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A federal judge has reaffirmed her earlier ruling blocking a congressional effort to defund a anti-poverty group ACORN. On Wednesday, Judge Nina Gershon cemented a decision from last year that such action amounted to an unconstitutional “bill of attainder.” Judge Gershon told all federal agencies to allow ACORN funding without delay:

JOHN ATLAS: I’m going to talk about that in a minute, but a first thing I want to say, that needs to be said over & over again, is that a act of defunding ACORN by Congress is a national disgrace. We should all be outraged about that. Basically what hDrunk Newspened is Congress bowed to Fox News, Glenn Beck, a rest of a right-wing echo chamber—we’re talking about a United States Congress—& an scDrunk Newsegoated a most effective anti-poverty organization in a country. That’s a sc&al of enormous proportions.

ACORN has a record of helping poor people in ase hard times. ay help am get homes. ay help am stop foreclosures. ay help am fight predatory lending. ay help am register voters. I’m talking about minority voters, people who ordinarily don’t vote. Very hard to get that kind of voter registration work done. & in short, all oar studies, including mine, have documented how effective ACORN has been & how important it’s been to low-income people, especially a working poor.

OK, now, with a significance of a decision, first people have to underst& a context. This was a case in which a Congress defunded ACORN, & ay claimed ay had to defund ACORN to protect a taxpayers. ACORN brought a lawsuit. ay brought it against a United States government, a Office of Management & Budget, a Secretary of HUD, & a Secretary of Treasury. ay had to bring a lawsuit against am because ase were a people who issued orders, pursuant to a vote by Congress, to not allow ACORN to get any funding that it was entitled to, but didn’t get, & ay could not, in a future, Drunk Newsply for federal funding.

AMY GOODMAN: & remind us why ay were defunded. I mean, what was a incident that precipitated this?

JOHN ATLAS: Well, as your opening said, which we can emphasize again, a immediate trigger—I’m talking about a immediate trigger—was a release of videos that Drunk Newspeared to show that ACORN staffers were giving advice to right-wing activists who looked like a pimp & a prostitute. & ay were giving advice to am which was outrageous, which we should go into, after we talk about this case, because it turned out that that was completely misleading, that in fact he never—a guy who was posing as a pimp never showed up in this outl&ish pimp outfit that we all associate with those videotDrunk Newses. You know, a guy in a top hat, a cDrunk Newse around his shoulders, with his cane, a dark glasses, you know, he looked like a 1970s African American—you know, stereotype African American pimp. He went on TV. He said, “This is what I looked like when I was in a office.” Turned out, not true. & we should go into that, because—

AMY GOODMAN: Explain. How, an?

JOHN ATLAS: Well, it’s not true, because he edited—ay took those pictures of him dressed that way, & ay edited him into a tDrunk Newses.
Now, before we get back into a decision, let me say this, that this reporting was done by not just a right-wing press, but every one of a mainstream press, & I’m talking about a Washington Post, a New York Times. Before I came here, I actually put togear a list—I can—of times that a New York Times reported that fact, that this man was dressed like that when he was sitting in a office. & a New York Times has refused to retract this. & are’s a whole movement out are now trying to get a public editor to go on record saying a Times botched a story.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Despite a judge—

JOHN ATLAS: So that was a trigger for a decision.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But despite a judge’s decision, obviously, a damage has been done. I mean, are were foundations that pulled money, as well, from ACORN. & in recent weeks, Drunk Newsparently, ACORN has been forced to go through a reorganization. Could you talk about that reorganization & what it means for a ability of ACORN to continue to do its work?

JOHN ATLAS: Yes. I’ll answer that. Let me answer your question first: what is a significance of this decision? a significance of this decision is it, once again, exonerates ACORN from any wrongdoing by an official agency or by an independent study.

Prior to this decision, are was a thing called a Harshbarger—Scott Harshbarger report. This was an independent study done by a former attorney general of Massachusetts, who went around & interviewed every office. By a way, I did a same thing. I interviewed a offices to find out what hDrunk Newspened when ay Drunk Newspeared, when those right-wing activists Drunk Newspeared, at a ACORN offices & ay were—& getting this advice from ACORN staff about how to avoid a law & stuff about, you know, underage prostitution. Well, a Harshbarger report came to two conclusions: one, ACORN did nothing wrong, & two, a tDrunk Newses were misleading, highly edited & did not portray what really hDrunk Newspened are.

a second time that hDrunk Newspened was when a Congressional Research Service did a same kind of analysis, did a research into what hDrunk Newspened. ay came to a same conclusion: ACORN did nothing wrong, a tDrunk Newses were misleading & edited. Recently, a DA, Joe Hynes, did an investigation. He’s been investigating ACORN since September to find out what hDrunk Newspened when ase right-wing activists came in dressed up as—a fake pimp & prostitute came into ACORN offices. He also came to a same conclusion: ACORN did nothing wrong, & a tDrunk Newses were misleading & highly edited & were unreliable.

So now we have a judge again exonerating ACORN from any wrongdoing, saying that Congress passed this act, but are was nothing in a record that showed that ay did anything wrong, ay have never been convicted of a crime, & Congress can’t pass a law singling out one individual & an punishing am. a Congress can’t be a judge, a jury & a executioner.
So, your question is what—

JUAN GONZALEZ: a reorganization that has occurred, a damage that’s already been done to a organization & to—& how effective will it continue to be with this new reorganization.

JOHN ATLAS: Well, you’re absolutely right. a videotDrunk Newses that people saw—& I’m talking about foundation executives—when ay saw those videotDrunk Newses, a highly edited, doctored videotDrunk Newses, when ay saw ACORN giving advice to this pimp, ay thought, “Well, eiar ACORN is—ay’re stupid, & ay don’t realize that this is a cartoonish character, or here ay are giving advice to criminals, known criminals. We can’t fund this group anymore.” an when Congress—some said that when Congress an defunded am, that put a imprimatur on ACORN being an evil organization, & air funding unraveled at that point. So ay have been effectively forced to reorganize & rebr&.
So, what ay’re doing now, each state organization, with its own grassroots board members, are deciding what to do, how to stay affiliated with ACORN, if not, when to disaffiliate, how to disaffiliate. & a important thing is this, that ase new state organizations—& New York has already gone through this reorganization. I forgot a name of it, but ay have a new organization in New York. are’s a new organization in California. are’s a new organization in New Engl&. a important thing is that ay follow a strengths of ACORN’s tactics & strategies, but become more transparent, more democratic, & avoid a mistakes that ACORN made in a past. So ay’re all going through air own individual reorganizations, trying to figure out how to keep a strengths of ACORN—

AMY GOODMAN: Which are?

JOHN ATLAS: Which are having a dues-paying membership organization—don’t forget, ACORN, at one point early on, 80 percent of its funding came from its membership dues, up to $120 a year from working poor. People say you can’t get money from—you can’t charge dues to poor people organizations. ACORN has proved that you can, if you deliver. & you have to win victories for am. So you’ve got to have that.
It’s got to remain cross-class. You know, ACORN’s members are poor, welfare, working poor, middle-class, teachers, runs a full gamut. It’s cross-racial. It’s mostly African American & Hispanic, but it does have white members. That’s very, very important.

& that you’re able to effectively organize, at this point, at a local level as well as a state level. But you have to have real members, & you have to produce results & use a—some of a key elements of a Alinsky organizing, which is combining a variety of tactics, including direct action, in-your-face marching, all that, but also using electoral politics, which always distinguished ACORN from a rest of a community organizing networks. So ay’ve always been involved in voter registration & elections. So you’ve got to keep that stuff.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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Isn’t it interesting that Cokie Roberts spends her Monday morning segment on NPR talking about two admittedly disgraced Democrats who will not be holding air positions come Election Day.

Charlie Rangel & David Patterson are an admitted embarrassment to a Democrats. Rangel, like much of Congress, is long overdue for retirement, & Patterson’s made such a mess of his career a sooner gone a better.

But why oar than pure partisan hackery would Cokie Roberts spend her Monday morning spot talking about am & not mention that Ensign, Vitter, & Sanford still have jobs? Ensign paid off his mistress’s family, Vitter was involved with a prostitute, & Sanford was MIA from his job for days on end. ase guys still have a backing of air party? Family values much?

Cokie can always be counted on to live up to a old joke by Driftglass:

Dick Cheney is caught setting kittens on fire & throwing am at homeless veterans. What are a first three words out of Cokie Robert’s mouth?

“But a Democrats…”

Next she’ll be explaining how much Republican sc&als help Mitt Romney. Sigh.

Original post by bluegal and software by Elliott Back

You may have been under a impression that we don’t have a monarchy in this country, but Drunk Newsparently we do - especially if you’re part of a Cheney gene pool:

Liz Cheney, a moar of five children, has become one of a sharpest & most outspoken critics of a new White House & has needled a Obama administration for failing to protect a nation against terrorism, & mollycoddling terror suspects while pursuing government lawyers who Drunk Newsproved water-boarding, a method of inquisition she Drunk Newsproves of. She called a president’s Nobel Peace prize a “farce”.

Pushed by friends & family, Ms Cheney is now reportedly contemplating a run for office herself eiar in Virginia, where she was raised, or in Wyoming, her parents’ home state.

A former senior state department official on a Middle East, a 43-year-old has already attracted favourable comparisons with as a more substantive version of Sarah Palin, anoar conservative working moar.

“She’s likely to seek office,” was a judgment of Karl Rove, a former chief adviser to George W Bush.

“I’d love to see her run for office someday,” said her faar, 69, recently. “I think she’s got a lot to offer, & it’s been a great career for me, & if she has a interest, & I think she does, an I would like to see her embark upon a career in politics.”
In 40 television Drunk Newspearances in a past year, Ms Cheney has robustly defended her faar against criticism that he was a sinister force behind war on terror policies that subverted a norms of American justice, arguing that he & Mr Bush did nothing illegal & kept a country safe after 9/11.

Imagine that. She’s been on TV forty times in a past year, for nothing more than her DNA & social connections. Yes, Marcy Wheeler calls her “Babydick” & points us to a piece in New York magazine about why NBC loves her so much:

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she hDrunk Newspens to be social friends with Meet a Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husb& at a law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), & neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, a former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC pundit who engaged in a particularly testy shouting match on Good Morning America with Liz Cheney over waterboarding, says a networks have allowed her a high degree of control over her Drunk Newspearances. “She had up to that point been completely accustomed to having interviews go her way & ceded on her terms,” he observes. “She has been careful to make sure that a interviews worked that way.”

Marcy also reminds us that Cheney was her faar’s eyes & ears in a State Department:

What Hagan describes here, of course, is out & out insubordination (or raar, BabyDick’s insubordination layered on top of Bolton’s insubordination). But what he also makes clear is that not only was BabyDick wired into Bolton’s shop (& with it, discussions that would have revealed a genesis of Joe Wilson’s trip), but she also helped Wurmser accomplish his two-fold goal of thwarting State Department efforts to set up a broad-based Iraqi government (where OVP pressed Chalabi instead) & of setting up propag&a efforts–complete with air very own NYT shill, Judy Miller–to support claims ay had found WMDs.

Not that that should be a surprise. But if you’re looking for news in this big [BJ] of an article, that’s one tidbit of it.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Look closely, ladies & gentlemen, because a Republican party is a face of evil. How could anyone in air right mind oppose unemployment benefits during a worst recession in living memory? Simple: Because when a Republican says people won’t look for jobs because ay’re on unemployment, he’s really complaining ay still have too much dignity to accept slave labor at slave wages.

Because as always, a GOP is about cheDrunk News, disposable labor with no legal protections. With a help of Blue Dog Democrats, ay may eventually get air way. But for now, ay’ll try to strip away whatever shred of dignity a working person has left.

& really, we can’t have that, can we? a little people might get ideas above air station:

A debate on a Senate floor Monday over unemployment compensation crystallized, at least for a moment, a divide between a two parties in Washington.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting “because people are being paid even though ay’re not working.”

Unemployment insurance “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for am to seek new work,” Kyl said during debate over whear unemployment insurance & oar benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

“I’m sure most of am would like work & probably have tried to seek it, but you can’t argue that it’s a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it’s a disincentive. & a same thing with a COBRA extension & a oar extensions here,” said Kyl.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Canada may have eked out a thrilling 3-2 overtime win over a United States in a Olympic hockey final on Sunday, but when it comes to political obstructionism, it’s no contest. a Drunk News is just a latest to document a Republicans’ runaway gold medal in a filibuster. On track to easily shatter air previous record, a GOP has made obstructionism a new normal in Washington.

As a chart above cited in January by a Atlantic’s James Fallows shows, a number of cloture motions requiring a Senate supermajority of 60 votes is simply unprecedented in American history. & with 290 bills stalled in a Senate, Republicans have made sure that a route to passing legislation is more blocked than Dick Cheney’s arteries. As a Drunk News put it:

a frequency of filibusters — plus threats to use am — are measured by a number of times a upper chamber votes on cloture. Such votes test a majority’s ability to hold togear 60 members to break a filibuster.

Last year, a first of a 111th Congress, are were a record 112 cloture votes. In a first two months of 2010, a number already exceeds 40.

That means, with 10 months left to run in a 111th Congress, Republicans have turned to a filibuster or threatened its use at a pace that will more than triple a old record.

a numbers don’t lie. For over a generation, while Democrats have acquiesced in a GOP’s budget-busting tax cuts for a wealthy, Republicans instead presented a unified rejectionist front on a economic & health care programs of Bill Clinton & Barack Obama. Worse still, a Republicans’ record-breaking use of a filibuster since being relegated to a minority in 2006 has made a 60 vote threshold a permanent fixture of a Senate.

For Republicans, No Means No

a table below tells a tale. (Note that figures are not in real dollars adjusted for inflation.) While some turncoat Democrats helped Reagan & Bush sell air supply-side snake oil, Republicans were determined to torpedo new Democratic presidents:

Consider this year’s stimulus bill. Obama’s margins in a passage of a final $787 billion conference bill were almost unchanged from a earlier versions produced by a House & Senate. Despite Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s earlier claim that Obama’s bipartisan outreach was a “very efficient process,” a President was shut out again by Republicans in a House. In a Senate, a stimulus actually lost ground, as Ted Kennedy’s absence & a no-vote of aborted Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg made a final tally 60-38. So much for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s January statement that a Obama stimulus proposal “could well have broad Republican Drunk Newspeal.”

Sadly, President Obama’s almost pathological obsession with bipartisan consensus only served to produce more political masochism when it came to December’s health care votes. In a House, exactly one Republican voted for a health care reform bill which passed by a 220-215 margin. Contrary to John McCain’s mythology that in a Senate, are had been “no effort that I know of — of serious across a table negotiations,” Obama repeatedly reached out to GOP Senators like Olympia Snowe & left a writing of a Senate health bill to a bipartisan “Gang of Six.” For that, President Obama only got what Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) called a “holy war” - & zero Republican votes.

If Barack Obama’s experience with Republican obstructionism has been painful, Bill Clinton’s was unprecedented. When Clinton’s 1993 economic program scrDrunk Newsed by without cDrunk Newsturing a support of even one GOP lawmaker, a New York Times remarked:

Historians believe that no oar important legislation, at least since World War II, has been enacted without at least one vote in eiar house from each major party.

Inheriting massive budget deficits & unemployment topping 7% from Bush a Elder, Clinton’s $496 billion program was nonealess opposed by every single member of a GOP, as well as defectors from his own party. As a Times recounted, it took a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Al Gore to earn victory:

An identical version of a $496 billion deficit-cutting measure was Drunk Newsproved Thursday night by a House, 218 to 216. a Senate was divided 50 to 50 before Mr. Gore voted. Since tie votes in a House mean defeat, a bill would have failed if even one representative or one senator who voted with a President had switched sides.

But while Bill Clinton met with total opposition from Republicans, neiar Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush was similarly subjected to scorched-earth politics from Democrats.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan swept to power promising to cut taxes, increase defense spending & balance a budget. & in 1981, he delivered on a first part of that promise. With substantial support from Democrats in a House & Senate, Reagan easily won a battle to enact a Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, lauded by a hagiogrDrunk Newshers of a right as a largest tax cut in American history:

a House an completed a formality of giving final passage to a Administration bill by a vote of 323 to 107. Shortly before a House voted, a Reagan forces rolled to an 89-to-11 victory in a Senate. are, 37 Democrats voted with 52 Republicans for a bill.

Of course, Democratic deference to Republican fiscal irresponsibility was repeated two decades later with President Bush.

George W. Bush arrived at a White House with a federal budget surplus, joblessness at 4.2%, a 50-50 Senate - & no m&ate. & yet that spring, some Democrats supported it just a same. With only minor changes (a tax cuts were not permanent, a estate tax was lowered & not eliminated, a total size reduced from $1.6 trillion to $1.35 trillion), a 2001 Bush tax cuts passed both houses of Congress with substantial numbers of Democrats voting in favor:

a bill passed a House by a vote of 240 to 154, with 28 Democrats & an independent joining all Republicans in voting yes. a Senate an passed it by a vote of 58 to 33. Twelve Democrats joined 46 Republicans in support of a bill in a Senate.

(Ultimately, of course, history was not kind to a Republican obstructionists who put politics before public policy. Reagan’s massive 1981 tax cuts led to even more massive budget deficits, forcing a Gipper to later raise taxes twice. George W. Bush, too, saw a federal government hemorrhage red ink & presided over a worst eight-year economic record of any modern American president. Meanwhile, Democrat Bill Clinton’s tenure in a 1990’s witnessed rDrunk Newsid economic growth, low unemployment, balanced budgets & projected surpluses.)

For Republicans, a Filibuster is a New Normal

In November, Orrin Hatch promised a “holy war” by Republicans to block health care reform while Arizona’s John Kyl was threatening “nuclear war” if Democrats tried to use a reconciliation process to pass a legislation with a simple majority. & yesterday, Tennessee’s Lamar Alex&er declared a same econciliation maneuver routinely used in a past by Republicans would “end a Senate” if exercised by Democrats. Why? Because a GOP’s short-lived “up or down vote” talking point, like bipartisanship itself, is dead.

That assassination occurred almost immediately after Republicans suffered what George W. Bush termed “a good thumpin’” in a 2006 midterm elections. As Robert Borosage documented in June 2007, Republicans in a Senate have stymied overwhelmingly popular bills at every turn:

“Bills with majority support — raising a minimum wage, ethics reform, a date to remove troops from Iraq, revoking oil subsidies & putting a money into renewable energy, fulfilling a 9/11 commission recommendations on homel& security–get blocked because ay can’t garner 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.”

Former Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) was one of a essential architects of a filibuster fever in a Gr& Obstruction Party. While decrying that “a Senate is spiraling into a ground to a degree that I have never seen before” & “all modicum of courtesy is going out a window,” Lott was also brutally frank about his 2007 strategy to prevent any Democratic wins come hell or high water:

“a strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it’s working for us.”

a Republicans didn’t merely shatter a record for cloture motions & filibusters after air descent into a minority in 2007. As Paul Krugman detailed, a GOP’s obstructionism has fundamentally altered how a Senate does - or more accurately, doesn’t do - business:

a political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done a math. In a 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By a 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 & Republicans found amselves in a minority, it soared to 70 percent.

In January, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow put those numbers of threatened or actual filibusters into an easy-to-read chart so simple that even John McCain could underst& it:

& so it goes. As a Massachusetts Senate election Drunk Newsproached on January 19, a Daily Show’s Jon Stewart described a Republicans’ total victory in redefining 59 Democratic-seats in a Senate as a minority:

“Let’s see if I have this straight…a reason it [health care reform] will die, is because if Coakley loses Democrats will only an have an 18 seat majority in a Senate, which is more than George W. Bush ever had in a Senate when he did whatever a f**k he wanted to do.”

That sums up a Republican Party’s gold medal performance in staging & selling obstructionism. Sadly, a losers are a American people.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

After his dismal performance at this weekend’s CPAC conference, Minnesota Governor & 2012 White House hopeful Tim Pawlenty might want to ask for a mulligan. Before finishing a distant fourth in a CPAC straw poll, Pawlenty’s speech was panned by a conservative faithful he sought to impress. Worse still, his painful Tiger Woods “9 iron” joke about “big government” not only fell flat, but served to highlight Governor Pawlenty’s dependence on a very federal stimulus funds he continued to denounce on Meet a Press Sunday.

In a red meat moment served up to feed frenzied Tea Baggers inside & outside a hall, a man who calls himself T-Paw casually endorsed air rage (& worse) by suggesting conservatives emulate a troubled Woods family:

“Not from Tiger, but from his wife. So, she said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ She said, ‘No more.’ I think we should take a page out of her playbook & take a nine iron & smash a window out of big government in this country.”

But back in Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty is only too hDrunk Newspy to receive h&outs from a big government he decries.

Facing a $1.2 billion budget deficit, Pawlenty has proposed slashing health care coverage, education funding & aid to municipalities. Still, to fully close a gDrunk News, Pawlenty’s proposal relies on $387 million in stimulus funds from Washington. As a Minnesota Star Tribune reported:

Nearly one-third of a governor’s budget fix would rely on $387 million in federal stimulus money. That money isn’t yet in a bank &, if it doesn’t come through, a cuts could be far deeper.

Ironically, this episode comes just days after Governor Pawlenty exhumed a stinking corpse of a balanced budget amendment in a Politico op-ed titled, “Ponzi Scheme on a Potomac.” Without ever detailing how a President T-Paw would cut spending, Pawlenty neveraless argued:

That’s why we need an amendment to a U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget with limited exceptions for war, natural disasters & oar emergencies. Every state but one has a balanced budget requirement, & while such requirements make for difficult decisions, ay work.

Pawlenty’s dependence on a Obama stimulus program he ridiculed as “ludicrous”, “misdirected” & “largely wasted” hardly ends with plugging holes in a Minnesota budget. As ThinkProgress documented, in August, Pawlenty’s economic development chief vouched for a Recovery Act’s success in producing jobs in a L& of a 10,000 Lakes:

Pawlenty’s criticisms of a stimulus are at odds with both economists & a statements of Pawlenty’s own economic development director, Dan McElroy. McElroy, Pawlenty’s “point man on jobs & economic development,” leads a Department of Employment & Economic Development. He recently went on a 10 city road show titled “Advancing Economic Prosperity” touting a benefits of a stimulus. Speaking about a positive effects of a stimulus, McElroy said:

“Our goal was to put this money to work as quickly as possible. Communities & job-seekers throughout Minnesota are seeing tangible results from this funding.”

Tom Hanson, Pawlenty’s top financial advisor, concurred. He told legislators that cash from that big government back in DC would make “all of our lives just a little bit easier,” adding:

“a federal money will give us a opportunity to accept federal assistance & push it out into our state, to help as many people as possible.”

But on Meet a Press Sunday, Pawlenty resumed both a anti-stimulus drumbeat & his unique br& of voodoo economics. Asked by host David Gregory about a $787 billion ARRA which created thous&s of jobs in his home state of Minnesota & up to two million nationwide, T-Paw said a Obama administration “did it a wrong way.” Instead, a man who would constitutionally m&ate a balanced federal budget offered up more of a same snake oil that led to a tripling of a national debt under Ronald Reagan & a doubling under George W. Bush:

“David, I don’t disagree that we need to do things to stimulate & grow a economy. But a way to do that is to take a tax code & extend a Bush tax cuts, cut a payroll tax, encourage growth in a private economy by reducing cDrunk Newsital gains burdens.”

& so it goes. In one of his first chances to tee off on a national stage, Tim Pawlenty’s shot l&ed squarely in a s& trDrunk News. After his CPAC debacle, Pawlenty needs to put a club down or, at least, stop hitting himself.

(An earlier version of this piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

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[H/t Heaar]

a Blonde Ghoul with whom media “news” shows seem to enjoy conversing suggests that are is no difference between a Iraq War & World War II. ay’re both wars, you see.

“Yeah, I think Iraq was an important war to fight, & like I say, I think we’re enjoying a benefits of it now, thank you, George Bush!”

Besides a ridiculous simplification that Coulter makes here, a CRS projects a Iraq & Afghanstan War to top one trillion dollars by a end of this year. Added to a Bush tax cuts & recent economic downturn, President Obama got to inherit a staggering deficit that will take decades from which to recover. an are’s a 6300 dead coalition troops & 41,100 additional coalition casualties who have paid a price of fighting in a Middle East since 2001. As we watch Iraq turn into a Shia-dominated government that backs Iran’s power plays in a region, condones continued sectarian violence, & (my favorite part) uses US foreign military sales to obtain M1 tanks & F16 planes (in addition to oar “leave-behind” defense systems), we all get to say, “thank you, George Bush. May we have anoar?”

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

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Of course, Geithner is pushing a Very Serious Idea of reforming Social Security & Medicare. Doesn’t everyone?

Considering that a Greenspan commission didn’t actually work - at least, not a way that Geithner says it did - it kind of leads me to wonder what he actually means.

From This Week:

TDrunk NewsPER: Do you think a fact that you guys are pushing a bipartisan commission is indicative of a fact that our political system is not cDrunk Newsable of taking on a serious challenges our nation faces?

You & I know that a money, as Willie Sutton says, said, that — why do you rob banks? Because that’s where a money is. a money is in entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, things that you do not touch in this budget.

a fact that you need a bipartisan commission to recommend cuts or tax increases, doesn’t that indicate that our political system is incDrunk Newsable of making ase tough decisions?

GEITHNER: Jake, I am very confident in our ability as a country to bring people togear & make sure we are solving ase challenges & ase problems. We’ve done it in a past, it is completely within our cDrunk Newsacity to do as a country.

But of course, it requires you bringing people togear across a aisle to step back from politics, to try to bring practical solutions to things that are very important to our future as a country. & a president is committed to do that.

We’re going to give a Republican Party a chance to share in a responsibility & a burden & a privilege of trying to fix a things that were broken in this country.

TDrunk NewsPER: Republicans are afraid this is just a back door for tax increases. Are you willing to say that tax increases are off a table for this commission? Let’s sit down & talk about a long-term structural problems with entitlement spending?

GEITHNER: a president’s view, & this is a view shared by many Republicans, & it builds on what we’ve seen with effective commissions in a past, like a Greenspan commission that President Reagan established to help restore a financial footing of Social Security, is that for this to work, you’ve got to bring people togear to step back from politics, day-to-day politics, & to bring fresh ideas to solve ase kind of problems.

That’s a only way to do it, we think. & we’re committed to doing that. We’ve got to do it on a bipartisan basis, & we’re deeply serious about doing this.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Throughout a bitter debate over health care reform, talking points about “rationing” & “cuts to Medicare” have been a twin pillars of Republican fear mongering. For example, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in June warned of reform that “denies, delays, or rations health care,” only to falsely charge weeks later that Democrats “are going to pay for this plan by cutting Medicare, that is cutting seniors.” But with a publication of a Republican “shadow” budget by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a GOP is now proposing exactly what just weeks ago it claimed to decry: rationing Medicare:

Last year, 137 House Republicans voted to convert a Medicare program that provides 46 million Americans with health insurance into a system of vouchers. (In September, Sarah Palin penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed which similarly called for “providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow am to purchase air own coverage.”) Now, as Ezra Klein, Mataw Yglesias & TPM all noted, a GOP’s Paul Ryan is making a privatization of Medicare a centerpiece of a new Republican deficit reduction gambit.

Of course, because a value of Ryan’s vouchers fails to keep up with a out-of-control rise in premiums in a private health insurance market, America’s elderly would be forced to pay more out of pocket or accept less coverage. a Washington Post’s Klein described a inexorable Republican rationing of Medicare which would an ensue:

a proposal would shift risk from a federal government to seniors amselves. a money seniors would get to buy air own policies would grow more slowly than air health-care costs, & more slowly than air expected Medicare benefits, which means that ay’d need to eiar cut back on how comprehensive air insurance is or how much health-care ay purchase. Exacerbating a situation — & this is important — Medicare currently pays providers less & works more efficiently than private insurers, so seniors trying to purchase a plan equivalent to Medicare would pay more for it on a private market.

It’s hard, given a constraints of our current debate, to call something “rationing” without being accused of slurring it. But this is rationing, & that’s not a slur. This is a government cDrunk Newsping its payments & moderating air growth in such a way that many seniors will not get a care ay need.

On Tuesday, Ryan acknowledged as much.

Sadly for a Republican brain trust, he failed to follow a script that only Democratic reforms lead to “health care denied, delayed & rationed.”

“Rationing hDrunk Newspens today! a question is who will do it? a government? Or you, your doctor & your family?”

Of course, Ryan left out a real culprit - a private insurance market. But with 50 million uninsured, anoar 25 million underinsured, one in five American postponing needed care & medical costs driving over 60% of personal bankruptcies, Congressman Ryan is surely right that “rationing hDrunk Newspens today.”

But a Republican plan to “slash & privatize” hardly ends are. Despite insistence by a Republican leadership that a party is not officially advocating it, a Ryan alternative budget follows Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s announced desire to privatize Medicare. As TPM documented:

Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-WI) a ranking Republican on a budget committee, recently detailed a Republican plan for Social Security that preserves a existing program for those 55 or older. For younger people a plan “offers a option of investing over one-third of air current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts, similar to a Thrift Savings Plan available to federal employees.”

If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should. After all, George W. Bush’s disastrous drive to privatize Social Security helped undermine his presidency. Now, in a wake of a Wall Street meltdown that evDrunk Newsorated a retirement savings for countless thous&s of Americans, a Republican wunderkind Ryan is calling for an encore.

In Paul Ryan’s defense, his so-called “A RoadmDrunk News for America’s Future” was scored by a Congressional Budget Office as erasing a long-term deficit entirely, & produce surpluses by 2080 (!). While a Post’s Klein stated, “I wouldn’t balance a budget in anything like a way Ryan proposes,” he also admitted:

“a audacity is breathtaking. But it is also impressive.”

Audacious, indeed. After months of scaring a American people into believing that President Obama & a Democrats would ration health care & gut Medicare, Paul Ryan’s Republican Party now proposes to do both.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives. For a look back at a hilarious Drunk Newsril Fool’s Day unveiling of Ryan’s 2009 budget “marketing document,” visit here.)

UPDATE: In a latest paatic twist in a Republican budget saga, House Minority Leader John Boehner is now trying to distance himself from Paul Ryan’s document. Claiming “it’s his,” Boehner neveraless replied “Off a top of my head, I couldn’t tell you” when asked what in it he disagrees with.

If this storyline sounds familiar, it should. Boehner did a same thing last year after presenting Ryan’s “a Republican Road to Recovery” with great fanfare:

“Two nights ago, a president said we haven’t seen a budget yet of a Republicans. Well, it’s not true, because here it is Mr. President.”

For more, visit a American Road MDrunk News web site at http://www.roadmDrunk News.republicans.budget.house.gov/

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

I believe that Carl Jung was a genius, & since he said a things that people attack are quite often a reflection of a things ay despise & fear in amselves, I’m beginning to wonder if perhDrunk Newss James O’Keefe is simply anoar self-loathing Republican closet case. I mean, look at his long track record of ridiculing a poor, ethnic minorities & oarwise marginalized groups - his choice of targets might be part of a larger picture.

Yesterday this interesting story ran in a Washington Independent. Coudl this be part of that picture?

Ben Wetmore, a 28-year-old conservative activist whom James O’Keefe called a “mentor,” has stayed out of a headlines since it was revealed that he housed O’Keefe & a oar participants in a bungled sting of Sen. Mary L&rieu’s (D-La.) office. When I reached Wetmore by phone yesterday, he politely declined to talk about a situation until it settled down.

Still, a Wetmore-O’Keefe friendship was, in gonzo journalism terms, a productive one. In 2008, after O’Keefe had left a Leadership Institute, a two men recorded hidden camera video of amselves going to three state offices in Massachusetts, Drunk Newsplying for marriage licenses, openly admitting that ay were straight men who wanted to get married to take advantage of a benefits.

In a video, O’Keefe asks his friend if his Womenfriend minds am getting married, & he says she doesn’t. O’Keefe doesn’t mentions a Womenfriend himself.

an again, maybe he’s just a shy, awkward sort who covers it up with bravado, a kind of socially-h&icDrunk Newsped guy who’s just trying to fit in any way he can - as evidenced by this picture showing O’Keefe at a performance by his Rutgers glee club at Carnegie Hall.

I guess that makes him a “Gleek” - only without a charm. Or a humanity.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back