(Link) Yet there’s nowhere near the same anxiety about the cuts to domestic discretionary spending that will also bite down once the supercommittee chucks in the towel. Arguably, there should be. Budget experts are already warning that these cuts to domestic spending — totaling $294 billion over 10 years, starting with a 7.8 percent cut in 2013, and coming on top of the spending caps in August’s debt-ceiling deal — could have even harsher consequences, both for everyday Americans and for the ab...

(Link)/ MISSOURI SCHOOL ENDS BAN ON ‘SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE’…SORT OF This Summer, the Republic School Board in Missouri decided to ban Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer after a resident complained these novels “teach principles contrary to the Bible.” After enduring serious blowback, the school board unanimously voted to overturn the ban yesterday. Technically. The two books will now be available “for independent reading as long as they are kept in a secur...

(Link)/ No, the cult that I see as reflecting a true moral failure is the cult of balance, of centrism. Think about what’s happening right now. We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion. So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are ...

 

I normally liked Obama's speaking style a lot, but today, I thought he was not forceful enough, as for Boehner, it was a terrible speech and obviously a bunch of lies. Anyway, Kevin Drum described what I thought very well. (Link) Obama vs. Boehner: A Pair of Nothingburgers What a discouraging pair of speeches. I expected Obama to stick with his Mr. Reasonable routine, so that wasn't a surprise. But I was surprised that he didn't do a better job of making a case for his own side. It just seeme...

About time that somebody does something. This is a frightening perspective that people have chosen to ignore. Poor people are not a powerful lobby. (Link) Senate Dems claim enough votes to block Medicaid overhaul By Julian Pecquet - 06/09/11 10:38 AM ET Forty-one Senate Democrats have signed on to several letters vowing to oppose House Republicans' proposed Medicaid overhaul, ensuring the proposal won't get enough votes to clear a filibuster hurdle. One letter, to President Obama, spearhead...

(Link) There's good news and bad news for Democratic hopes of taking down Scott Brown in our newest Massachusetts poll. The good news is that Brown's approval numbers are starting to decline. What was a +24 approval spread in December at 53/29 has now been cut in half to +12 at 48/36. The bad news is that with no standout Democratic candidates ready to make the race yet Brown leads 8 hypothetical opponents we tested against him by anywhere from 9 to 25 points. ... The good news is that Brown ...

Not a surprise really, as it was fairly obvious he would be lobbying for some corporation or group of corporations, but now, it is official: he will work for the Chamber of Commerce. Yeah!!! (Link) Evan Bayh Drops the Other Shoe — By Kevin Drum| Tue Jun. 7, 2011 8:27 AM PDT When Evan Bayh announced he was retiring from politics because the Senate had become a disfunctional pit of partisan rancor and he wanted to be "engaged in an honorable line of work," I didn't really believe him. Still, si...

A few weeks ago, Michelle Bachman came in New Hampshire and announced that the revolution started in Lexington and Concord (NH). Well, it seems that Sara Palin did not pass her basic American history either. In her world, Paul Revere warned the British that ... (Link) "He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be s...

(Link) Name of the PAC: SPENDING CUTS OVER TOTAL TAXATION PAC (SCOTT). Ok, thanks for the narcissism, and it makes clear that our senator does not like being senator of MA. May be we can allow him to find another job. Elect a Democratic Senator for MA in 2012.

REP. MARKEY EXPLAINS THE ‘REPUBLICAN RAPTURE’ | Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) took to the floor of the House today to explain the “Republican Rapture,” where oil companies and insurance executives get “raptured” and students and the poor get placed in “political purgatory.”

(Link) A ‘respectful’ boycott By Steve Benen President Obama hosted a meeting at the White House this morning with several leading congressional Republicans, for the purpose of exploring debt-reduction ideas. The discussion coincides with an ongoing GOP hostage strategy — Republicans have said they’ll use the debt ceiling to cause a recession on purpose unless Obama agrees to drastic cuts, including cuts to Medicare. One of the invited members apparently decided to boycott the White House tal...

(Link) Inside the GOP's Fact-Free Nation From Nixon's plumbers to James O'Keefe's video smears: How political lying became normal. IT TAKES TWO THINGS to make a political lie work: a powerful person or institution willing to utter it, and another set of powerful institutions to amplify it. The former has always been with us: Kings, corporate executives, politicians, and ideologues from both sides of the aisle have been entirely willing to bend the truth when they felt it necessary or convenien...

A two month discussion to give the GOP twice what they asked at the beginning. Not sure how you can call that good strategizing. Now, we need to find what will be cut and who it will affect (not the rich, obviously) (Link) A RAW DEAL.... There was arguably no way this budget fight was going to end well. In November, Americans elected the most conservative House majority in modern political history, and in December, Senate Republicans derailed an omnibus that would have funded the government th...

(Link) Trump brings media blitz to NBC, ‘steamrolls’ Meredith Vieira on birther issue ... As reports that Meredith Vieira is planning an exit from NBC's "Today Show" swirl, the anchor has sparked controversy over her failure to question a number of unsubstantiated challenges to the U.S. citizenship of President Barack Obama that Donald Trump floated in an interview with Vieira this morning. Trump--the billionaire real estate tycoon and reality TV figure who is flirting with a 2012 presidential...

Now, Dionne has been highly supportive of Obama's policies and he is far from being a 0wild-eyed liberal" or " the professional left". However, here, he points out at what seems to be a MO in the way he handles bi-partisanship: wanting to show we are as irresponsible as the right, so that there seems to be a balance. It is really getting old, particularly when he is getting nothing for this. (Link) Here is the president in his Op-Ed: “The fact is, almost all gun owners in America are highly ...

(Link)(Political+Wire) Extra Bonus Quote of the Day "People change their positions all the time, the way they change their wives." -- Michael Cohen, special counsel to Donald Trump, quoted by the National Journal, saying the celebrity businessman was entitled to change his mind on various social issues. I wonder if this guy is married?

 
OMG

(Image) Mitt Romney makes John McCain look like an amateur when it comes to flip-flopping. Not only does he tries to reformulate himself, change his positions on issues, create a new packaging. New and improved Romney He's more fiscal, less social. And he's got millions. But will GOP voters give a Mitt? By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 12, 2010 ...From the looks of it, the 2012 ver...

In a climate where we are debating some help for the middle class and whether or not to extend tax cuts to the wealthy in order to help the middle class, I am always surprised by the silence when it comes to the very poor, including on sites like this one. Certainly, we dont want taxes to increase for those making $60 K a year, but what are we ready to do to help people like the ones described in this article, or for the 99ers who wont benefit from the tax deal, or many others who are barely to...

(Link)/ Numerous high-profile Republicans including Henry Kissinger, Gen. Colin Powell, and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice have urged the Senate Republicans to fall in line and support it. However, Republicans led by the obstinate Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) continue to move the goal posts on their demands to avoid delivering one of Obama’s top foreign policy priorities. Setting “outrageous new benchmarks for bipartisanship,” the ever-slippery Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she’d consider vo...

(Link)/ ... O’Donnell is forming a new issues-oriented political action committee called “Christine PAC,” and at a launch event for the group in Virginia yesterday, O’Donnell called the extension of jobless benefits a “tragedy,” comparing it to Pearl Harbor and the death of Elizabeth Edwards: “Today marks a lot of tragedy. … Tragedy comes in threes,” O’Donnell said. “Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards’s passing and Barack Obama’s announcement of extending the tax cuts, which is good, but also ext...

I think he is once again spot on. Sure, there is a policy issue on which we can agree or disagree, but what was the point to attack the "left" with so much vigor while the attacks of the GOP were made with barely any passion in his voice. (now, I understand that some of the left wing criticism are too extreme in their rethoric, but how does attacking a whole block of people as "purist" help? Or is it just a tit for tat game? In this case, I would prefer to see him play it with the GOP? I genera...

Sigh. What can we say? (Link)(Talking+Points+Memo:+by+Joshua+Micah+Marshall) Negotiating Against Yourself David Kurtz | November 29, 2010, 11:29AM A for federal workers is the sort of gimmicky deficit reduction measure that you could see using as a bargaining chip in broader negotiations over how to best reduce the deficit. But as a standalone, unilateral concession? It doesn't do much to actually reduce the deficit and it's a shot at a core part of the Democratic base, so why concede it righ...

(Link) THE WRONG QUESTION AT THE WRONG TIME.... CBS News sent around a press release yesterday afternoon about a special "In Focus: Debt and Deficit," hosted by Katie Couric. ... But while the mistakes were glaring and important, I was more troubled by the basis of the report itself. The deficit matters, but not nearly as much as the ongoing employment crisis. Where's our "In Focus: Jobs and Economic Growth"? The media/political establishment keeps asking the wrong question. . ... The estab...

(Link) With All Disrespect, Mr. President There was supposed to be a bipartisan summit at the White House on Thursday, but only the Democrats showed up. The Republican leadership of the House and Senate somehow couldn’t find any time in their schedules to meet with the president of the United States. If this is what cooperation and mutual respect is going to look like over the next two years, then settle in for more trench warfare and far less progress. It has been more than two weeks since ...

(Link)/ Spin the Tale on the Donkey When you lose an election, change course—but only if you're a Democrat. By William Saletan Posted Monday, Nov. 8, 2010, at 7:32 AM ET The election returns are in, and Republican leaders have discerned the people's will. "We are witnessing a repudiation of Washington, a repudiation of big government," incoming House speaker John Boehner declared on election night. "The American people have sent an unmistakable message to tonight, and that message is: Change...

(Link) (Image) Immediate advantage: He would not run for his Senate seat (probably Baker would, and we can probably find a candidate that is more personable than Baker). But why would the GOP want to run a candidate that is potentially less experienced than Sara Palin?

(Link) Jon Stewart: Tonight We Learned It's Better To Support Prostitutes Than Social Security (VIDEO) Jillian Rayfield | November 3, 2010, 1:07AM Jon Stewart was covering the election live tonight, and he was a little surprised that Republican Sen. David Vitter "has absolutely destroyed his challenger by going out with hookers. So really what is the message we're sending America tonight? It is better, I think, to go see prostitutes than in fact to believe Social Security is a right." Stewa...

Previous one was showing him 7 points ahead. (Link) I imagine they expect the suffolk Poll to be published tonight to be bad. This said, the election will be tight. Go and vote. Added: seems that Boston Phoenix agrees with the meaning of the poll: (Link) Patrick Surging -- According To Baker With rumors of a Suffolk University poll on the way, the Charlie Baker campaign has released another memo on its own magical, unseen internal polling. Now, I don't know where this race really stands,...