Diane’s with us on everything but the war.

in Europe, where officials seem to be getting their talking points from the collected speeches of Herbert Hoover

Our pal President Joystick appears to be channeling uncle Herby as well.

What a wonderful speech. Hit all the right points. Thanks for posting the clip, BT. Senator Byrd will be missed. The Senate and our country just lost a hero.
Good Morning, Pups. Hope all had a good weekend.

Great speech by Robert Byrd.

Morning BT, Firepups.

Thanks, Dianne!

“…she told “Fox News Sunday” that if General David Petraeus asked for more troops next summer, he should be granted them….”

Fox News Sunday? What else do you need to know? Feinstein is a joke and an embarrassment.

Regarding Kagen’s confirmation hearing, I wonder if Judge Walker will be paying attention to the questions about Kagen’s non support of gay marriage.

RIP Senator Byrd. When he was first elected, it was still eight years before I was born. There needs to be a reasonable but mandatory retirement age for lawmakers. It’s hard to represent your constituents when you graduated college before the vast majority of them were born.

Regarding BP cleanup. Check this one.
http://www.correntewire.com/no_comment_8

I don’t know if I agree with that. A senator can be young and still out of touch with constituents.

The people who called in to C-span this morning from West Virginia uniformly loved him. Interestingly, several of them thought the Governor would appoint himself to succeed Byrd.

We outnumber Al Qaeda in Afghanistan by a minimum of 1,000 to 1 which means we are spending a minimum of $1,000,000,000, (that right BILLION), per year, per Al Qaeda fighter and we’re losing ground! This is stupid, pointless and destructive both to us and the Afghans. If you can’t take out somebody by throwing one billion dollars annually and 1,000 of some of the world’s best soldiers at them, it’s time to give up.

No kidding, I live in Texas-and I assure you that my Senators, while not necessarily young, are certainly out of touch with me. Figuratively, we are quite literally in almost daily communication, for what good it does me.

True. I didn’t write it lightly though I may have written it awkwardly. Were Mr. Byrd’s constituents served well in this last term when he spent so much time in the hospital and away from the Senate? I don’t live in West Virginia so I have no idea how they feel about it. It’s just my opinion that somebody with health issues who runs for high office is being selfish to a certain degree.

It should be mandatory that reps be in communication with their peeps, but how do we make them actually hear us. Lead a horse to water, but not make them drink. I don’t know what the answer is.

Especially Cornyn! I wrote to complain to him and now I’m on a propaganda list I can’t seem to get off of. I never did get a response to my complaint. Hutchinson sort of responded but it was a form response and didn’t even address the proper topic!

Well, he was there for some key votes, wasn’t he? I thinks that’s at least as important as being in the chamber day after day. I think most of the information gathering and politicing takes place outside the chamber and many times the staff is doing the work. N’est pas?

But, he’s got such nice hair! /s

Personal OT – Are you on FB, even though you don’t have an f by your name? In the fb section of this site, I see a blond Margaret and wonder if that’s you.

I never did get a response to my complaint.

In fairness, are you sure he can actually read? heh…

I’m a blond Margaret but I’m not on Facebook. :-)

Mornin’, BT, pups

RIP Senator Byrd.

I agree with Margaret. The last few years Byrd has been little more than a placeholder.

Krugman’s on it this morning. When the economy really goes in the shitter next year Summers and Geithner will say we didn’t carry austerity measures far enough, echoing the Chicago Boys after Chile, Argentina, Poland and Russia.

That’s why Molly Ivins called him a “good looking son of a bi….”; I think her implication was that indeed he looks like a Senator but has no other qualifications….Is there a sane Molly voice out there? Probably not.

Are you familiar with Jim Hightower?

I wrote KBH a letter and put in the wrong topic out of curiosity and sure enough, they sent me a form letter for that topic, they never even read my letter! Constituent service…

Yes indeed. They were good friends. I just don’t hear much from him. Thanks

Dragon! How you doing (Considering it’s Monday & all…)?

You did see him on Moyers’ last show, though, didn’t you?

Heck, I put in the topic I wanted to discuss and got back a letter thanking me for contacting her about an entirely different topic. When people say that we should contact our Senators and let our positions be known, it’s just a futile practice here. I doubt their respective staffs even write anything down. They are like BP phone bankers. Totally there for show and transparently so.

Word.

For anyone who’s not familiar with Jim Hightower…

I actually had a pretty good letter from KBH on immigration; Rep McCaul’s was insanity….

Yep…thanks for the reminder. Do you know he lost his place in TX office when he lost to newcomer Rick Perry? What a laugh…except not really funny.

Krugman’s been right all along but Mr. Bipartisan squandered his unstoppable majority by “reaching out” to Republicans and failing to put a leash on Democrats. Of course I believe that things have played out pretty much as he wanted them to. That is pro corporate, pro war and anti American people.

I did not know that. Sorry to hear it, though.

Constituent service…

Otherwise known as “send this pain in the ass Form Letter #3.”

McCaul’s major accomplishment in life was marrying the heiress to the Clear Channel fortune. He has some very, very nice digs at the extreme edge of his District in Westlake Hills-I was quite surprised to learn that area was even in CD-10.

What do you think happened to the pre-president Obama? How could he have changed so much? What did he learn when he got to the WH?

When DeLay’s illegal redistricting was pushed through, I moved just to get back into Lloydd Doggett’s district, even though it was much further from work. McCaul has no business representing anyone near Austin.

We be fine. Thanks for askin’. Mondays will be great after I’ve hit the lottery.

I worked for his opponent in the last election; Houston beat us.

I think pre president Obama was just a really good liar. I knew he wasn’t any kind of Progressive but I thought he was more in the mold of Clinton. Hell, he makes Clinton look like a Progressive.

That’s called neoliberal, although I’m beginning to think those on the far right are neofascists and the administration is more concerned in pleasing them than anything else. Goes right along with the neoliberal agenda: privatization, militarism and traditionalism.

Got that right.

Two sides of the same coin.

We been bamboozled.

Did you read the Sat. Book Salon? It was genuingly scary & sad….

I moved to get into it! I got tired off trying to get rid off Lamar Smith, which was rendered an impossibility by that redistricting. I liked Westlake, but not Smith.

As for Obama, the violated FISA bit was the tip-off for me. The statement about “For some of you this may be a deal breaker & that’s OK…” really pissed me off. When he appointed Emmanuel as his COS it was the ultimate dis of progressives.

No. I don’t think that’s the case. Summers knows the score as well as Krugman. The problem is that the White rightly believes that they cannot get anything out of Congress to stimulate the economy as long as the Thugs filibuster. They are trying to make the best of a bad situation. One might hope that Obama would get up on the bully pulpit, but he is not a professional economist, and the Chicago school types would cut him to shreds on insignificant points of detail. This is what they do for a living.

From the perspective of the economics profession (which is mine), the problem is that the whole trend in macro-analysis since the late 70s has been against the obvious Keynesian point that economies suffer when there is deficient demand, and that there is no automatic replenishment of that demand in periods of depression. Bernanke is a product of the generation who was taught that swill, and he cannot free his mind of it. As to Geithner, he is not an economist, and his background is in banking, not fiscal policy.

We are in a perfect storm of the kind that caused the Great Depression — it is both real in the sense of demand deficiency, and intellectual, in the sense of the reigning economic ideology going counter to rational policy.

I have started to re-read my signed copy of James Tobin’s National Economic Policy, which is a collection of essays he wrote between 1958 and 1966 (with a iatus during the time he served on Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors. It is enough to make one cry. The solutions to our problems and the analysis of our political culture are all there — 50 years ago and still relevant Krugman could have written them (for all I know, he may be cribbing from them).

Krugman is dead right on this one. And as in 1930, the econ profession once again finds itself on the wrong side of the fence. It is self-inflicted damage.

Chicago School ascendant? Shock economics seem to be in play here, just as Naomi Klein, illustrated in her book of the same title.

No, I’ll have to go back and read it.

I knew he was no Progressive before the FISA vote but after that, even the Orange Satan could no longer defend him.

I don’t remember your being here during the primaries. I could be wrong. There were some knock down dragouts around here. There were a few pups who stayed with Hillary, but not many.

There are a whole range of issues he could use the bully pulpit for but he hasn’t. Not once. The fact that he “is not a professional economist” is like saying he should talk about the space program because he’s not an astronaut. Stopping both wars would go a very long way toward solving the deficit but that isn’t even on the table.

Good morning all.

Depression it is.

As the priest sez: Pox vobiscum.

Summers is in a position to say something and doesn’t. I don’t see him buttonholing Reps and Sens to straighten them out. The Rethugs aren’t interested in correcting anything, they just want to win elections and further the distribution of wealth to the top. If the Rethugs win back a majority in the House and/or Senate this year and the economy really tanks next year they’ll blame the Dims and the far right will add supporters.

I’m out….Later. Let’s enjoy the day….

Have a blessed one, Bev.

The wars are winnable to them. Even if it takes a hundred years it’s winnable. Assholes.

Namaste. Right behind ya.

Nope, you’re right. I wasn’t here during the primaries much. I did stop by on a couple of memorable occasions to point out that Obama wasn’t much of a Progressive and that badmouthing Clinton supporters would probably not very effective in getting her voters to vote Obama in the general. Even though I voted for Obama in the primary, (by that time it was really down to him or Clinton), I was called unfortunate names like PUMA and Hillary bot and so forth, when all I was trying to do was to point out that being a sore, gloating winner isn’t a good way to get them to cooperate with you later on. I kept my exposure to a minimum because of that kind of thing.

Of course! Neither they nor their children will be going to fight them. They are War Pigs

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4,408

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,139

Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 22,072 and counting

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (do yerself a favour and read the lyrics just below the vid)

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

I voted for Hillary. Of course, I wish we’d had had a real progressive candidate to cast our ballots for, but I still think overall that we’d be better off with the two of them in the other one’s job.

Morning Mon-dogs,

Krugman’s usual enlightening, certainly not uplifting message.

Margaret @ 28
Have had some success contacting my reps’ main managers, like office manager financial manager, campaign manager and have gotten personal responses rather directly.

Don’t take any wooden nickels, SD.

Hooooa, that brings back memories.

Prolly get more for it than a gubmint issued nickel.

New post up top…

I got up until the very last day before the primary still torn. Then Obama made a speech that made me think he’d be better for science and the space program than Clinton, plus I thought Hillary’s baggage would make it harder for her to create real change, so I took a chance and we all lost. :-(

Though we could have ended up with McCain/Palin

True and I voted for Obama in the general too. But we were talking about the primaries and it was I who was trying to get the hard core Obamabots who were gloating all over the blogsphere to STFU with the badmouthing so McPalin WOULDN’T win.

That’s still a fuckin’ frightening thought.

I have tried to suppress any memory of the primaries.

Let us never forget the 21 senators who voted against the Iraq invasion. Byrd knew the classics and knew not to get swept up in the moment by a disastrous ideas. Indeed, he would probably have been the only senator to point out that dis-aster came from the Latin word for star as in “this Iraq War idea is not in our stars”.

21 (42%) of 50 Democratic Senators voted against the resolution: Sens. Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Conrad (D-ND), Corzine (D-NJ), Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (D-FL), Inouye (D-HI), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wellstone (D-MN), Wyden (D-OR).

1 of 49 Republican Senators voted against the resolution: Sen. Chafee (R-RI). The only Independent Senator voted against the resolution: Sen. Jeffords (I-VT.