Obama’s geting pretty unlikable. That’s why Carter and Bush 1 were only one term, and why Kerry, McCain, and Gore lost. You’re sunk as president if nobody likes you much.

Eeyore…

When asked if being a good two-term president was also a possibility, Obama paused before saying, “Yes, yes I suppose it is.”

Get that damn ad out of the middle of the Attaturk’s post, I can’t read through it!

I think Tiger Woods is clearly the healthier role model.

What a great time this is to encourage people to withdraw their membership with the Democratic party and to become independents. There was no way the corporate funded Democrats were ever going to do anything else but follow corporate funded Republican policies. They will spend the next year playing political Kabuki to try to convince you there is a difference. Next election, vote only for candidates who are not corporate funded. Sure they may not win the first time but by sending this message you will be encouraging enterprising people that there is hope in starting a non-corporate third party. Remember in a three party system it only takes 34% of the vote to win an election, if the other two parties keep their base of 33%.

A non-corporate third party is feasible. The first step is to just say no to the two main pro-corporate parties at the next elections!

Some I like, real dems. I am considering registering as a republican so I can influence their primaries.

Very well said. And even the Pukes are alienating their base, so it’s a good time for a Progressive Party. (Although in the past the far right has always reverted to being obedient in time for the election.)

Thus far he’s been a pretty shitty one term president. Next week he’ll be calling for tax cuts for the rich. Never mind. He already did that by refusing to rescind the Bush tax cuts like he promised.

That first home buyer tax credit was a hand out to many thousands of rich twenty-somethings as well.

To make up for it, poor kids won’t be able to get free dental check ups or something.

When will we see a Cash for Cavities program?

This is what he either doesn’t get or doesn’t care about, these right wing pigs are going to attack, attack, attack no matter what he does.

It’s going to to more than the odd party affiliation switch to prevent disaster.

We need a Summit.

Invite all the people who looked at 8 years of Bush and 1 year of Obama and said “this is bullshit”.

Left, right, center: the words don’t have any meaning anymore. This is about avoiding Collapse and all the horrors that entails.

We need all hands on deck.

Furthermore.

Obama has lost the white suburban voter.

He cannot win in 2012. It is over.

Blacks and liberals may come out to support him, but that will only be enough to get him through the primaries.

We need to get into a survival, all-hands-on-deck mindset.

Spending freeze????!!!???

I heard that and all I could think of was Herbert Hoover……

SOMEONE primary him PLEASE!

Republicans were quick to mock the freeze proposal. “Given Washington Democrats’ unprecedented spending binge, this is like announcing you’re going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for the House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio.

“Although in the past the far right has always reverted to being obedient in time for the election”

This is so not true. Many of our established leaders, on the local level, are resigning due to the fact the party is being taken over by the extreme religious right. I am a Christian and even have a concealed carry permit, but I don’t go around preaching this stuff – it is personal to me and to no one else.

And don’t come over here, were as f*****g lost as you guys are!

But I gotta tell ya – you got a jewel on your hands – probably worse than McCain would have been. I’ve never seen any politician reverse every policy he/she campaigned for. Good for us though. I don’t believe this country will ever except progressives (left) or extremists (right).

Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

I think Obama has treated blacks worse than anybody else. The disappointment people feel or saw coming must be doubly difficult for black people who took so much pride in the first “black” president.

A little anecdote: in late 2006 I was in a sports bar in Brooklyn, and Obama came on the TV. I was already a fan, but the black guy next to me was seeing Obama for the first time.

“He looks like a fraud to me” was this guy’s first impression of Obama. How accurate those instincts were.

Obama actually faced a great deal of distrust from the black community initially.

Gonna try electing another Democrat and watch them turn coat on you again because the two parties are sanctioned participants in the two-party system precisely and exclusively because they answer to money? “Again? That trick never works!”

Forget it. If the D party swings left of center despite itself, the corporatists will put up another tent and another shingle, with the necessary PR lines and columnist hacks all set up to discredit the old one.

and I don’t “except” this bs.

Malcolm X:

“The [Democratic] Party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and still they can’t keep their promise to you, ‘cause you’re a chump. Anytime you throw your weight behind the political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that Party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that Party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BYVv4LY_KQ

This crap is pure comedy. During the campaign McCain says ‘A’ and Obama says ‘B’. As president, Obama says ‘B’ and the republicans say ‘A’.

At least Steele changed hatchet and scalpel to diet and pie-eating contest

…surreal

Maybe Palin was our last hope, lol.

Should it be Palin/Brown or Brown/Palin in 2012?

President stated he would rather be a good one-term President than a mediocre two-term President.

Worse than mediocre one termer so far. He would actually have to change quite considerably during the next couple of years to get out of the “lousy” column into the “mediocre” column. He would have to get rid of his financial “wizards”, remove Rahm, revisit NAFTA and FISA, prosecute the torturers, investigate the US Attorney’s scandal, close Guantanamo, press for EFCA, exit Afghanistan and Iraq and actually work for health care reform. None of which he is willing and/or capable of doing. Oh Bummah! is a corporate whore like his 4 predecessors and he will be well satisfied to take the money and laugh at us gullible fools after four years of serving his masters well.

You wouldn’t consider the proposition that “it’s all bullshit” would ya?

The above comments are kinda laughable since we’ve all been insisting that it wasn’t right for the troops to bear the burden of the wars all by themselves. BTW, the cost of living is going down, and my medicare thus didn’t include a raise for that reason. Screeching about cuts when there aren’t any just makes the left look as vulture-like as the right.

I begin with the premise everything is bullshit!

NO! How could that be? :)

Who will be the Progressive candidate for President in 2012? We need to identify Obama’s primary challenger so we can get started taking over the party from the DLC corporatists (power of positive thinking and all that).

Kucinich? Grayson? Howard Dean? Rachel Maddow??

Obama is in a cutting spending mood fine lets cut defense spending lets poll the Voters is fighting 2 after 8 years of fighting worth more to the Voters than Healthcare and Jobs?
We need to get the question out there would you support an FDR sized jobs bill or more fighting?

Why not try to encourage the progressive caucus to form one so we already have elected candidates?

Someone here help me understand something, please.

Does anyone else agree that government is the largest, most bloated, ineffective and inefficient body on the face of this earth?

If so, how can you defend growing this body and exacerbating the problem? Screw the freezes and cuts. That’s like pissing in the ocean.

Did I misunderstand that part of Obama’s takeover of student loans includes a provision that forgiveness will be given in 10 years to those who go into the public service sector. 20 years for all others. More government growth. I just don’t understand. Or perhaps I do.

My Soc Sec did not increase even though the cost of living rose (where the idea that costs went down came from is a bloody mystery and not at all factual) which certainly amounts to an extra tax. My partner’s fed tax burden increased as of Jan 1, an extra tax, and our combined income is 80% less than the $250,000 that Oh Bummah! had promised during his campaign. LIes, lies and more bloody lies from the corporate president.

See below.

Consumer Price Index – December 2009

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the December Consumer Price Index for
All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the index
increased 2.7 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The seasonally adjusted increase in the all items index was broad
based, with the indexes for food, energy, and all items less food and
energy all posting modest increases. Within the latter group, a sharp
rise in the index for used cars and trucks was the largest
contributor to the 0.1 percent increase, while the indexes for
airline fares, apparel, and lodging away from home rose as well. In
contrast, the indexes for rent and owners’ equivalent rent were
unchanged and the index for new vehicles declined.

Grocery store food indexes showed broad-based increases, leading to
the food index rising 0.2 percent, its largest one-month advance in
over a year. The energy index also rose 0.2 percent; this was its
smallest increase in five months. The indexes for fuel oil and
gasoline rose, but the electricity index was unchanged and the
natural gas index declined.

The above comments are kinda laughable since we’ve all been insisting that it wasn’t right for the troops to bear the burden of the wars all by themselves.

Wtf does that have to do with anything, Gladys? The post was about the spending freeze.

BTW, the cost of living is going down, and my medicare thus didn’t include a raise for that reason.

Where the heck do you live? Because in this country, you know, America, everything is getting more expensive. Gas went up here, this week, as did meat and milk. My SOs health insurance premiums went up, as well. If your cost of living is going down, then share: Where can this magical ponyland be found?

Screeching about cuts when there aren’t any just makes the left look as vulture-like as the right.

You know what the words “spending freeze” mean, right?

Oh yeah, nice false equivalence, but nothing we haven’t seen before. So, no points there.

FDR in the Great Depression managed to get a jobs program and then fought WW 2 Obama is saying however he must cut government spending. Is he saying the current Recession is worse than the Great Depression?
If so then stop fighting the wars. I see no reason why our military spending should be more than twice what Russia spends.
We need another Peace Dividend either that or raise taxes on the rich to pay for the wars. Cutting Government spending in a Recession goes against Keynes!
Geithner, Summers and Helicopter Ben are Neo Hoovers we need them gone now!

First of all the government did not ask the banks for a bailout so just who really is bloated and inefficient?

Why don’t we find a black candidate, a real progressive so we don’t insult the black community. Maybe Carol Mosely Braun, or John Conyers, Jr

Keynes and FDR got us out of the Great Depression by increasing Government Spending and then fought WW 2.
Obama is getting the wrong advice.

or raise taxes on the rich to pay for the wars

Now you have really stepped over the line. Kepp your socialist views to yourself. /s

Good morning, pups. It’s Brooks, Cohen and Herbert today. In “The Populist Addiction” Bobo sniffs that populists of both parties can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce any of the things required for progress and growth. Mr. Cohen, writing from Chengdu, China, sends us “A Woman Burns” in which he says in China reforms to real estate law are needed to bring development and individual rights into some balance and slow the fast-money corruption machine. Mr. Herbert addresses “Obama’s Credibility Gap” and says President Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose skillful rhetoric cannot always be trusted, and Americans want to know what he stands for.

Here they are.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got a selection of bagels with cream cheese. I have a feeling that I had better get a basket of rolled up socks ready for tomorrow’s SOTU, which is and inexpressibly depressing thing to have to say. Have a great day.

Why don’t we find a black candidate, a real progressive so we don’t insult the black community.

With Steele at the helm of the GOP and Oh Bummah! at the helm of the Dems you would think that there were some “successes” for the black community but it is not so. They are both sellouts, both doing the bidding of their respective “masters” and both a very poor representation of available/capable men and women in the black community. Conyers…. not so much.

“The household energy index, in
contrast, declined 4.9 percent during 2009 with the index for natural
gas falling 18.1 percent and the electricity index declining 0.5
percent. The food index, which rose 5.9 percent in 2008, fell 0.5
percent for the 12 months ending December 2009, the first December-to-
December decline since 1961. The index for food away from home rose
1.9 percent while the food at home index fell 2.4 percent. Within
food at home, all six major grocery food groups posted declines in
2009 after rising in 2008. The dairy and related products group
declined the most, falling 7.6 percent, its largest annual decline
since 1938.”
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

Colbert, as controller general, worked to improve the French economy through a policy called mercantilism–state intervention to create a self-sustaining economy. Colbert used an aggressive tariff policy to manipulate the import of raw materials and the export of manufactured goods to improve the balance of payments. He also fostered domestic trade and industry by improving communications (roads and canals), eliminating internal tolls, expanding the navy, increasing colonial trade through the East India Company and by subsidizing certain industries (tapestries and furniture).

The economic gains wrought by Colbert and the administrative improvements allowed Louis to pursue an activist foreign policy. Over the course of his long reign, the Sun King essentially confronted all of Europe at one time or another over his ambitions to secure the “natural” boundaries (Alps, Pyrenees, Rhine, Atlantic Ocean) of France. At his disposal, Louis had the largest and best standing army of the day (increased from a peacetime force of 20,000 to a wartime machine of 400,000 professionally-organized men).

Aside from fighting numerous wars this king also built Versailles.
Bush in 8 years and 2 wars however with his free markets regulate themselves better than the government can ideas has brought us to ruin.
Contrast this with the three major wars the Sun King fought that I can count and his 73 years on the throne.
Granted his successor was left with not enough cash or grain to buy his way out of the famine that preceded the French Revolution but still 73 years of reckless accomplish nothing foreign policy vs Bush’s 8 years of reckless accomplish nothing foreign policy.
A good well managed Bureaucracy is obviously superior to the Free Markets of Bush or even Reagan (average pay for workers went down during the Reagan years.)

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/3244

Just what evidence does the GOP and the Chicago School of Economics have that free markets are better America was never stronger than under FDR.
France was at its best under the Sun King and after the revolution the French did not get rid of their Bureaucracy nope they got rid of the inbred Nobles.

China reforms to real estate law are needed to bring development and individual rights into some balance and slow the fast-money corruption machine.

Shouldn’t we be fixing our own fast-money corruption machine prior to lecturing others?

The name is not Gladys, see above for where the prices did not increase. Overall rise was caused by gasoline from having fallen. I live in N.TX.

What does sharing the burden have to do with not getting raises in discretionary spending? Economics 101.

Let’s review, shall we?

YEAR ONE OBAMA

Reneged on FISA
Handed trillions to incompetent bankers, no questions asked, with TARP
Tax Cuts for the wealthy [called stimulus]
3 separate expansions of the AF-PAK War
Largest military budget in History
Continued and expanded fascist policies of his predecessor
Protecting all war criminals and blocking almost all investigations thereof
Supporting the most widespread surveillance of the general public ever existing in the USA
Electronic Frontier Foundation rates Obama’s record on human rights “worse than Bush II,”
Continued Iraq war
Kept Guantanamo open
Expanded the Bagram prison complex
Successfully argued before the Supreme Court for the destruction of Habeas Corpus
Expanded illegal rendition program
Single-handedly torpedoed climate-change negotiations
Health Insurance Bailout Bill
Committed party treason by holding secret meetings with insurance execs
Cut Medicare
Cut Medicaid
Preparing another Bailout bill (4 trillion this time, all losses backed up by your tax money)
Asserted the right to seize citizens funds until financial institutions can be made whole
Receives F grade from Brady Campaign for doing squat about gun control
Did doodley-squat about DADT
Helped lose Ted Kennedy’s seat
On track for the big takedown of Social Security next year.
Has convinced countless Democrats to quit the party

And–in his biggest accomplishment so far–has completely resuscitated the Republican Party!

The Chronicles of Rahm, A Satyre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVYugB5uy-o

Socialist, Socialist??? I am past Socialist I’m an evil Lefty I am the Over/Uber Left:)

Please read the who;e page!!

Not seasonally adjusted CPI measures

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased
2.7 percent over the last 12 months to an index level of 215.949
(1982-84=100). For the month, the index decreased 0.2 percent prior
to seasonal adjustment.

However

The seasonally adjusted increase in the all items index was broad
based, with the indexes for food, energy, and all items less food and
energy all posting modest increases.

I knew it!

41
Good morning, pups. It’s Brooks, Cohen and Herbert today. In “The Populist Addiction” Bobo sniffs that populists of both parties can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce any of the things required for progress and growth.

Bobo getting rid of you would solve many of our problems

The Guardian has an interesting piece on NYT charging for content.

The Guardian editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, has delivered a riposte to Rupert Murdoch’s campaign to introduce paywalls to newspaper websites, claiming that it could lead the industry to a “sleepwalk into oblivion”.

Delivering the 2010 Hugh Cudlipp Lecture today, Rusbridger said that universal charging for newspaper content on the internet would remove the industry from a digital revolution which is allowing news organisations to engage with their readers more than ever before.

I don’t think banks are bloated and inefficient, just too greedy. A friend of mine was a VP at 5/3 and advised corporate not to invest in a $25M condo project in FL. They are now on the hook for a $25M loan default. Five years ago, a local bank went around making stupid deals with stupid builders, including my son, and ended up with 90% of the spec housing loans. Last year they began calling all loans and subseqently put many builders out of business. Today this bank is out of business…greed!

When you get into larger corporations, such as the auto companies, General Electric, etc., you get 100 year old policies that are still in tact and somewhat inefficent for today.

But this pales in comparison to government that doesn’t have the inherent pressures of running a competetive business.

‘The food index, which rose 5.9 percent in 2008, fell 0.5
percent for the 12 months ending December 2009, the first December-to-
December decline since 1961.’

also;
‘Rather, some agencies will see their budgets go up and others will go down, producing an overall freeze effect. The senior official sought to portray this as not just a question of spending less money, but of getting our money’s worth—cutting (unspecified) ineffective programs and spending more on programs that work.’
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/01/obama-budget-to-call-for-freeze-in-non-security-discretionary-spending.php

Politics, some believe, is the organization of hatreds. The people who try to divide society on the basis of ethnicity we call racists. The people who try to divide it on the basis of religion we call sectarians. The people who try to divide it on the basis of social class we call either populists or elitists.

These two attitudes — populism and elitism — seem different, but they’re really mirror images of one another. They both assume a country fundamentally divided. They both describe politics as a class struggle between the enlightened and the corrupt, the pure and the betrayers.

Both attitudes will always be with us,

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/

Class warfare is like bullies stand up to the rich /bullies and they run crying to the teacher about you hitting them… back.

Rather, some agencies will see their budgets go up and others will go down, producing an overall freeze effect. The senior official sought to portray this as not just a question of spending less money, but of getting our money’s worth—cutting (unspecified) ineffective programs and spending more on programs that work.’

Surely the spending in Afghanistan and Iraq could be categorized as ineffective programs and yet that is not what is being cut.

As for the Consumer Price Index we will have to agree to disagree on the facts therein.

Well if this doesn’t win them over in Massachusetts…

I don’t think banks are bloated and inefficient, just too greedy

Pay above what you earn should be the definition of a bloated inefficient Corporation in a truly free market pay should correspond to the value you bring to the company by working. After the Bank Bailout they should all be working for free the Banks lied about their risk and assets they not the Government needed a bailout.

Or it could be that the NYT doesn’t want to be bothered with hoi polloi… I doubt that the NY Daily News or Post will be charging for on line content. (I really don’t know if that’s snark or not!)

I believe they suffer under the misconception that they are the ONLY news outlet and us poor souls will have to come to them for “facts” and “news”. Me, I do not want to read Judith Miller like “facts” or selected and censored “news” fee or not.

The above comments are kinda laughable since we’ve all been insisting that it wasn’t right for the troops to bear the burden of the wars all by themselves. BTW, the cost of living is going down, and my medicare thus didn’t include a raise for that reason. Screeching about cuts when there aren’t any just makes the left look as vulture-like as the right.

how does a spending freeze share the burden? it doesn’t. it just will make things harder for those troops when they come home.

if the cost of living is truly going down, that is a BAD thing. it’s called deflation.

we need bigger fed deficits, not smaller, so long as employment is high.

if this report is true, obama is on the side of the deficit terrorists.

Very nice list, but I’ll have to disagree with COP15. Obama didn’t help, but that exercise was, is and will forever be a non-starter.

Trust China? Only Madeleine Albright lives in that fantasy world. What about regulating carbon emissions in Africa? They don’t have 100 light bulbs on the entire continent. Just another corporate/political creation where the US will foot the bill.

But it really gets scary when Obama wants to reduce the amount of US farms due to cows farting.

Greed is one thing bloated and inefficient is one thing Derivative Contracts are a whole new level of Stupid, Bloated and Inefficient.
Has the Government with all its Debt ever come close to the banks Derivative Contracts?

Imaginary Economics

A 600 trillion market is a fantasy there is not that much money on the Planet. The reason why Derivatives are exempt from margin requirements is because requiring banks to post even a 5% margin requirement on all their Derivative contracts would mean the banks would have to find 30 trillion dollars.

The entire World’s GDP is only 60 trillion dollars the banks do not have half the worlds GDP in their vaults. Thats why the margin requirement was dropped

Now lets imagine a situation where the Derivatives market has to pay out 1% of its total value a not unlikely scenario. Lets say Joe Lieberman gets his wish and we invade Yemen oil prices go through the roof and nations like Iceland, Greece etc start defaulting on their National debt as the world economy slows everyone who bought a Derivative and bet the economy would slow down would want to get paid. Airlines who bought Derivatives as a hedge against higher fuel prices, people who bet grain prices would go up (farmers harvest crops with tractors that run on gas) Oil burning power plants buy Derivatives as a hedge against higher oil prices.

Now then just how would all these people collect on their Derivatives after all even a 1% pay out of a $600 trillion market is 6 trillion dollars.

Or about half of America’s National Debt after 8 years of Bush. Also as the world’s economy slows down banks will have a harder time trying to raising the cash.

Please explain to me why would anyone then buy a contract to protect themselves from price swings when the banks do not have the money to pay you if things get real bad?

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/21899

two words people.

Dennis.

Kucinich.

Capitalism is the dream of the rich and the curse of the poor. It is a system that is based on greed not need, it is a system that thrives in totalitarianism and eschews democracy. It is America

But it really gets scary when Obama wants to reduce the amount of US farms due to cows farting.

Hmm? Death Panels, Obama is a Secret Muslim, Obama was born in a Foreign Country Kenya Indonesia wait wait Hawaii ( all evil Muslims live in Hawaii ), Obama wants to take away our guns!
Can’t Fox News hire better liars to write their Conspiracy rants?

Class Warfare is like race relations used to be something not talked about in Polite Society or Washington. Thankfully we have blogs if the Corporate Media wants viewers/readers again they need to talk about Things that are Relevant!
Or the MSM can keep watching viewers/readers leave, their stock prices keep collapsing and the Lefty Blogs growing:)

Nice picture Attaturk. Certainly characterizes a lot of what’s wrong in DeeCee.

Good morning everyone.

Morning:)

Our candidate can be any color, gender or sexual orientation. What matters are the policies they propose to support and their plans for implementing them.

Listening with half an ear to WJ, where the Q is what do you think about the spending freeze idea? The O supporters (maybe about half the D callers) are reduced to saying he was dealt such a bad hand, poor fellow, he’s doing the best he can, or a rant against the Rs.

Welfare rolls rose in 2009 for the first time in 15 years. Yep, those Cadillac queens picked the worst economy in living memory to get lazy. /s

‘if this is true’ – we’re all talking about reports instead of actualities, and I admit I’m tired of hearing the left explode because the president is dealing with a budget that cannot bear the costs of administering a country. He’s having to deal with reality and getting a lot of grief, when we didn’t get out on the streets and protest as the country went into the ditch.

What? Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

good morning.

ot – i left you and hugh replies on his diary, hopefully more today if the comments stay open. just trying to figure some stuff out when i have the time, etc.

Is anyone from our side saying this is a bad idea? Neo Hooverism?

Yes. Not a lot of kudos for a spending freeze.

the president is dealing with a budget that cannot bear the costs of administering a country

i don’t understand what you mean here. the fed budget? if so, what are the constraints you see on it?

as for protesting, speak for yourself please.

Good! if WallStreet Journal Democrats are not sold on this then the Blue Dogs can’t claim popular support. Outside of the Neo Hoover’s I doubt they can find any economists to support this.

I’m going to be out of pocket until this evening. If you leave a comment somewhere you could email me with a link.

Washington Journal on cspan, not Wall St Journal.

‘what are the constraints you see on it’

“The deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, came in at a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the record set just last year……Budget Director Peter Orszag said: “It was critical that we acted to bring the economy back from the brink earlier this year. As we move from rescue to recovery, the president recognizes that we need to put the nation back on a fiscally sustainable path.”"
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/10/620000005/1

Neooverism

ok. thanks again!

ThingsComeUndone,
As a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and a LEED Accredited Professional teaching sustainability, I can tell you the impact of livestock to greenhouse gas emissions will most likely be regulated or taxed under Obama’s new power given to the EPA. This will have a profound impact to small farms.

The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month. The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog.

Even the Department of Agriculture warned the EPA that smaller farms and ranches would have difficulty with limits as much as 100 tons annually on emissions:

“If GHG emissions from agricultural sources are regulated under the CAA, numerous farming operations that currently are not subject to the costly and time-consuming Title V permitting process would, for the first time, become covered entities. Even very small agricultural operations would meet a 100-tons-per-year emissions threshold. For example, dairy facilities with over 25 cows, beef cattle operations of over 50 cattle, swine operations with over 200 hogs, and farms with over 500 acres of corn may need to get a Title V permit. It is neither efficient nor practical to require permitting and reporting of GHG emissions from farms of this size. Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres. These operations simply could not bear the regulatory compliance costs that would be involved.”

Sorry to disappoint your Fox News conspiracy theories.

deficit terrorism

what’s the economic constraint? serious question, because i don’t see it so long as unemployment is so high.

‘deficit terrorism’

Remember what was so great about balanced budgets/Clinton economic success?

Etiquette asks that you provide a link for your quote.

Jane gets some in the WSJ article about Rahm

Give’em hell Hamsher!

You know Ruth, I’ve spent the last fifty odd years seeking to understand what has been destroying our nation.

Much of that time, I have sought to speak with others about what I had learned, to counteract a deliberate “dumbing down”, of which you may have heard rumors?

The last two months I have actively been in the streets, as you put it, seeking a consensus of those who would choose conscience over comfort. That is why I have not been “here”.

So, I’m very glad to hear that the cost of living is going down – I just haven’t seen it with my own lying eyes, yet. I guess I’ve just been living too extravagantly.

Please don’t think this impertinent, Ruth, but how often have you been away from your computer of late?

Have you been in the streets recently.

You imply not, but one can’t quite be certain.

Am I to conclude that this is a case of, “Do as I say, not as I act”?

Just curious.

whoo hooo

Seconded plus wouldn’t it be easier to stick pollution control and monitoring devices on to chimneys and car tailpipes rather than cows?

Balanced budgets are an impossibility while conducting murderous expeditions to places like Afghanistan and Iraq unless one is willing to cut/freeze/suspend domestic needs.

Yo! Raven.

;~DW

word

Actually, attending ACLU meetings may not seem like the streets, so actual demos I can only cite one over the winter.

Well, that read like it was written by Rahm’s BFF.

Good for you.

Keep it up.

It all matters.

DW

It’s the Wall Street Journal, you were expecting Ramparts?

Ruth, with all due respect, if you don’t have a job at all, a minute decrease in the “cost-of-living” is pretty much meaningless.

Current un and under-employment is running over 17% and in some parts of the country a lot closer to 25%. At that point a decline in the cost-of-living is enough to say “Oh, I ran out of money on Thursday when I had to decide between getting gas or a haircut before an interview rather than on Wednesday at the grocery store.

Seems a “freeze on discretionary spending” at this point provides a lot of similarity to re-arranging deck chairs.

Carter was a one term President because the Democratic Senate did not want The Peoples choice to be a success.The Democrat Senate’s choice was defeated in the primary by Carter.The Democrat Senate worked to defeat Carter.While pretending to be his alliance.Do the people Obama has allined himself with want Obama to be a success.Where did his advisors come from?

Yeah, I know. Just felt it was worth mentioning. After all, Rahm is a hero in his own mind as well as in the minds of Wall St,

I read this nearly deficit irrelevant proposal as Obama’s Sister Souljah moment. This is strictly an Obama campaign maneuver to pick a fight with the Flaming Liberals, in an attempt to pull independents back into the Obama Cult.

Come election time the admin thinking goes, WHO are the Flaming Liberals going to vote for … a Republican ? ha ha ha.

Let’s see who laughs in November 2010.

well… with cows you can just plug-in the EPA device. With cars you’d have to bend over and with chimneys you’d have to climb a ladder. lol

Remember what was so great about balanced budgets/Clinton economic success?

that “success” depended on massive and unsustainable increase in private sector debt.

from godley and wray, Is Goldilocks Doomed?

…the notion that a federal budget surplus is sustainable, and that it promotes economic growth, must be abandoned. Given the realities of the U.S. trade imbalance, public sector surpluses are consistent with economic growth only so long as the private sector’s financial situation deteriorates at an accelerating pace.

i recommend the paper. they called it. and were some of the few economists who did. and here’s paul rosenberg’s post (at openleft) on bezemer’s paper: The Crash: Who Saw It Coming–And Why

From his early days in Washington, Mr. Emanuel, who is 50 years old, was more interested in legislative and political victories than ideological warfare, say friends and critics alike. He saw himself as a “New Democrat,” identifying with party centrists who were embroiled in an ideological struggle with liberals.

So Rahm is more interested in political victories but identifies with Party centrists embroiled in an ideological struggle with liberals nice contradicting what you logically just said with the next sentence always makes a writer look smart/s
Rahm’s last victory politically was NAFTA an issue so popular Obama ran on changing it.

Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul.

“F—ing retarded,” Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants. He warned them not to alienate lawmakers whose votes would be needed on health care and other top legislative items.

Rahm just what have you accomplished in the Obama administration?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575025030384695158.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLEForthNews

ThingsComeUndone,

My response to your comment is in post 85 and I apologize for not linking my reply properly.

I came over here a few weeks ago when I read on another site that Jane Hamsher was trying to recruit conservatives to help defeat the current healthcare bill. Since then I have had what I consider to be constructive dialog and enjoyed my time spent on firedoglake. Without exception, I always let it be known I am a conservative so I’m never accused of trolling.

To accuse me of being a paid liar is unfortunate. I can only hope that all members of this site do not feel the same as you when you read something you don’t agree with or know little about and throw slurs born out of ignorance.

The weekly strategy sessions where he made the remark, called the Common Purpose Project, are by invitation only, and participants are sworn to secrecy. Activists say it’s a one-way conversation, with the White House presenting its views and asking liberals to refrain from public criticism. Ms. Hamsher, publisher of the Fire Dog Lake blog, calls the gatherings the “veal pen.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575025030384695158.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLEForthNews

One way conversation sounds like Top Down management when you have to ask your base to refrain from criticism chances are your doing something that won’t motivate them to vote.
I assume Rahm runs these meeting?

p.s. to ecahn, if i write anything extra stupid or just wrong especially econ-wise, please give a yell.

One hopes that, by and large, you have found your experience here “agreeable” and worth your time and considered effort.

Let me go a little Dr. Pangloss on the news of the freeze on discretionary spending. It does include the area in which most Congressional earmarks are made. And not excluding national security from the freeze also means that those budget can still be cut if need be. Finally, this is only a statement of the way he will be approaching the 2011 budget and the 10-year forecast that is required to go with it. In brief, it is setting expectations on the budget with a little bit of cheap pandering. Enough to anger everyone.

As for his comment about being a one-term president.

We thought we were electing a great two-term president. We might wind up with a guy who’s decided to be a mediocre one-term president. Might this be a case of “Now I see what’s involved and what I can’t do, I want outta here”?

While I have been both un and underemployed, and now am retired early rather than continue collecting unemployment comp which was running out here – presently, having planned carefully to keep expenses within constraints, am noting that my costs are going down, including homeowner taxes because of home values.

Vote for anyone thats not an incumbent or thats backed by the Democrat Republican Party.

I was accusing Fox News of lying and you of falling for it, but I can see how my comment might be confusing. I also find confusing just how would the Government tax cow farts does Beano work on Cows because if your right I’ll load up on the stock right now.

If you want to avoid insults in the future the more out there the idea the more you need a link from a credible source.

It has been enjoyable and informative for me to have had reasoned dialog regarding issues that are tearing this country apart. Admittedly, there is little of your progressive movement I agree with, other than both our sides are burdened with political losers, but how can I argue against your position if I know nothing about it?

howdy DW. long time. nice to “see” you.

Retired I am also but my property taxes went up $450 this year on top of $530 last year. My car insurance, car registration, drivers license all went up. Tolls went up. My wife’s, and her employees’, health insurance went up 27%. Food costs have risen. Price per cord of heating wood went up. My electricity bills have skyrocketed. My gas bill has also gone up.

I live in NH… where do you live that you cost went down?

We might wind up with a guy who’s decided to be a mediocre one-term president.

If he follows through with cutting discretionary spending while continuing backdoor bailouts for Wall Street (which are not a part of the budget) and increasing spending for the military we may end up wishing we had a mediocre President.

“we may end up wishing we had a mediocre President.”

Best quote so far this Year!

“I am a Christian and even have a concealed carry permit, but I don’t go around preaching this stuff – it is personal to me and to no one else.”

Interesting – you identify with the GOP and post here, while I, who fit every part of the quoted sentence down to and including the concealed carry permit – have been called far left ever since being at the start of the SDS “Boston chapter”in 63 (14 folks meeting on the Boston Common in the Spring).

We also differ on wanting to see a progressive liberal government. I thought I had one in 61 and then JFK increased Ike’s troop count in ‘Nam from 2000 to 16,000 (the reason for the 63 protest) – I sure would like to see a progressive liberal government (and I do not mean anti capitalist – Hillary looked fine to me in 08 as I personally knew her basic strongly held life time beliefs including single payer) in my lifetime.

This may seem off topic to people, but I think it is fundamentally related. I hope folks will bear with me. I usually post in AlterNet, but they are reformatting and my post doesn’t seem to get through. I hope no one will mind if I park it here. It is related to the GOP as they promote the policy I am complaining about.

I had wanted to place it here,

http://www.alternet.org/rights/145247/arab_americans_call_extra_airport_security_measures_%27unconstitutional%27

I’m sure they will have it corrected soon. Thank you,

Sister Lauren

I just happened to look up the one drop rule yesterday and learned all kinds of interesting stuff about the official, ‘white’ attitude regarding race.

I think you will find it interesting too,

http://www.blackhistory.com/cgi-bin/blog.cgi?blog_id=63228&cid=56

The thing that struck me is one drop of black African blood was enough to make one black, but a certain, very small, percentage of Native American (1/16) was allowed to still be ‘white’. All of this was set in law. Arab counted as white.

That last bit surprised me, and for the second time. As a native Californian, I am always surprised by what designates race and especially the penalties for being of the wrong one.

I have seen plenty of Arabs who are a lot darker than a lot of other mixed race black or NDN people. I said it was the second time because in registering my Iranian/American girl scout, I asked her mother what to put down for race (since the girl was clearly mixed). Her answer of “white!” told me I had seriously misjudged it.

And yesterday, 10 or 12 years later, I finally found out why that was. The reason I mention it here is because in researching the drug war, I found the drug war was actually a cover for an ever expanding, under cover perpetual race war.

When Bush said we were fighting them “over there” to avoid fighting them “over here”, what he really meant is the slaughter will go on, there and here. It is big business, get used to it. And if you complain about it, he will bring it to your home town. Which he did anyway with US drug policy.

I’m thinking the “war on terror” is a political trick to make Arabs legally non-white.

Looking at the issue of race in the drug war, how the drug war is a business enterprise to destroy people based on race, and a big excuse for a global war which is ever growing, people then say the military budget is a political reality that “cant be changed” it has had a political monopoly on our government for decades.

Hogwash! I say it is a reality that cant be maintained, politically or otherwise. Trying to maintain it is also treason.

Those FACTS, mentioned often and loudly enough, will totally swing elections.

So maybe instead of this time being the beginning of the corporate rule, it will be the end of the military rule. The corporations making money off of war now are lying us into killing and maiming innocent people and destroying their property.

I think they are going to start seeing a lot of claims against the various damages they have caused. Not just in the US, their damage is global, international courts can get involved.

Now, if only Native Americans were guaranteed their human rights …

I guess I need a lawyer.

The way I understand it he is referreing to a freeze on discretionary spending. As a progressive, I don’t see where freezing the budgets of The Department of Commerce or the IRS is so wrong headed. This won’t effect entitlement spending. As for a previous poster complaining about their 0% COLA, prices this past year actually fell experiencing deflation from 2008-2009 resulting in the 0% COLA. For example gas, oil, commodities, food, fast food, the only thing that stayed up were services. However, even with services you have some control except healthcare(We need a public option). The previous year which I understand included a 5.4% COLA increase more than made up for the 0% COLA plus add in the deflation caused by the Great Recession. I do agree with the posters about military spending being totally out of control.

the inflation drop is bull – a gift of Greenspan and the GOP desire to not give SS increases in the 90′s.

Greenspan invented 2 new concepts that keep the number down or negative – “substitution” says if steak rises 50% over last year and hamburger drops 1%, your food costs dropped 1% because you will substitute, and in the tradition of holding conflicting ideas at the same time, if computer hard drives on new models are 100% larger as prices go up 10%, the price index dropped 45% because you are getting more for your money than you got last year (don’t think about hamburger being less than steak in value – it is a GOP/Boskin/Greenspan thing).

SS payouts in 2010 did not go up with inflation because Obama is a coward and afraid to change back to an inflation calculation that uses real numbers such as we had pre-Greenspan. The effect of a real inflation calculation is the GDP and productivity increase are cut and we find out just how big an economic disaster began with Bush and just how big the wealth transfer to the rich and corporate has been since 1980/Reagan.

The price inflation calc is bogus – see “substitution” and “product improvement” adjustments.

I love Fox partial truth – as the Vermont experiment showed, a simple change from corn feed to grass grazing reduces cow gas by 20%.

I admire your “green” credentials – but I thought this factoid important.

Krugman: “It’s appalling on every level.”

The WH annual deficit is a bogus number – the media never checks the real deficit which Bush moved to a constant $500 to $600 billion for every year in office. You can calculate the increase by subtracting the national debt at one point from the debt at a latter point (and note calendar year 2000 where Clinton decreased the national debt).

Left, right, center: the words don’t have any meaning anymore. This is about avoiding Collapse and all the horrors that entails.

They never did, really; by current definitions, I would wager that most people – read, over 50% of registered voters – would be classified as “liberals” or “progressives” based on their opinions on various issues (morning coffee time.)

This is kind of like denialism of Global Warming in that there are a succession of false arguments that one encounters that are nothing more than a series of masks: There is no global warming => there is global warming, but it’s not anthropogenic => there is anthropogenic global warming, but who’s to say it’s not a net benefit => AGW is not a net benefit, but in the developed countries it is => AGW is not a net benefit in any polity, but I refuse to change one iota if it costs me money.

Note that as each mask comes off, what is subsequently exposed is uglier and meaner until we get to the real issue, which is one of psychopathic and ill-conceived self-interest.

That’s the same with how things of gone in this country. We’ve gone from the artificially divisive issues and a rather vapid theory of economics that was in vogue thirty years ago as a means to justify how the pie was cut up to what is coming down to crunch time as nothing more and nothing less than a matchup of Plutocrats vs the World. Same as it always was, except that this time the bad guys had a lot of room and time to engineer a coup.

The divisive social issues will always be there of course, but at root just about everyone is an economic populist of one sort or another. All that changes from person to person are the starting assumptions. Maybe it’s time to make common cause, though I don’t see how to get there from here yet.

Yes!

Greenspan invented 2 new concepts that keep the number down or negative – “substitution” says if steak rises 50% over last year and hamburger drops 1%, your food costs dropped 1% because you will substitute, and in the tradition of holding conflicting ideas at the same time, if computer hard drives on new models are 100% larger as prices go up 10%, the price index dropped 45% because you are getting more for your money than you got last year (don’t think about hamburger being less than steak in value – it is a GOP/Boskin/Greenspan thing).

Actually, substitution is a very real phenomenon and one worth figuring out and measuring. Back in the old days, a lot of people went to various tax preparers such as HR block, for example(it’s getting to be that time.) Now? I’d say that a lot of people have gone the do-it-yourself route with packages like TurboTax. So how do you measure inflation in this instance?

The real problem with substitution is the same as it ever was – its use as a political club[1]. Teacher evaluations, with merit based pay? In the abstract, I’m all for it even though as a teacher at a public school I’m supposed to be against the idea. And you know, a lot teachers feel the same way. The problem is that in the actual implementation, there’s not a whole lot of accurate measurement going on, and the “merit-based pay” idea devolves into little more than a tool of control in the hands of inept and politically craven administrators.

[1]To use your example with computers, substitution is a real effect once you take into account price points and engineering constraints – you can now get netbook for maybe $300 that’s as powerful as most desktop units were in 1995. But conservatives like to point out that your desktop running on a three GHz Pentium chip with one GB of ram would have been the Most Powerful Computer in the World in 1955, and without coming right out and saying it, they coyly suggest that makes you a multimillionaire several times over – so wages haven’t been stagnant, no backsies.

“Given Washington Democrats’ unprecedented spending binge, this is like announcing you’re going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest,” said Michael Steel”

And, of course, none of us remember that the really unprecedented massive spending binge was begun and continued throughout the eight insanely evil years under the W. and Republicans, right?

“BTW, the cost of living is going down”

Only for the wealthy. The rest of us who spend most of our money on the basics, such as food and energy, are seeing massive inflation in the range of 20-50% over the past three years. The government figures are calculated by a formula designed to measure the cost of living for the wealthy.

Ever been scammed by slick fast talking used car salesman? Right, that’s how half of America is feeling right now.

nue vue ism

Hadn’t commented for a couple of months, selise.

But I followed what was going on here when time allowed.

Have got to tell you that I especailly appreciate your consistent unwillingness to be side-tracked.

As you know, I regard you as one of the Big Hitters, here.

That regard grows daily.

Thank you, selise, for your wisdom and your courage.

DW

True, but it is true many black have an emotional investment in Obama because he is the first black President. A black progressive will blunt the pain.

I can also assure you after studying this with a renowned scientist that Methane emission is the 2nd largest problem we have right now after CO2. It has to do with a gas cycle, and should it hit a runnaway (pos or neg feedback loop) – the forests would burn in the rain.

Cow burps are not the only cause btw.

But fuck it anway, so what if what any one of us makes that fart that breaks the cows back… as long as we are gettin sum green.

If people are real capitalists they will find a way to make money in something, or they will get the fuck out of the biz and do something else.

Good luck, since your income will not be going up.

rut roh ~ lasso that guy back into the veal pen!!!!!

DWBartoo, i’m glad you are back. your calming presence and reminder to treat each other with respect is always welcome and has been much needed of late. p.s. you are too kind, but i do appreciate the kind words. thanks.