In passing the baton over…

Hayward’s departure: ‘not if, but when’

They’ll release those memos when they’re damn well good and ready. So F%$K off and die Small People.
Or am I sounding shrill?

As one of the small people, my rage is equally divided between BP and our government. At BP for all the obvious reasons and at the government for allowing this to happen. The well should never have been allowed to be drilled without a backup plan, Salazar should never have been appointed to his position, and still more than two months after this disaster began our energy policy is the same damn bullshit. The US obviously prefers going bankrupt fighting two unnecessary wars instead of pouring money into alternative fuel sources and the infrastructure needed for a project of this magnitude.

Obama t-shirts make excellent paint rags.

Good points well taken, oldhippiejan! This horrible oil spill/disaster that more than likely killed the Gulf forever could not have happened without this present Administration’s complicity and enablement.

We’re supposed to let ‘em do what they want, or they’ll make the jobs go away.

Geesh. I agree with Krugman’s point this morning about the need for another bigger economic stimulus (an overarching industrial development strategy and economic vision would also be nice, but maybe that would be asking too much of Washington). China has already spent 3x the size of the current US stimulus in the past 18 months relative to GDP, and they weren’t even dealing with a major financial meltdown. That said, the case that Krugman makes is so wimpy…like his heart’s not in it or something. Wassup with him. Even pasty pudding Douthat, who I disagree with, comes to the debate with more verve.

Yeh…right!

What jobs?

Barack Obama suffers from the delusion that the creators of our problems are the best people to solve our problems. The Republic is screwed.

All those Morning in America jobs, I guess.

Sashay through the sarcasm
Stalking, skulking through the sargassum
Planning revenge on your friends

Good morning. I hope everyone has a wonderful Solstice planned.

What jobs?

Oh Bummah! is setting up multitudes of commissions so I am sure you can find a job on one of them, failing that a number of committees have been and are being set up and they will have positions open.

Most positions on most commissions are reserved for members of the AEI, the Heritage Foundation and Republicans in general. Gotta have that bipartisan ship.

Good morning, pups. It’s Monday so we must deal with The Pasty Little Putz and Prof. Krugman. The Pasty Little Putz has decided to tell us all about “The Agony of the Liberals.” He squeaks that American liberalism has always been frantically self-critical. But even by those standards, the anguish over the Obama presidency seems bizarrely disproportionate. Prof. Krugman, in “Now and Later,” says the government needs to spend now, while the economy is depressed, and save later. But politicians seem determined to do the reverse.

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, the cold drinks are in the fridge, and the biscuits are out of the oven. I’m off to feed the porch kittehs and get myself organized to start the week. Have a grand first day of summer.

“The Agony of the Liberals.” He squeaks that American liberalism has always been frantically self-critical.

Yes we hold our leaders to standards something the GOP must find strange since they hold any attack on the Alpha Chimp to be an attack on the entire pack.

Well, in the first place, Obama’s not a liberal. So we’re not being self-critical when we criticism him.

But I totally agree with your analysis of wingnut psychology. In his book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” Al Franken said that a conservatives love their country the way a four year old loves her Mommy– any disagreement with anything Mommy says is taken as an attack on Mommy.

After today’s excretion, I think putz is too kind a term…perhaps vuvuzela: only one note and it’s offkey. Love his economic advice juxtaposed to Krugman’s. And where exactly is the putz’s Nobel? Or merit prize of any kind?

First they came …” is a famous statement attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. The text expresses, in a condensed form, the understanding of history presented by Niemöller in a January 6, 1946 speech before representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt.[1]
“THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

The agony of conservatives is they never speak up and criticize their own. Until its to late but even then well only in America would the second worse President ever have a think tank that has been providing flawed studies to support failed and or untested ideas with an admittedly great Public Relations push.
Yes I’m talking the Hoover institute

Prior to Hoover’s death in 1964, he reflected on the Institution and its accomplishments, scope, importance, and purpose. He submitted a statement to the Board of Trustees of Stanford University in 1959 in which he stated:

This Institution supports the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights, and its method of representative government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity. . . . Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves. . . . The overall mission of this Institution is, from its records, to recall the voice of experience against the making of war, and by the study of these records and their publication, to recall man’s endeavors to make and preserve peace, and to sustain for America the safeguards of the American way of life. This Institution is not, and must not be, a mere library. But with these purposes as its goal, the Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the American system.

This statement, nearly four decades old, is robust, containing the essential ingredients that characterize the Hoover Institution of today. The pervading analytic demeanor present at the Institution emphasizes freedom (economic, political, individual) in the ultimate pursuit of prosperity and peaceful security, with skepticism of an ever-expanding role of government in the affairs of society.

The Institution’s overarching purpose is to

Assemble the requisite sources of knowledge pertaining to, and to understand the causes and consequences of, economic, political, and social changes in societies, at home and abroad

Analyze the effects of government actions relating to public policy

Generate and disseminate ideas directed at positive policy formation using reasoned arguments and intellectual rigor, converting conceptual insights into practical policy initiatives judged to be beneficial to society

Ideas have consequences, and a free flow of competing ideas leads to an evolution of policy adoptions and associated consequences affecting the well-being of society. The Hoover Institution endeavors to be a prominent contributor of ideas having positive consequences.

There are hundreds of entities in the United States alone dedicated to brokering ideas related to public policy. The Hoover Institution has important special qualities, including

The Institution’s own significant library and archival collections

The superb community resources of Stanford University

An academic character allowing for freedom of inquiry without a burdensome hierarchy

A pronounced inclination to address the “big picture” by offering ideas having broad and sweeping applications and internally consistent implications across applications

An interest in the policy process ongoing in Washington, D.C., coincident with a residence on the West Coast, allowing for a detached vision of the policy landscape for the purpose of accomplishing research leading to long-term policy development

A diversity of scholarship that combines research ranging from basic to applied, from theoretical to empirical, and from abstract to descriptive

A vitality of scholarship that effectively mixes differing disciplines engaging resident fellows with visiting scholars, academic thinkers with policy practitioners, and idea generators with media communicators

To achieve the Institution’s broad purpose, research is conducted using its library, archival, and scholarly assets under the auspices of three programs: Democracy and Free Markets, American Institutions and Economic Performance, and International Rivalries and Global Cooperation. These programs address, respectively, political economy abroad, political economy domestically, and political and economic relationships internationally.

http://www.hoover.org/about/herbert-hoover

There is just so much material in that statement :)

Or qualifications as an expert in anything? The GOPers have a lot of experts like Neocons who never fought a war writing about military policy.
Or George Will writing about global warming and dismissing it because of his science background/s!
Ben Stein and Jim Cramer both might have some economic experience but their calls to buy American banks before the banking crisis hit suggests to me paid hacks.
Where are the GOPer experts on anything who are not paid hacks.

The great victory of his relief work, he stressed, was not that the government rushed in and provided all assistance; it was that much of the assistance available was provided by private citizens and organizations in response to his appeals. “I suppose I could have called in the Army to help,” he said, “but why should I, when I only had to call upon Main Street.”
The treatment of African Americans during the disaster endangered Hoover’s reputation as a humanitarian. Local officials brutalized blacks and prevented them from leaving relief camps, aid meant for African-American sharecroppers was often given to the landowners instead, and many times black males were conscripted by locals into forced labor, sometimes at gun point.[19] Knowing the potential ramifications on his presidential aspirations if such knowledge became public, Hoover struck a deal with Robert Moton, the prominent African-American successor to Booker T. Washington as president of the Tuskegee Institute. In exchange for keeping the suffering of African Americans out of the public eye, Hoover promised unprecedented influence for African Americans if he was elected president. Moton agreed, and consistent with the accommodationist philosophy of Washington, worked actively to suppress information about mistreatment of blacks from being revealed to the media. Following election, Hoover broke his promises. This led to an African-American backlash in the 1932 election that shifted allegiance from the Republican party to the Democrats.[Full citation needed][20]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover#Mississippi_flood

Funny Mainstreet gets the credit as America is built off of the labor of African Americans Government Help is derided as Mainstreet getting the job done when in reality its forced slave labor.
When has Mainstreet Real America ever handled anything as big as major flooding or an oil spill?

Well, in the first place, Obama’s not a liberal. So we’re not being self-critical when we criticism him.

True:)

any disagreement with anything Mommy says is taken as an attack on Mommy.

My Mom could take care of herself and her kids. I’m guessing Conservatives never felt secure even at home as kids to be so over protective?

Bzzzzzzzzzzz.

The foundation being laid by the past administration and those worthless hacks left behind but loyal to bush.

This goes back to mocking the vision thing blowing away President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, President Carter mocked for energy realism, Al Gore our President denied by the corporate political alliance to Dr Dean being driven from the race with a single celebratory shout out, America media and education systems produce these results.

This explains why Ivy League idiots drill through the ceiling of hell and are shocked they can’t bullshit Mother Nature.

Major news mostly about soccer….O geez….And why does anyone care what Bill Kristol is whinning about…Yet he keeps showing up. Was this the way to start my morning? Good Mornng….

“The Agony of the Liberals.” He squeaks that American liberalism has always been frantically self-critical.

It is not “agony” or being “frantically self-critical”. It is the most high example of freedom possible to be able to be critical of our government, to be self-critical, to freely speak without the threat of being blackballed, persecuted or arrested. It is the MOST American act of freedom possible. Self-critical speech is the foundation to building better solutions to community concerns and building better democracies. Sitting around like bobbing heads on a dashboard builds oligarchies and totalitarian societies.

From a Christian perspective, this self criticism would be called admonishment and accountability. Admonishment and accountability bring positive change to pitfalls. It is also referred to as tough love.

Tough love in this case is an ultimate act of patriotism and a requirement to building a better democracy as long as the criticism is accompanied with actions that grow the positive change.

I do have to agree with the idea spend now save later in order to build the economy.

Attaturk,

It is not just BP that has been lying – since DAY 1, the government has lied. Ben Raines of the Press Register (al.com) on May 1, posted the article, “Video shows federal officials knew quickly of potential for massive oil flow in Gulf spill” with the video and a still from the video of notes on a white board:

. . . filmed in Seattle, at NOAA’s Western Regional Center, as scientists and federal officials in Seattle, Houston and New Orleans engaged in telephone conferences . . . discussing the search for survivors of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. There is a hand-drawn map of the spill dated April 22. . . .

. . . A dry erase board on the wall reads:

‘Estim: 64,000K – 110K BBLS/Day.
CNN reported 300,000 gal/day.’

The high end of the estimate, 110,000 barrels, is about 4.6 million gallons. At that spill rate, 32 million gallons of oil would enter the Gulf every week. By comparison, the entire Exxon Valdez spill was about 11 million gallons.

A confidential NOAA report, dated April 28 and circulated among federal agencies, . . . describes newly discovered leaks in the tangle of riser pipe, attributing them to ongoing erosion of the pipe. . . . ‘If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked,’ reads the report.

So I’m afraid your quoted source ["The figure is the highest yet to surface regarding the leaking oil well."] is either seriously not paying attention [I read al.com at the beginning of May while in a 3d world Asian nation] or is spinning. SInce the top kill failed, you can find credible source projections of a nearing reality that make your blood run cold.

Looking at Ben Raines’ article again, he includes a still image of a hand drawn map of the Gulf and oil slick/sheens that you can zoom in on.

To the left of the tip of a pen, you can read, “5,000,000 gal / day”.

This hidden clue suggests that even Raines’ was forced by his bosses to spin.

And of course, the honorable person(s) at NOAA who made this film and leaked it deserve our praise.

If we got back to full employment, the budget problems disappear.

They need to gut Social Security before they can have a jobs bill and that won’t happen until after the election.
So, look for a real jobs bill next spring to boost employment before the 2012 elections.

They need to gut Social Security before they can have a jobs bill

I don’t know whether that’s their claim, or yours, or you accepting their claim as a political reality that needs to be worked around, but I for one am outraged by the very idea. It is a lie. SS benefits can be preserved in their present form through any number of available measures. See SImpson, false framing, etc.