/heartbreaking

So Long, My Boy

Morning Reading: Markets on Crack Edition

Benen: WHO AMONG US WOULD FALL FOR THE NASCAR PRANK?....

It probably seemed, at first, like an amusing idea of an April Fools' Day prank. Car and Driver magazine "reported" that President Obama told Chevrolet and Dodge this week that they would only be eligible for federal aid if they pulled out of NASCAR events. The move, the "article" said, would save more than $250 million.

The prank caused quite an uproar, the magazine apologized, and editors later acknowledged the joke went "too far." The parody piece has since been pulled from the Car and Driver website.

The funny part, as it turns out, is seeing who fell for the prank.

In her April 1 column, Ann Coulter fell for a fake April Fools' Day article by Car and Driver magazine that claimed that President Obama has ordered General Motors and Chrysler to cease their participation in NASCAR because it is an "unnecessary expenditure." Coulter wrote, "If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an 'unnecessary expenditure,' isn't having public schools force students to follow Muslim rituals, recite Islamic prayers and plan 'jihads' also an 'unnecessary expenditure'?"

Oddly enough, Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that no one would fall for the NASCAR joke. Oops.

For what it's worth, Coulter's column has not yet been corrected. That's not necessarily a surprise -- the whole point of Coulter pieces is to deceive the reading audience -- but it arguably makes the embarrassment slightly worse.

Jason Linkins concluded, "Naturally, one wonders if this revelation will even matter to Coulter, since an Obama-hates-NASCAR message is something she can just go right on asserting in her credibility-free haunts without fear of being called out for it."

Sully's Quote For The Day IV

"Now we've met, will you please keep in touch?" - her Majesty the Queen, to Michelle Obama.

The usual suspects are crowing about an alleged breach of protocol - although as Ed Morrissey points out, the Queen started it by putting her hand around Michelle's back affectionately. The Times of London explains:

A breach of protocol? Hardly. Buckingham Palace was very relaxed today about the incident, and attitudes there have changed significantly since the days of Mr Keating and his lese-majesty. And no, they don’t issue instructions to people about not touching the Queen. “This was a mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation between The Queen and Michelle Obama,” said a Palace spokeswoman.

What they don't quite understand is how Michelle Obama's informality and realness was a huge hit, even among the royals. London was agog. This is an America Britons actually relate to in the 21st century. Her best moment came at a London school for girls. I'll let the Telegraph explain the rest:

Fighting tears at one point, she described her audience as "the future leaders of Great Britain and this world". She said: "Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. "For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would standing here as the first African-American First Lady. "I was not raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of." She spoke of the importance of love, strong values, education and a "whole lotta hard work" as she described her childhood, and said: "You too, with these values, can control your own destiny, you too can pave the way. "I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. "I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity. "Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude. "We are counting on you, we are counting on every single one of you to be the best that you can be." Mrs Obama provoked hysteria at the school as she arrived, as more than 300 onlookers lined the street nearby.

Yes, the Telegraph is the Tory paper. Not all conservatives look at the Obamas and feel revulsion.

(Photo: Students from the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Language School in London hug US First Lady Michelle Obama during a visit to the school on April 2, 2009. Michelle Obama dared touch Queen Elizabeth II, but the US first lady has made such an impact in Britain that she was spared the media savaging that has gone with previous breaches of royal protocol. The pair met at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday. The British monarch put her arm around the waist of President's Barack Obama's wife. The much taller first lady responded by putting an arm around the queen. By Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

• A different view from Aravosis on Eric Cantor's buddy, Rush Limbaugh, opines about "anal poisoning"
  

• 24 hours before the #2 Republican in the House, Eric Cantor, says publicly that Rush Limbaugh is the person he looks to for ideas on how to solve the economic crisis,

  Rush Limbaugh is the person he looks to for ideas on how to solve the economic crisis, Cantor's buddy Limbaugh says the following about Gordon Brown's kind words about Barack Obama in London. Mind you, they were at a summit to address the economic crisis:

  "The slobbering... this guy... Folks I'm telling you, he, if he keeps this up throughout the G20, Gordon Brown will come down with anal poisoning and may die from it."

  
  
  Yes yes, Limbaugh is an idiot, so who cares? Well, when you have the number two Republican in the US House of Representatives praising this idiot as the man with ideas, then we should all be concerned. It's not like the Republicans are a permanent minority party, yet.

Limbaugh not getting any love from Stewart. (h/t sgw)

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Aravosis: Finally, a true leader

AMERICAblog reader Mark caught this one on Jake Tapper's blog this morning.

According to sources inside the room, President Obama just played peacemaker in a spat between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China....

"China tends to have a problem endorsing the documents of organizations like the OECD that they're not a party to," the senior administration official said.

But Mr. Obama, according to this account, stepped between the two men, urging them to try to find consensus, and giving them a "pep talk" about the importance of working together.

The senior adminstration official said that Mr. Obama pulled Mr. Sarkozy aside, took him to a corner, "and discussed possible alternatives," the senior official said.

Once they arrived at one, President Obama "sent a message to the Chinese" that a counter-offer was on the table. The Chinese spent some time considering the offer. But they took a few minutes.

So Mr. Obama, with the assistance of translators, suggested that he and Mr. Hu have a conversation as well. They, too went to the corner to talk. After a few minutes, Mr. Obama called upon Mr. Sarkozy to join them.

"Translators and sherpas in tow, they reached an agreement," the official said. "There was a multiple shaking of hands."

No souls involved.

• The Catholic Church disagrees. Sudbay: Chicago's Cardinal: It's an "extreme embarrassment" that Obama is speaking at Notre Dame

  Okay, most people would think protecting child molesters and harboring Nazi apologists would be extremely embarrassing for an organization. But, most people aren't leaders of the Catholic Church, which has incredibly misplaced priorities:
  
  Cardinal Francis George is urging Catholics "to call, to e-mail, to write letters" about the "extreme embarrassment" the University of Notre Dame has caused by inviting President Barack Obama to speak at its commencement next month.
  
  But George acknowledged, at a weekend conference on human dignity and infertility, that the South Bend university is "not going to disinvite the president ... no matter what you do."
  
  The Catholic Cardinals and Archbishops kissed George Bush's ass for eight years. They never held him accountable. Ever.
  
  The cardinal should be telling people to call, to email, to write letters to Congress to pass the budget so the U.S. can get the economy moving again. That sounds like a better use of time and resources when people are losing their jobs and their homes.
  
  Except for those crazy Catholics fanatics like Bill Donohue, no one else really cares. In fact, I checked with one of the most devout Catholics I know, my mother, Rita, who was adamant:
  
  I think it's great. There isn't any reason he shouldn't. The church should put more time into helping people and get over it. I'm just happy that Notre Dame isn't stopping him.
  
  I trust my mother's instincts on this more than any Catholic bishop.

Sully: What The Hell Just Happened On Wall Street?

The econiverse is skeptical of today's mark-to-market decision and rally. James Kwak:

Today the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted - by one vote - to relax accounting standards for certain types of securities, giving banks greater discretion in determining what price to carry them at on their balance sheets. The new rules were sought by the American Bankers Association, and not surprisingly will allow banks to increase their reported profits and strengthen their balance sheets by allowing them to increase the reported values of their toxic assets...I don’t know any of the back-room dealing, but it seems like the banking industry is taking advantage of the confusion to push through a change it wants, because it will make it easier for banks to massage their balance sheets and harder for investors to see what is really going on.

A reader adds:

The traders just got a big rock of crack. This is called a bear market bubble, and it's going to do damage. The fact that stocks still went up significantly in spite of rather horrifying unemployment numbers coming out the same day tells you: a big rock of crack.

Justin Fox:

One can never know for sure why the stock market does what it does on a daily basis—it could just be excitement about those Sizzling G-20 Wives—but the fact that financial stocks are up more than the overall market would seem to indicate that there's something to the FASB-did-it explanation.

There is of course something very weird about this. Investors seem to be saying: Banks now have permission to lie to us more, so let's bid up their stock prices! Then again, if investors are that dumb, maybe it makes sense for accountants to pay less attention to market prices in valuing the assets on banks' books.

Paul Kedrosky:

Unbelievable the amount of spurious silliness being spewed about mark-to-market today. People have their facts wrong -- most financial services mark a small percentage of their assets to market today; GE Capital is at 2% -- and we are giving banks a pass in terms of how they report losses and value goofy assets.

Sudbay: Governor Sanford is being pummeled by South Carolinians

Our friend, South Carolinian Alvin McEwen, passed along a post he wrote about the media backlash underway against the state's Governor, Mark Sanford, for his politicking with stimulus money:

To put it nicely, Governor Sanford is being destroyed, annihilated, and figuratively tarred and feathered for his stance against taking stimulus money to help education.

I don't think that I have ever seen an editorial page take such as vocal position. Other than one letter to the editor and a some comments, Sanford has absolutely NO support.

And as well he shouldn't. He was elected to be the guardian of the citizens of South Carolina. And how can you be a guardian if you choose your political future over the needs of those you are elected to serve.

Today's editorial in The State is titled "The state of South Carolina vs. Gov. Mark Sanford: A chorus of opposition":

THAT FAVORITE conservative punching bag, The New York Times, handed Gov. Mark Sanford a fabulous gift Monday when it chastised him for refusing to request $700 million in federal stimulus funding that our state so clearly needs. That let the governor frame this as his battle against “the left-leaning media.” But that ignores the near-unanimity of media opinion here in South Carolina — from the conservative Upstate to the hometown paper that has been Mr. Sanford’s most consistent supporter.

The Aiken Standard begged the governor to request the funds. The Rock Hill Herald’s opinion editor, James Werrell, wrote that “anyone who would consider turning down federal help in getting this state back on its feet should be tarred and feathered.” The Anderson Independent-Mail argued that “Not accepting the money does nothing for South Carolina except perhaps enhance the governor’s image as the conservative’s conservative in the national arena with regard to fiscal matters.”

And on and on across the state, editorial pages echo most of the state’s Republican officeholders and the public (in the past week, our letters to the editor have been running 4-to-1 against the governor’s position).

The Governor is at war with his constituents just to score cheap political points with the hard-core GOP nuts who will pick the party's presidential nominee in 2012. The people of South Carolina are onto Sanford.

Sanford's actions also fit into the general theme that there's not really an economic crisis. It's a pervasive attitude among Republicans. If it's not a real crisis, it's okay to play political games. That's what Sanford is doing.

Stoopid repuglicans: Tax Fairy Edition

John Amato asks: Why is John McCain talking about "his" budget proposal on CNN? If I'm not mistaken, didn't McCain lose the election? And the major reason was because of his nonexistent economic skills so why would people care? The best political team wants to know.

Sully: Not April Fools

Question: What makes Erick Erickson so mad that he stokes revolution? He writes:

At what point do [citizens] get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?...Were I in Washington State, I’d be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots or the government apparatchiks coming to enforce nonsensical legislation.

Answer: "a ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution."

Yglesias gets his licks in.

John Cole finds The Next Victim

Of the smear brigades:

It’s 11:45 a.m. on April 1, and if you run a Google News search on Harold Koh, dean of Yale Law School and President Obama’s pick for legal adviser to the State Department, here’s what you’ll find: 13 pieces on far-right Web sites characterizing Koh as dangerous and anti-American; several Fox News stories, updated several times daily, one of which describes the anti-Koh screeds as “burning up the Internet”; and a measly two blog posts defending Koh from these attacks. By the time you read this, I suspect that Fox News will have a scrolling red banner that reads, “Obama’s Koh pick imperils us all” (and … wait for it … BINGO!), the anti-Koh pieces will number 18, and the pro-Koh blog posts will number three.

You know where this is going, don’t you? His only sin was to be appointed.

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Yglesias: April Fool’s Budget Relies on Inconsistent Tax Rates

The April Fool’s Budget released today contains, naturally, generous tax cuts for the wealthy. One such tax break is that they propose to offer Americans a “choice” between the current tax system, or else you could choose to pay a marginal tax rate for income up to $100,000 of 10 percent and 25 percent for any income thereafter.” Since right now the top marginal tax rate is 35 percent, that would be a huge tax cut for wealthy Americans. And of course wealthy Americans would choose the option that’s cheaper for them. This would sharply reduce government revenue and lead to large budget deficits.

But one of the April Fool’s Plan’s conceits is that it’s supposed to produce low deficits. How to accomplish that? Well, Ryan Grim points out that one thing Paul Ryan did to make the math work out is assume people would choose to pay the higher rate:

But the real way that Republicans offer the tax cut without factoring it into the budget’s revenue is to suggest that Americans won’t actually take advantage of the lower rates. Instead, the GOP budget permanently extends President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. A Republican budget committee aid said that the revenues assumed in the GOP budget are based on the current tax structure that resulted from those cuts. […] Under the current tax code, an individual making more than $160,850 pays a 33 percent rate; under the Republican plan, that taxpayer could choose to pay 25 percent instead. (For a family, the income threshold is $195,850.) For a family earning more than $349,700, the rate rises to 35 percent, but filers could still choose the 25 percent rate.

It would be nice to have a real debate between progressive and conservative ideas about the course of public policy instead of needing to spend all this time hunting around for gimmicks.

Benen: THE RIGHT WON'T LET THE TAX FAIRY GO....

The National Review's Andy McCarthy had an item yesterday, which was not an April Fools' joke, and which served as a helpful reminder of why discussing tax policy with conservative activists tends to be frustrating.

We know that lowering marginal tax rates can increase federal revenue, but it's clear that the President won't cut taxes (not even for "95 percent of Americans"). So we need a Plan B....

So, if the government lowers taxes, the argument goes, government revenue necessarily goes up. It's something "we" already know. Indeed, it's so obviously true to McCarthy, he doesn't bother to explain how he came to believe such nonsense.

The idea has been around for years, and it's known in some circles as the "Tax Fairy" argument -- all we have to do is lower taxes and, like magic, the Tax Fairy will boost revenues. Under this approach to tax policy, tax cuts just pay for themselves.

The problem, of course, is that the argument is wildly wrong. Dean Baker recently explained, "It is amazing to me that people have treated this as though it is a debatable point, because it is really not." Or, as A.L. noted yesterday:

[I]t's demonstrably, empirically untrue. We've lowered marginal tax rates multiple times, and it never produces more revenue. Even the most ardent supply-side economists don't believe that tax cuts fully pay for themselves (they believe only a fraction of lost revenues are offset by supply-side effects).

In other words, only complete crackpots believe that McCarthy's "Plan A" would increase revenue. Sadly, with respect to this issue, virtually all mainstream Republicans are now complete crackpots. Which goes a long way toward explaining why the Republican party's budget proposals make absolutely no sense. How can you craft a coherent budget when your only idea for raising revenue is to massively cut revenue? If you're working from that premise, why bother coming up with numbers at all?

What's more, even if we accept McCarthy's foolishness at face value, why wouldn't officials just cut taxes all the time? As Matt noted, tax cuts tend to go over well with voters, so political leaders have an incentive to keep cutting. If "we know" lowering marginal tax rates can increase federal revenue, why would any politician ever oppose more tax cuts?

As for McCarthy's contention that President Obama "won't cut taxes ... even for 95 percent of Americans," didn't we just have this debate? Hasn't Obama already cut taxes for 95% of Americans?

How odd.

benen: SENATE GOP DABBLES IN BUDGET POLICY....

House Republicans clearly had some trouble crafting a budget alternative, and when the caucus finally unveiled a proposal, it was a rather pathetic joke. But what about the upper chamber? Will Senate Republicans try to be constructive and offer a budget blueprint of their own? At this point, it's a little hard to say.

John McCain said on Sunday that the Senate GOP caucus is "working very hard" on their own alternative budget plan. Mitch McConnell said on Monday that the caucus is doing no such thing. McCain leaked word on Tuesday that Senate Republicans really are moving forward with their own budget proposal, but they're bypassing the GOP leadership and the Senate Budget Committee. Judd Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, said yesterday he's prepared to vote for the GOP alternative budget, which he said is unlikely to exist.

When it comes to Republican policy making, one gets the sense the right hand doesn't know what the far-right hand is doing.

As of last night, it seems McCain -- undeterred by having his economic agenda rejected by the electorate -- will unveil a budget alternative sometime today.

The McCain budget, which comes on the same day GOP House leaders introduced their own version of the budget, would spend $229 billion less than President Obama's over five years, primarily by freezing all discretionary spending with the exception of defense and veterans' services. [...]

McCain's budget would also make permanent the Bush tax cuts, provide a permanent fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax, and set up a special commission on entitlements that would seek to "reduce mandatory spending by at least 4 percent over the next 5 years, and 7 percent over the next decade," according to the fact sheet.

McCain has been working with a small circle of allies on the proposal, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

Cut taxes, cut Social Security, cut spending in the midst of a deep recession. It's the agenda that McCain presented to voters last year, and aparently, he hasn't gotten the hint.

I still find it hard to believe anyone, least of all an experienced senator, would look at our economic crisis and recommend a spending freeze, better yet a five-year spending freeze. As David Brooks recently said, "A lot of Republicans up in Capitol Hill right now are calling for a spending freeze in a middle of a recession/depression. That is insane."

It really is. Josh Marshall explained a few weeks ago, "When the crisis is a rapid and catastrophic drop off in demand, you handcuff the one force that can create demand (i.e., the federal government) in the throes of the contraction. That's insane. Levels of stimulus are a decent question. Intensifying the contraction is just insane and frankly a joke."

In some ways, McCain has become more ridiculous as the crisis has grown more serious. Last fall, he wanted a one-year spending freeze. As the need for government intervention has grown, McCain has gone in the opposite direction.

Assuming these GOP lawmakers aren't deliberately trying to undermine the strength of the country, it's hard to wrap one's head around such irresponsibility. McCain and his cohorts believe the best way to address a raging economic fire is to turn off the spigots for the firefighters. Food stamps, unemployment benefits, infrastructure, health care, education -- all of these stimulative efforts would be slashed through 2014, at the exact time we need to spend more, not less.

The pre-recession mentality keeps getting scarier.

George Will: Willfully Ignorant Edition

Tim F: Now you know why Atrios calls them “zombie lies.” But on reflection ‘zombie’ still doesn’t cover the perversity of this phenomenon. In most movies a zombie will go down if you hit it in the head hard enough. Rightwing lies aren’t just hard to kill, they get stronger the more thoroughly you kill them. Wingnut rumors function more like that mythical critter that grew two heads every time Hercules cut one off, except even the hydra eventually died.

Benen: WILL'S GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT....

Why George Will would choose to return to the issue of global warming is beyond me, but there he goes again.

"Fervently" is how America will henceforth engage in talks on global warming. So said the president's climate change negotiator Sunday in Germany, at a U.N. conference on reducing carbon emissions. This vow was fervently applauded by conferees welcoming the end of what the AP news story called the Bush administration's "eight years of obdurate participation" in climate talks.

Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming, which is allegedly occurring even though, according to statistics published by the World Meteorological Organization, there has not been a warmer year on record than 1998.

It gets worse from there -- these are just the first two paragraphs -- but let's pause to appreciate how wrong the column is from the start.

The first problem is obvious: "Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming." Wrong. No one's saying that at all. The point is to reduce emissions to prevent global warming from getting worse. Will not only doesn't understand the nature of the crisis, he doesn't even understand the nature of the arguments.

The other problem is with singling out 1998, an unusually hot year. As Jon Chait explained, Will "fails to understand a very basic concept in data that you don't need any particular social science expertise to grasp, which is that trends don't always move in a perfectly straight line. The planet has been getting warmer, and there was an extreme spike in 1998. Both these things can be true."

Will really should just avoid this topic altogether. For that matter, the Post's editors should probably take a closer look at the column when Will submits items like these for publication.

Time to repeat Tim F.'s classic Fear Is The Mind Killer:

Fear can be useful with respect to decisions like, say, whether or not to chase a bear with a stick, but for higher-level thinking the frightened state of mind blows goats. People do irrational, stupid, senselessly violent things when motivated by fear.

Naturally fear has its political uses. Steering a frightened public towards a stupid policy is, so to speak, frighteningly easy. When terrorists attacked America a normal leadership would have gone out of its way to reassure people and calm nerves. The GOP went the other way, maybe disgracefully, but in naked terrorist fear Republicans found a winning meal ticket at a time when national polls put them on the wrong side of virtually every issue.

Anyhow, on the topic social science that we should probably leave alone but due to some personal flaw just can’t, here are two more editions of science revealing what we already know.

First, an unpleasant surprise frightens conservatives more than liberals.

[Subjects] were attached to equipment to measure skin conductivity, which rises with emotional stress as the moisture level in skin goes up. Each participant was shown threatening images, such as a bloody face interspersed with innocuous pictures of things such as bunnies, and rise in skin conductance in response to the shocking image was measured. The other measure was the involuntary eye blink that people have in response to something startling, such as a sudden loud noise. The scientists measured the amplitude of blinks via electrodes that detected muscle contractions under people’s eyes.

The researchers found that both of these responses correlated significantly with whether a person was liberal or conservative socially. Subjects who had expressed a high level of support for policies “protecting the social unit” showed a much larger change in skin conductance in response to alarming photos than those who didn’t support such policies. Similarly, the mean blink amplitude for the socially protective subjects was significantly higher, the team reports in tomorrow’s issue of Science. Co-author Kevin Smith says the results showed that automatic fear responses are better predictors of protective attitudes than sex or age (men and older people tend to be more conservative).

To be honest this result is so un-novel that it’s almost a tautology. One basic definition of conservatism is a negative reaction to whatever is new and shocking at a given point in time, whether the problem du jour is interreligious marriage, interracial marriage or gay marriage. Social progress generally involves accepting things that shock most people who see it for the first time relatively late in life. The liberal deals with his shock and gets over it where the conservative internalizes his discomfort and transforms it into a Kantian moral imperative. Finding out that unpleasant surprise impacts the conservative more strongly therefore beats reporting that the sun will come up in the east tomorrow, but not by much.

On the other hand, it’s curious to find that disproving rightwing lies only makes them believe it more.

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation—the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar “backfire effect” also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might “argue back” against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same “backfire effect” when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration’s stance on stem cell research.

Now you know why Atrios calls them “zombie lies.” But on reflection ‘zombie’ still doesn’t cover the perversity of this phenomenon. In most movies a zombie will go down if you hit it in the head hard enough. Rightwing lies aren’t just hard to kill, they get stronger the more thoroughly you kill them. Wingnut rumors function more like that mythical critter that grew two heads every time Hercules cut one off, except even the hydra eventually died. By comparison about 29% of America continue to think that Saddam had a WMD program and sat down with bin Laden to plan 9/11. In that sense the hydra is a piker next to rightwing stupidity. There’s nothing like it.

Lunchtime Videos

BBC Penguins (April 1, 2008)


Yglesias: Beck: We’re Marching Toward Fascism

Every time I watch Glenn Beck I think to myself, “the next time I watch Glenn Beck he’ll be saying something less crazy than this; he’s hit the bottom of the barrel.” And yet:

Ali Frick notes “Though Beck claimed he didn’t mean ‘Adolf Hitler kind of fascism’ and that he was talking about ‘fascism with a happy face,’ he illustrated his point with more than a minute’s worth of Nazi footage, played dramatically on the full screen behind him.”

Beck not only manages to get good ratings, but serious players in the conservative movement appear on his show regularly. It’s enough to make you pine for Rush Limbaugh.

Colbert Mocks Beck:

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Rachel and the motorized bar stool:

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Uncomfortable

Rachel asks Powell about torture.

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Morning News: Repuglican "Budget" Edition

Josh sees Appeasement: Obama agrees unilaterally not to look into Russian leader's soul.

Avedon:

You know, I just can't help questioning Eric Holder's priorities.

I'm not saying the prosecution in question wasn't dirty. What I want to know is why it was at the top of the list. As Scott Horton says:

The misconduct by prosecutors in the Stevens case, bad as it was, is trivial compared to what went on in a number of other political prosecutions which have been profiled here–the Siegelman case, the prosecutions of Paul Minor and two Mississippi judges, and the prosecution of Cyril Wecht.

Signed,
Not Atrios

Sully: Booze And Teens

A new and serious study finds its effects far worse than marijuana:

Abnormalities have been seen in brain structure volume, white matter quality, and activation to cognitive tasks, even in youth with as little as 1-2 years of heavy drinking and consumption levels of 20 drinks per month, especially if >4-5 drinks are consumed on a single occasion. Heavy marijuana users show some subtle anomalies too, but generally not the same degree of divergence from demographically similar non-using adolescents.

The pot-prohibitionists have no arguments any more. And at some point, even in America, that has to matter, no?

John Cole: Cat Handcuffs (AKA Pig in a Blanket)

At some point today while I was trying to get work done, a certain cat stood behind me and yowled for an hour and a half straight. I tried to pet him. He yowled more. I checked his food. It was fine. He yowled more. I tried to play with him. He yowled. I shot him in the face with a squirt bottle. He yowled and ran out of the room, and came back in and starting meowing again. I shut him out of the room and he stood by the door and scratched at it while meowing.

Finally, I grabbed him and rolled him up in a towel like a dead person in a carpet:

Oddly enough, he stayed there like that for a half hour and seemed to like it. We have a really weird relationship.

Gail Collins: The People Have Mumbled

We were so excited about that special Congressional election in upstate New York. Finally, a chance to find out whether the nation really approves of what Barack Obama has been doing!

You cannot figure these things out with tea leaves or polls. Just ask the Republicans in Washington. They certainly would be giving Obama more help if the country really demanded it. But what if the people who said nice things about the president to the pollsters just liked Michelle’s vegetable garden?

And who better to set us straight than the residents of a nearly 200-mile-long district that was gerrymandered so carefully for the G.O.P. that it wound up looking like an outline of Bart Simpson doing a swan dive? Or perhaps a designer boot with fire coming out of the toe.

...

NYT Editorial: The Forgotten Rich

The Senate budget debate began this week against a backdrop of war and recession, rising unemployment and surging foreclosures, runaway health care costs and diminishing insurance coverage — to name just a few of the nation’s big problems. But for Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, and Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, the most pressing issue is clear: America’s wealthiest families need help. Now.

The two senators plan to propose an amendment to deeply cut estate taxes for the fraction of the top 1 percent of the population still subject to those levies.

The proverbial millionaires next door — the plumbers, contractors and accountants who amass substantial wealth through hard work and modest living — are not the intended beneficiaries of the proposed cut. The Obama budget already takes care of them, because it retains today’s law, which imposes the estate tax only on couples with property worth more than $7 million, or individuals with property worth more than $3.5 million. That means 99.8 percent of estates will never — ever — pay a penny of estate tax.

The heirs of the remaining 0.2 percent of estates are who Ms. Lincoln and Mr. Kyl are so worried about. Their amendment would increase to $10 million the level at which the estate tax kicks in. It would also lower the top estate-tax rate to 35 percent from 45 percent.

With all the serious work before Congress, it is a colossal waste of time to have to rebut the false claims and warped premises of ardent estate-tax cutters. Ms. Lincoln’s and Mr. Kyl’s colleagues in the Senate should make short work of it and move on to urgent matters.

In addition to creating the false impression that the estate tax eventually hits everyone — by mislabeling it a “death tax” — opponents routinely ...
...

I increasingly think Summers was a terrible choice as economic advisor. TPM Headline:

Harvard Analyst Was Fired For Emailing Summers About 'Frightening' Trades

Investment Analyst Rang Alarm On Derivatives In Harvard Fund

DougJ: Seventy years of solitude

I’m not so much in the mood to make fun of Congressional Republicans today, but I’d be remiss if I let this pass:

JMM writes:

This is the scoring the House Republicans have provided, tracking Democratic budget policy and theirs over the next 70 years. As you can see, predicting ideological stances over as yet unborn Democratic members of Congress, the GOP scoring appears to have us on track for the government owning about 90% of the economy in the early-mid-22nd century, which if I remember is about the time period of the invention of the warp drive. So I don’t know if they’ve figured that in too.

Even the Politico gets in on the act a bit:

“If you expected a GOP alternative to the failed policies of the past that got our country into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, then I have two words for you: April Fool’s,” said Kenneth Baer, communications director for the Office of Management and Budget.

Indeed, many of the tax ideas show no effort to temper those tax breaks — under the Bush Administration—which most benefit upper income families. And Ryan would add on top of this a cut in the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent and temporarily suspend all capital gains taxes for 2009 and 2010.

This is just embarrassing. It’s like watching a Pauly Shore movie.

• Josh Marshall says: Wow, That's Cool The House GOP budget plan also includes the abolition of Medicare.
• atrios: Big Government Conservatives Yes, it's long been a mystery why conservatives dream of growing the government through tax cuts. Actually the mystery is that this type of nonsense and the people who spout it are given a platform, that these obvious absurdities are given a "fair" hearing.

As always, Rachel sums the repuglican budget up accurately, concisely, and with abundant snark.

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Sargent: MSNBC: It’s News That GOP Budget Has Numbers In It

Okay, this one is funny. Today the House GOP, led by Rep Paul Ryan, finally released their alternative budget.

And it really is a sign of the times that MSNBC proclaimed that the news here is that the GOP budget actually has numbers in it this time.

Check out how MSNBC presented the story today (click to enlarge):

The headline reads:

GOP Releases Detailed Budget Plan With Specific Numbers

The fact that this headline was delivered with no trace of irony whatsoever underscores yet again how politically disastrous it was for the Republicans to release the earlier, numbers-free version. It would really be interesting to know who made the final decision to go with that.

• From Sargent's Happy Hour Roundup:

  * Yes, John McCain will be offering an alternative budget, as has been rumored. His spokesperson, Brooke Buchanan, confirms to me that he’ll be offering that alternative on the Senate floor this evening. Details when we get them.
  
  Update: Details on McCain’s budget proposal here.
  
  * But McCain’s budget isn’t being done with the support of Senate GOP leaders. Another leading Repubilcan Senator is confirming what I reported below: The leadership is unlikely to follow the House GOP and Rep. Paul Ryan in producing an alternative budget of its own, which would render the House version moot.
  
  A spokesperson for Senate GOP whip Jon Kyl emails:
  
  We certainly support the goals of Congressman Ryan, but we just received the text today and can’t say whether we’ll offer something similar in the Senate.

Sargent: Joe The Plumber Admits He Knows “Little” About EFCA, Gets Jeered By Workers

Oof. Looks like Joe the Plumber’s campaigning against the Employee Free Choice Act in Pennsylvania didn’t go so well.

Mr. Plumber, whose appearances were organized by the anti-EFCA group Americans for Prosperity, admitted he knew “little” about the legislation after being confronted with questions at one of the events yesterday in Harrisburg by a Pennsylvania progressive group. He was also heckled by dozens of Pennsylvania union workers, according to a local report.

And after his rough time in Harrisburg, he skipped a subsequent rally in Philadelphia, according to union officials who were there.

Here’s some video of the grilling Mr. Plumber took from the group, Keystone Progress, which prompted the irritated plumber to respond: “I know a little about a lot of things. But I don’t know a lot about everything.”…

Pressed on the specifics of the law, Mr. Plumber repeatedly refused to answer, and finally lost his cool, telling his questioner: “Drop it, brother, drop it. I never said I was an expert, man.”

Meanwhile, the Patriot News reports that union members who were bussed to the rally jeered and heckled Mr. Plumber.

“Rat! Rat! Rat!” some shouted. Another yelled: “Real plumbers are for card check!”

According to the Patriot News, Mr. Plumber admitted at one point that he hadn’t read the bill.

The tough time Mr. Plumber endured was apparently too much for him. He was scheduled to appear at a subsequent rally against EFCA in Philadelphia, but according to the SEIU, which had several organizers on the scene, he was a no-show.

Cetacea Culture

NPR had me rolling on the floor this afternoon. Follow the link to Letters: A Sample Of Listeners' Comments and click on Listen Now.

It is, of course, April 1.

Lunchtime Video: 3-Card Monty Edition

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All the policy ....

Sudbay: House Democrats begin push for comprehensive energy legislation

Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) held a conference call this morning to discuss comprehensive energy legislation. This debate is starting because Markey, who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Climate Change, joined with House Energy, and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman released a draft of their legislation titled, “The American Clean Energy and Security Act”

Pelosi stated that this legislation would put us on "a new path." She offered praise for President Obama, who put an emphasis in his budget on energy. She also said passing the budget this week is the first step in this process. Pelosi maintains the new energy bill addresses a national security issue, economic issue, environmental health issue and a “moral issue to preserve god’s creation.” The Speaker's statement and links to the draft documents can be found on her blog, The Gavel.

Pelosi also dismissed the criticism of those who say that while we're in an economic crisis, it's not the right time to move forward on energy. She said that is a "False choice" maintaining the way to fix the economy is to grow the new economy and our reduce dependence on fossil fuel.

Pelosi also laid out an aggressive schedule. She hopes to pass the final bill in the House no later than July.

Pelosi also said its passage will require outside mobilization. Congressman Markey echoed the need for activist support because there will be many who try to put up roadblocks to its passage. He predicted an incredibly intense political debate and avowed that U.S leadership needed on energy issues.

A synopisis of the proposed draft was posted on the Energy Committee's website:

The American Clean Energy and Security Act will create millions of new clean energy jobs, save consumers hundreds of billions of dollars in energy costs, enhance America’s energy independence, and cut global warming pollution. To meet these goals, the legislation has four titles:

* A clean energy title that promotes renewable sources of energy, carbon capture and sequestration technologies, low-carbon fuels, clean electric vehicles, and the smart grid and electricity transmission;
* An energy efficiency title that increases energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy, including buildings, appliances, transportation, and industry;
* A global warming title that places limits on emissions of heat-trapping pollutants; and
* A transitioning title that protects U.S. consumers and industry and promotes green jobs during the transition to a clean energy economy.

Pelosi said putting this policy into statute, not through regulation, is important so the world knows that this is the law of the land. It is going to be an intense and often complicated debate. But, Pelosi and Markey sure seem fired up and ready to go.

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Aravosis says: It's time for Obama to meet Krugman

If Obama can reach out to nasty conservatives, he can certainly reach out to one of our own who is simply trying to help. And in any case, you can only be so successful at freezing out a Nobel laureate with his own weekly column in the NYT. Newsweek had this little tidbit:

But the administration does not seek to cultivate him. Obama aides have invited commentators of all persuasions to the White House for some off-the-record stroking; in February, after Krugman's fellow Times op-ed columnist David Brooks wrote a critical column accusing Obama of overreaching, Brooks, a moderate Republican, was cajoled by three different aides and by the president himself, who just happened to drop by. But, says Krugman, "the White House has done very little by way of serious outreach. I've never met Obama. He pronounced my name wrong"—when, at a press conference, the president, with a slight note of irritation in his voice, invited Krugman (pronounced with an "oo," not an "uh" sound) to offer a better plan for fixing the banking system.

• I say it's also time for him to meet with the progressive congressional caucus.