellow. Back when he was in Congress, I'd try to check in with him every six months or so, just to see what he was thinking about. ... He was fairly relentlessly conservative, but sometimes quite creative and always intellectually honest.

In short, a different fellow from the one who appeared on Meet the Press today. This Jindal was relentlessly conservative, but not so intellectually honest.
...
At one point in the interview, Jindal--who seems to be running for President--trotted out the standard Republican boilerplate about the need for a package with more tax cuts, especially in the capital gains tax. David Gregory pointed out that we'd just had eight years of that philosophy, and it hadn't done very much to help job creation or median incomes. Jindal resorted to the Republican fantasy playbook ...

• UPDATE: It just keeps getting better. Benen on THE RACE TO BE THE CRAZIEST....
  

Not to be outdone, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) said he'll not only reject unemployment insurance, but will also "not take $42 million in funding for green buildings."

Yes, because there's nothing worse than paying construction crews to make buildings more energy efficient.

There's apparently a race among some far-right Republican governors -- all of whom are already eyeing the 2012 presidential race -- to see who can be slightly crazier than the other. Jindal is clearly a contender, and Sarah Palin and Mississippi's Haley Barbour are obviously in the mix, but Sanford seems especially driven to get out in front of the pack.

...

It is Neo-Hooverism in its most obvious form.

Sanford added, by the way, that supporters of the economic recovery package are "the real fringe" in American politics. Got that? The "fringe" includes the popular president, a majority of the Senate, a majority of the House, a majority of the governors, labor unions, the Chamber of Commerce, and 60% of the American people.

And then there is repuglican venality. DailyKos' Darksyde on Dirty Fingers

What if the Republican Party was eager to help people struggling in the face of crisis? Sounds crazy, but imagine for a second a GOP that celebrates the democratic process, that honors the will of the people, and counsel partisans to put differences aside. Picture Republicans standing shoulder to shoulder to build a brighter future for all citizens, think of them encouraging the nation to roll up their sleeves and get to work repairing aging infrastructure, building hospitals, schools, and creating brand new public utilities to distribute clean water and reliable electricity. This hypothetical GOP would never have to choose between country and party -- for they would be one and the same. And when attacked by religious fundamentalists or fringe ideologues for any of the above, they would close ranks with their freely elected rivals, and campaign ferociously with all their vaunted messaging discipline, an endless barrage of intelligent rationale mixed with devastating one-liners, delivered to cameras and microphones 24/7, from AM radio stations blaring on Main Street to press conferences live from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Given conservative contempt for helping Americans out of the Bush Depression these last few weeks, that kind of Republican Party sounds incomprehensible. But it's not, and you don’t have to imagine it, they're already here, with one small catch: the nation is Iraq.

For Republicans, no cost to American taxpayers was too high, no sacrifice of life and limb for US families is too great -- when the nation in need is Iraq. ...

UPDATE: Greenwald Fox News "war games" the coming civil war :

Bill Clinton's election in 1992 gave rise to the American "militia movement": hordes of overwhelmingly white, middle-aged men from suburban and rural areas who convinced themselves they were defending the American way of life from the "liberals" and "leftists" running the country by dressing up in military costumes on weekends, wobbling around together with guns, and play-acting the role of patriot-warriors.
...
What was most remarkable about this allegedly "anti-government" movement was that -- with some isolated and principled exceptions -- it completely vanished upon the election of Republican George Bush, and it stayed invisible even as Bush presided over the most extreme and invasive expansion of federal government power in memory.
...
But now, only four weeks into the presidency of Barack Obama, they are back -- angrier and more chest-beating than ever. Actually, the mere threat of an Obama presidency was enough to revitalize them from their eight-year slumber, awaken them from their camouflaged, well-armed suburban caves.
...
But as feisty and fire-breathing as those outbursts are, nothing can match -- for pure, illustrative derangement -- the discussion below from Glenn Beck's new Fox show this week, in which he and an array of ex-military and CIA guests ponder (and plot and plan) "war games" for the coming Civil War against Obama-led tyranny. It really has to be seen to be believed. ...

• sgw adds: The Evolution Of What It Means To Be Patriotic: WingNut Edition
  

• At a time of great crisis in this country they choose to try to exort our citizens to take to the streets and engage in violent acts against their government primarily because President Obama is now in charge. I know that the media is affording wide latitude with our country's protection of free speech but how this "report" isn't the very definition of an act of treason I will never know. There is absolutely no acknowledgement that there are people in this country who aren't right in the head and will take this "report" as a sign that they need to act. And my question is if and or when that happens will FoxNews and Glen Beck be held liable?