Good morning BT and everyone.

Can we agree that Obama flubbed the “recovery” package just as many of us here as well as Krugman thought? And he may not get a second chance, as some were worried. 60% of those polled are against it, not to mention virulent opposition from Rs on the Hill.

I see that Rove was deposed yesterday. (Alert, Politico link.) I wonder how soon before there are rumors & spins emerging from unnamed sources.

Link on health care reform is wrong.

I wonder how soon before there are rumors & spins emerging from unnamed sources.

*I* wonder if we’ll ever find out what was said. :-(

@ 1 – *checking a vote in the “not a bat’s prayer in hell” column*

I don’t remember what the deal was on the testimony. Is it sealed forever, or theoretically subject to release at some point? Do you know?

If only a small tiny portion of the stimulus package ever gets out, won’t this make the republicans happy? Aren’t they the ones who were completely against any money being sent to the states in the first place? Yes, so I don’t want to hear them complaining then!

Can we agree that Obama flubbed the “recovery” package just as many of us here as well as Krugman thought?

Can we agree that your Obama bashing is getting old?

There’s an economics guest on WJ from George Mason who is spinning U.S. economic history so hard she’s rolling in her chair. Sez stim never works. I had to flip channels. My tolerance for shit diminished significantly in the past 8 years.

Rolling assessments. If the economy starts to improve, assessment will change.

Mornin’, BT, pups.

Rubio worshipped at the feet of Jeb. After an 8 year Jeb disaster the folks in FL don’t want more of the same. Rubio will pick up the hardcore fundies and neocons but that ain’t enough to beat Crist in a primary, or anywhere else for that matter. Rubio considers himself a player. Problem is the playground is covered with cluster bomblets left by Jeb and pals, including Rubio. Sorta like shittin’ in yer own nest.

According to Marcy

Supposedly, there will be transcripts produced, Harriet and Karl will review them, and then we’ll all get our greedy little hands on them. Given that it’s summertime in our nation’s capital, it’ll take at least a few weeks for all that to transpire.

Thanks. Fixed.

Thanks for the on-the-ground assessment.

playground is covered with cluster bomblets left by Jeb and pals, including Rubio.

Can you give us a couple of examples, in part so we can anticipate how the campaigns will unfold.

Thanks. Will look forward to it around Labor Day. Though my cynical self thinks Rove will say nothing but that he doesn’t remember.

howzzz GiGi?….coming to Fl next week visit MaMa….are ya close to Palm Beach?

According to Marcy, he was deposed eight and a half hours yesterday. Conyers had to get something out of him. If he did, expect a fisherman to discover a hunk of floating blubber in the Potomac before Labor Day.

*pulling my empty pockets out* Yep, I’ve run out of tolerance too! LOL

707

Heh. I was out of pocket yesterday, so just catching up.

Chu’s opening statement on climate change replay on cspan2 finally contained something I’ve been wishing someone would say. He referred to past environmental regulation which cost far less than naysayers anticipated. And those regulations, command & control, were the least economically effective way to reduce pollution, whereas either cap & trade (recent legislation) should be much more economically efficient.

Don’t see it changing in the reverse direction anytime soon.

The recent comparison of Obama to Hoover grows more apropos by the day.

There are many brilliant scientists currently unemployed or under-mployed becasue of the changing economic situation. Putting them to work in this area would be a win-win situtation — good for the environment and the economy.

Oh dear. Two links to WaPo content today. I’ll have to skip them.

Consumer spending held up owing to tax cuts and there was a heckuva inventory correction which is ending. So the economy will appear to do a little better for awhile. I no longer run a worksheet, so don’t know if that means a small plus for GDP or just smaller declines. But after that, there is no visible means of support for consumer spending increases, meaning that employment continues to decline, real wages aren’t rising, and borrowing of those still employed will be constrained. Stock market seems now to be catching on that the “green shoots” may be withering.

Couple examples.

Jeb tried to destroy the public school system, replacing them with charter schools. Using the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT) the state graded schools on their ability to produce good test scores. Students at schools with failing grades could get vouchers to go to private or charter schools. FCAT is now in disrepute but the Rethug legislature won’t act on it. Rubio was in the House and later served as Speaker of the House.

FL’s economy has been based on development and tourism for decades. No income tax, no intangibles taxes (stocks, etc). Corporate taxes are a joke. Most of the state’s money comes from property and sales taxes. There are exemptions to the sales taxes that make no sense, eg, ostrich feed is exempt from sales tax because 1 of the elites wanted to raise ostriches for their meat. The Rethug legislature refuses to overhaul the tax exemptions to increase revenue. The state’s investment portfolio lost billions because Jeb’s appointees speculated with the money and lost.

I think FL is one of the states accused of using stimulus money to shore up its budget. Times are changing for the Rethugs in FL.

It boggles the mind that people who can solve problems can’t find work.

New ethics complaint? Surprise, surprise. Whatever we say, let’s remember Palin is a fighter, not a quitter. ha

Great examples. Thanks.

I don’t know much about elementary & seconday education, though I did delve into it when my son was in those years and I couldn’t find an appropriate school for him, despite the choices available in Manhattan. Anyhow I’ve been watching the school “innovation” (i.e., new schools, charter schools) with a jaundiced eye. I think many of them will prove failed experiments, and the one my son attended for 3 years turned out. People who ran it were deeply into edubabble and getting grants. Educating students (or even maintaining order in classrooms) not so much.

Gigi’s doing well, thank you. We’ve put on almost 12 ounces since Friday. She’s also on a heavy duty antibiotic that pretty much knocks her out. She’s such a good trooper. I thought I might have problems feeding her but that didn’t happen.

Gulfport is at the southern end of St Petersburg. Good 4-5 hour drive from Palm Beach and nowhere near as ritzy.

FDR knew how to put them to work. So far, Obama, not so much.

EW:

Supposedly, there will be transcripts produced, Harriet and Karl will review them, and then we’ll all get our greedy little hands on them. Given that it’s summertime in our nation’s capital, it’ll take at least a few weeks for all that to transpire.

Got it. Thanks.

The second stimulus is called the FY 2010 Budget Appropriations.

We graduate students from high school who can’t tell you the 3 branches of govt nor can they find Irak or Iran on a goddamn map. They get the skills needed to be cheap labour, the 3 R’s. The FCAT was/is all about reading and math skills. Schools are teaching to the test so social studies, sex education, etc don’t get taught. The worst part, imo, is that the various district superintendents have done nothing to reverse the trend. Pinellas County had 2 that were absolutely horrible. Have to wait and see with the new one.

aw too bad…loved to have met cha for coffee…keep up the outstanding work,my horse( one im rehabbing) that was slashed is almost all better,will post pics

Slashed!?! Don’t tell me you’ve got an animal abuser in the area. Miami had a cat killer. Since they arrested some kid no more mutilated cats have been found. Few years ago we had a couple punks in Hillsborough County doing terrible things to farm animals. They got caught and got hammered.

Hoover could no let go of failing economic models. He could not entertain new ideas that were needed for changing times.

FDR, although a born aristocrat, abandoned his allegiance to the moneyed class, cleared the board, and did what was needed for the country.

Which of the two does Obama more closely resemble?

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces committed cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government Web sites, aides to two lawmakers said Wednesday.

Huffpo.

I don’t know what the solutions are. Perhaps my memories of how it was in my day are falsely positive, but it didn’t seem to have the problems that exist today. I thing part of the problem is that there are more alternatives for women’s employment now, so they are not so confined to the pink collar ghetto, and teachers’ salaries may not have kept up with the competition.

“looks like someone got to Rahm”

Ya don’t suppose it’s that tall, lean, black, inept, incapable, back-stabbing, corporatist, double-dealing, side-winding, lying, cheating president of ours. . .nah, probably not.

Our teacher’s salaries are among the lowest in the nation. Many teach here for a few years after they get their certificate then move on to higher paying states. We’ve got lots of problems with the school system.

While waiting for an appointment yesterday I read a very old copy of Time or Newsweek with an article on Krugman’s role as a public intellectual. The author (sorry, don’t remember his name) was a self-admitted conservative, and he argued that there was a lot of value in maintaining the status quo because it contributes to stability. As obvious as that is, I hadn’t thought about it that way.

But it does reveal why it is so difficult to get people to move away from failed models.

My nephew graduated HS two years ago. He was #1 in his class and as a soph. to an advanced placement test in history for college. When he gaduates from college he will have zip, nada, zero additional history let alone civics or social science. Our education system should be called training not education.

Off to swim in the great, yeah, right, capitalist cesspool.

Since we’re gonna be in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future here’s my book recommendation for the day:

Beyond the Khyber Pass – The Road to British Disaster in the First Afghan War by John H Waller, Random House, 1990

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

New post upstairs…

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve read some of that history, and have many other books on my list to read for now, but put it in my shopping cart.

I hope Obama learned his lesson about bipartisanship from the stimulus thing. He made so many compromises to Republicans that it ended up not doing the job and now the public has no stomach for another one.

And to be honest, it’s all the tax cuts and stupid Republican crap that I think people most resent. But the public blames Obama for it. It’s a classic lose-lose-win situation. The public loses, Obama loses, but Republicans get to blame Democrats.

sadlyyes,cant get my flkr accout to work will post pics later
take good care

Here’s something short that should also be read by all:

From the 1929 Encyclopedia Britannica

T E Lawrence on Guerrilla Warfare

on that first article, the washington post has its facts wrong. they write:

In light of the latest unemployment figures, there are more persistent questions coming at the administration. Did Obama and his team get it right last winter when they put together their $787 billion stimulus package, or did they undershoot? If they made a mistake, what should they do now?

Uh, no. that was the senate

Moving with lightning speed, the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House agreed Wednesday on a compromise $790 billion economic stimulus bill designed to create millions of jobs in a nation reeling from recession….
The president’s signature tax cut was preserved _ a break for millions of lower- and middle-income taxpayers of $400 per individual and $800 per couple. That’s less than the $500 and $1,000 the White House originally sought, although officials said it would mean an estimated $13 per week extra per paycheck…

Scaling back the bill to levels lower than either the $838 billion Senate measure or the original $820 billion House-passed measure caused grumbles among liberal Democrats, who described the cutbacks as a concession to the moderates, particularly Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who are under pressure from conservative Republicans to hold down spending.

Working to accommodate the new, lower overall limit of the bill, negotiators effectively wiped out a Senate-passed provision for a new $15,000 tax credit to defray the cost of buying a home, these officials said. The agreement would allow taxpayers to deduct the sales tax paid on new car purchases, but not the interest on loans for the same vehicles.

Obama’s proposed stimuluis was nearly $900 billion. And guess who was instrumental in cutting it down? Everyone’s favorite brand new DemmycRAT, Arlen Specter:

Scaling back the bill to levels lower than either the $838 billion Senate measure or the original $820 billion House-passed measure caused grumbles among liberal Democrats, who described the cutbacks as a concession to the moderates, particularly Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who are under pressure from conservative Republicans to hold down spending.

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Thanks Arlen. Douche.

They should’ve listened to Krugman the first time.

DING !

Per Dan Balz at WaPo:

Nothing may be more important to public assessments of President Obama’s leadership than the state of the economy, and at this point there are political warning lights flashing.

In light of the latest unemployment figures, there are more persistent questions coming at the administration. Did Obama and his team get it right last winter when they put together their $787 billion stimulus package, or did they undershoot? If they made a mistake, what should they do now?

The administration is trying to tamp down talk that it didn’t get it quite right — talk created by Vice President Biden. On Sunday, he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “We and everyone else misread the economy.” But he insisted that the stimulus “is the right package given the circumstances we’re in.”

But it’s not just Joe ‘the Mouth” Biden. Per Obama’s economic advisor Laura Tyson, who was chair of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors:

July 7 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an outside adviser to President Barack Obama.

And Krugman has been saying that a second stimulus would be needed (and hard to get) since February.

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OK, we’ll all just be poor and collectivistical, like. Like them Islamofascist kibbutzniks.

So, you want the bad news first, or the worse news? Up to you…
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kib·butz (k-bts, -bts)
n. pl. kib·but·zim (kbt-sm, -t-)
A collective farm or settlement in modern Israel.

So wouldn’t that make the term “Islamofascist kibbutzniks” an antagonism of terms. (I think it’s way beyond contradiction!)

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Congratulations! You are now IMPERVIOUS to irony.

You may have to take a supplement, to avoid anemia.
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