Newt's Time is limited, maybe that's a bad thing

While this country's short term memory seems to have been replaced by the MSM, a fact that could be said of a large portion of all brain activity, Newt Gingrich enjoys what is sure to be a short-lived popularity. One has to wonder how much the media has to do with this, considering Newt's philandering ways don't exactly smell like the religious right. Who's shit, in case you were unsure, smells like auto air freshener. Whichever one is most popular at the local car wash. His being drummed out of the Republican party of the '90s isn't really any sort of hindrance to the Tea Party embrace. After all, back in the '90s the Republican still occasionally sounded sane. Sanity is not in play with the religious right, and most certainly not with the Tea Party (aka Koch's Idiots).

But think for a moment what a Republican nomination of Newt would bring about. It would show the whole country how craven AND insane the Republican party has become. And almost undoubtedly result in a Obama landslide. Gingrich's lack of new ideas, his eventual embracing of the religious right (which he will have to do to have a ghost of a chance of winning the nomination) will leave such a horrible taste in most american's mouths that he will be an easy opponent.

Something people seem to forget, is that the religious right has been rising up about every eight to ten years, to waggle their bibles, shout sinner, and proclaim the country christian. The problem is they haven't been learning that MORE radical, means a bigger putdown. And they are right now about as radical as they ever have been. And in large part that is what makes them most frightening. And what will ultimately make them ineffective.

There are other effects occurring as we speak. Spending is slowly but surely increasing. Corporations are actually seeing the light regarding their parsimonius ways, and watching themselves being left in the lurch. The CEO's whose corporations have been holding onto cash and buying back stock have pretty much used up the shareholders goodwill and bonuses they can garner through this method. Eventually they have to do something, and if they wait too long, it will be too late. GE is one company that is starting to see the light, however slowly. Others will fall into line, especially as a company like GE's needs from supporting industries increase. The recovery will actually happen faster once this snowball starts. Obama is going to catch the windfall, not necessarily through his own doing, but because of something as simple as timing. Gas prices are slowly dropping. Food prices are stabilizing. Spending is slowly but surely increasing. All of these things bode well for Obama.

If This Doesn't Make It Clear

Basically, this shows what we all know.  But did we know how far back it went?  Not surprisingly, there was pretty big uptick during Reagan's presidency.  And the rich certainly enjoyed the rise of the economy during Clinton's presidency, and then received another huge boost with the tax cuts from Bush junior.  The big drop you see was in the tech bubble bursting.  But they climbed right back with the help of Bush and company.  The level of income the top 1%  had by 2007 become obscene.  In real income they were making 5 times what the top 1% were making in boom of the 1920s.  Understand that when I say real income, I'm comparing apples to apples.  In other words, if you took someone from the top 1% of the 1920s, their purchasing power would only be a fifth of what the top 1% of 2007 had.  And the disparity has only grown worse.

While I'm not comparing tax laws, economic policies, or even the advent of multinationals, I am just talking about income.  And the incredible disparity that exists today.  If this doesn't make it clear that something has to change, I really don't know what will.

Set 'em up and shoot 'em down

While Christie has spent most of his time the last six months swearing he's not going to run, delivering national policy speeches certainly belie that fact. If he does decide to run here's a good article on Politico on just the logistics of a run this late, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64788.html . But the greater issue is where he stands on the issues. So far, we've found out he's anti-union, he's against regulations on the securities industry(he lobbied to keep securities fraud from inclusion in Consumer Fraud laws), deregulation of the energy industry, and he has never been above using his office for his own gain, or to protect friends and relatives.

While as a US Attorney he was well known for going after corruption in government offices, as long as it didn't involve a republican or someone too high up on the food chain. He also however regularly awarded no-bid contracts to friends and people who did right by him. When a federal prosecutor declined to go after Christie's brother, shortly thereafter he was awarded a multimillion dollar no-bid contract. Oddly, in the group of brokers and traders under investigation, Christie's brother was the only one of any import that avoided prosecution, while several smaller fry were indicted.

Also while Christie was a US Attorney, he abused the system of deferred prosecution so thoroughly that the Department of Justice had to rewrite the rules. Deferred prosecution is basically akin to bribing your way out of charges. Corporate America readily makes use of this system, that is, essentially only available to them, as they have to be some pretty big chunks of change. In 2009 he walked out of a US Congressional Hearing when being questioned about his handling of deferred compensation cases (in one case he had the company dedicate $5 million for a chair on business ethics, AT HIS ALMA MATER) basically saying he was too busy to answer their questions see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Christie#cite_ref-Christie_Defends_21-2 . How's that for thinking you're above the law?

He's not above throwing people under the bus though. When New Jersey lost out on $400 million in federal education, it was initially deemed a clerical error by Christie, and he tried to blame the Obama administration for "bureaucratic tyranny". When it was revealed that Christie's education commissioner knew about the issue, Christie demanded his resignation, and the commissioner said he would do so. But the next day, the commissioner demanded to be fired, ostensibly because he needed the "unemployment checks". It turned out that this was an effort to try and make Christie come clean and also admit that he had been informed of the issues regarding the application for the $400 million. Christie then at this point tried to blame the loss of funding on a deal his commissioner made with the Teachers Union. Christie never admitted any wrongdoing in the matter.

Like any good republican, ducking responsibility is second nature to them. They can't NOT do it.

Debt as Reality

While the Obama naysayers (from the left, the center, and the right) continue to blame Obama for the slow recovery, they seem incapable of understanding facts. Add to this the fact Obama doesn't shy away from being blamed, and you end up with a remarkably obtuse conclusion as to why we are where we are today.

I admit I would love to see Obama call people on their crap, drag them out on the carpet and see how they would defend their "ideals" against hard facts. But as the dumbing down of America continues at breakneck speed, at this point I don't know that it would do any good. Ultimately, Obama is going to have to say to somebody, not just some faction, but an actual person, "You are lying, and not only that, you are lying to forward an agenda that is in way in the interest of the American people." That does go against what a reasonable person would do. You don't wrestle with a pig unless you're willing to accept the fact that you're going to get as dirty as the pig. And of course, who in their right mind would do that?

Unfortunately, the politics of the day has descended into the pre-school fight over toys. The old "you can't make me, you can't make me" argument apparently passes for adult discourse now. And of course, the facts are tossed out the window, because facts don't help you say "you can't make me."

However the graph below, the facts of which has been shown in any number of models, is a fact. A fact recognized by the CBO, the GAO, any number of respected economic analyzers.

And as any fool can see, the tax break for the rich is just going to get larger.  And that amount is based on fairly conservative estimates in the growth of income for the wealthy.  I think the choice is clear.

Stimulus Plan Failure? Not bloody likely.

While Tea Partiers and republicans alike are calling the stimulus plan a failure since 2009, it fails to recognize what it did accomplish.  While Obama and his camp predicted 3.5 million jobs would come as a result of it, in February of 2010, 3 different independent economic research firms [ http://www.tnr.com/topics/ihs-global-insight; http://www.tnr.com/topics/macroeconomic-advisers;http://www.tnr.com/topics/moody ]  stated that the stimulus had already resulted in 1.6 to 1.8 million new jobs.  And that it eventually would result in over 2.5 million jobs. 

Updated research since then, by the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the stimulus resulted in 1.2 to 3.3 million and would ultimately have the impact of creating the equivalent of 1.5 to 4.6 million full-time jobs ( the CBO is a non-partisan arm of the legislature,  [ http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12185/05-25-ARRA.pdf ] )  As far as the amount fraud initially predicted by the republicans, it has been practically non-existent compared to the funds for Katrina (a bailout in everyway) and of course the Iraqi reconstruction.  Only 1.9 million dollars have been found in fraud as prosecutable, compared to the billions during the Bush years.  Maybe Democrats are just inherently more honest.  That's a horse I'd bet on.

While the levels the economy have dipped to were not foreseen by Obama, neither did anyone else.  And the foresight the Obama administration showed in dedicating a sixth of the stimulus to Green Energy can only pay off in benefits for our country.  We have to face facts.  The amount our country is putting into research and development of Green Energy is still a drop in the bucket of our GDP, when compared to what portion other developed countries are putting into it.  Even oil rich countries like Norway are putting MORE total dollars into their programs than we are.  That's not good enough.  Not by a longshot.  And not a single GOP candidate has expressed any interest in extending our efforts.  In fact, most have spoken of only more drilling and pulling back on Green efforts.  And that's called capitalist cronyism.

How a CYA of the BOA became TNT (or at least should have been)

Great Moments in PR Comedy, Starring Rick Perry and the B of A - The Atlantic

Once again, the Bank of America proves itself to be both semi-criminal and incredibly inept.  How these guys have not been prosecuted for their role in the 2008 meltdown only speaks to the ineptitude of the SEC.

The SEC is an arm of government that Bush already bled almost dry.  People like Perry would love to get rid of it completely.  I suppose Bachmann would too, but that may be expecting a bit much in her comprehension of the world around her.  And misguided Tea Partiers would welcome such a move.  After all, it's the government, it has regulations, that affect business, how can it possibly do any good.  And since all those bad bankers got away with what they did, the SEC must not be doing it's job.  So let's just get rid of them completely.  Makes perfect sense to me.

I seriously would love to see a brain scan of TPer as complex things like the constitution, the SEC, basic economics.  Just to see what part of their brain becomes active, if at all.