Cantor's GOP Ideas Factory Declared Dead A Year
After It Launched (VIDEO)

post from TPMMuckraker on 07 May 2010 08:48:00 AM. © TPMMuckraker

It was supposed to be a GOP ideas factory that would fill the leadership vacuum on the right after Barack Obama's landslide election. The National Council for a New America was supposed to be, in the words of founder Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), "a conversation with the American people" to "develop innovative solutions that meet the serious challenges confronting our country."

But, Roll Call reports, the group is now dead one year after it launched to what, in hindsight, appears to be excessive media coverage of an entity that hadn't actually done anything.

"Republican Party plans comeback" declared CNN; "GOP recasts brand, sans wedge issues," said Politico; "GOP Forms Ideas Coalition" said National Journal. In fact, there were no less than 5,000 positive media hits for the National Council for a New America, Cantor's spokesman told Roll Call.

Despite all that, the national conversation never really happened. There was only one town hall meeting attended by GOP heavyweights, in Arlington, Virginia.

Roll Call reports that the Cantor camp is blaming "liberals" for killing the group:

"It's very simple," said Rob Collins, president of the American Action Network and Cantor's former deputy chief of staff. "The NCNA dominated the national media so effectively that liberals in and out of Congress -- including [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] -- attacked it."

Here's a flashback to Cantor introducing the group on Fox one year ago:

video details and more

Republican - Eric Cantor - National Council for a New America - United States - Barack Obama

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l_for_new_america_dead.php

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Jobless Rate Rises to 9.9%

post from DemConWatch on 07 May 2010 08:45:30 AM. © DemConWatch

From the Times:

The American economy added 290,000 jobs in April, a stronger gain than expected, but the unemployment rate rose to 9.9 percent as more workers sought jobs, the government said Friday. Analysts had expected a gain of about 190,000 jobs in the month. While April was the second consecutive month that the economy added workers (162,000 jobs were added in March), the job market still has a long way to go before it can be counted on to provide a base for a sustained economic recovery.

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Greek Crisis Turns Deadly Serious; Will the
Worlds Governments Learn from It

post from Jutia Group on 07 May 2010 08:37:52 AM. © Jutia Group

This week, the financial crisis in Greece turned deadly serious. No longer are investors just losing boatloads of money. People are starting to lose their lives!The latest bout of chaos struck on Wednesday during a general strike. Everyone from air traffic controllers to teachers left their posts. Tens of thousands of protestors hit the streets, hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails. Three people reportedly died in a fire that struck an Athens bank branch.So what’s provoking the madness? It’s the stiff austerity measures the rest of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund want Greece to enact. Officials are forcing Greece to slash public…

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Sarah Palin Picks Fiorina Hoping for a Winner

post from Taylor Marsh on 07 May 2010 08:27:54 AM. © Taylor Marsh

“I share Sarah Palin?s values.? – Carly Fiorina Sarah Palin continues her habit of being unpredictable. She’s notorious for going in the opposite direction of what’s expected and she did it again with her choice of Carly[...]

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er/

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Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

post from Daily Kos on 07 May 2010 08:11:05 AM. © Daily Kos

Friday opinion.

Paul Krugman:

The bad news is that Greece’s problems are deeper than Europe’s leaders are willing to acknowledge, even now — and they’re shared, to a lesser degree, by other European countries. Many observers now expect the Greek tragedy to end in default; I’m increasingly convinced that they’re too optimistic, that default will be accompanied or followed by departure from the euro.

In some ways, this is a chronicle of a crisis foretold. I remember quipping, back when the Maastricht Treaty setting Europe on the path to the euro was signed, that they chose the wrong Dutch city for the ceremony. It should have taken place in Arnhem, the site of World War II’s infamous "bridge too far," where an overly ambitious Allied battle plan ended in disaster.

Steven Pearlstein:

It was only a few years ago that, with the United States moving from the world's largest creditor to its largest debtor and Europe enjoying a boost from the rapid growth of its new members in the east, many were predicting the euro would soon rival the dollar as the world's reserve currency. But nobody was saying that Thursday as the euro continued its months-long slide from $1.50 in January to $1.26 at Thursday's close.

There is little doubt that Greece's debt crisis is of its own making, the result of corruption and tax avoidance and that seductive Mediterranean coupling of high living and low productivity. Greece now finds itself in a trap where the only way it can refinance its crushing debt load is to drastically cut spending and raise taxes, but doing so will almost certainly plunge the economy into such a deep recession that incomes and tax revenues will fall and the government will be unable to meet its debt service requirements. So deep is this trap that numerous experts in international finance, including Barry Eichengreen of the University of California at Berkeley, now predict that Greece will eventually default on its debt and force creditors to accept less than they are owed.

At the same time, however, experts say there was nothing inevitable about the financial contagion sparked by the solvency crisis in a country that represents about 3 percent of the European economy. According to Eichengreen, Bergsten and others, responsibility for that rests squarely with European leaders who for months dithered while markets began to lose confidence not only in Greece but also other countries on Europe's periphery.

Eugene Robinson:

The system worked. Authorities responded to the attempted Times Square bombing about as well as anyone possibly could -- proving, once again, that viewing terrorism exclusively in a military context is wrong. It's a police matter, too.

Charles Krauthammer: The system worked.

All well and good. But what if Faisal Shahzad, the confessed Times Square bomber, had stopped talking? When you tell someone he has the right to remain silent, there is a distinct possibility that he will remain silent, is there not? And then what?

Why, let's scrap the Constitution and over 200 years of history, that's what.

WaPo:

Some congressional Republicans [and some nutcase conservative columnists] have criticized the administration's handling of the Shahzad case, questioning the decision to read him his Miranda rights and suggesting he should have immediately been treated as an enemy combatant.

Holder rejected such criticism under questioning at Thursday's hearing. He said the Supreme Court has held that Miranda warnings have a "constitutional dimension" and that every American who is arrested has a right to hear them.

Jack Bauer wouldn't let a scrap of paper like the Constitution stop him from ~~cutting to a commercial break~~ saving the world.

Charlie Cook:

When one party has control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, a midterm election is pretty much a referendum on that party. The electorate's anti-everything mood is likely to manifest itself only one way in November -- that is, against Democrats. Between now and then, however, a different dynamic could be in play. Republicans in particular should watch upcoming primaries apprehensively to see whether their party is nominating candidates with the potential to attract broad-based support and take full advantage of the anti-Democratic tide, or if it is opting for candidates who might be too extreme even in what should be a great year for the GOP.

But have no doubt: The anger is real. The only question is precisely how it will be channeled.

There is no question the GOP can overreach. See Even More On The Tea Party to see how.

Ron Brownstein:

The GOP's rightward march could leave it on shaky ground with voters focused more on results than ideology.

Wow. People are noticing.

National Journal bloggers' poll:

Left and right are diametrically opposed on the future of President Obama's offshore drilling plan in this week's NationalJournal.com Bloggers Poll.

Virtually all left-leaning bloggers in the survey (94 percent) said it doesn't make political sense for Obama to stick to his plans to allow more drilling. Three-quarters of right-leaning bloggers, meanwhile, said it does.

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May '70: 8. Memory Loss

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 07 May 2010 08:06:27 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

The sign was hung out of an NYU dorm window. It read, simplyTHEY CAN'T KILL US ALLI want to use that sign as a starting point in talking about some largely unsuccessful emotional archaeology I've been doing, trying to reconstruct what it felt like to be[...]

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On This Day in History: May 7

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 07 May 2010 08:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

On this day in 1824, the world premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. The performance is conducted by Michael Umlauf under the deaf composer's supervision. It was Beethoven's first appearance on stage in 12 years. Over the[...]

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ay-7

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Mike's Blog Roundup

post from Crooks and Liars on 07 May 2010 08:00:00 AM. © Crooks and Liars

Norwegianity: Fighting terrorism with more guns for terrorists

Economist's View: Galbraith: The Role of Fraud in the Financial Crisis

OpenSecrets Blog: BP enjoys lobbying strength and close ties to lawmakers as federal investigation looms

Little Green Footballs: The wingnut blogosphere is fuming and hissing with outrage over yet another trumped up nontroversy

Politics in the Zeros: Two former high ranking officials of the California public pension fund are being sued for fraud

HOLY CRAP: Pray or else...*Yawn*, another homophobic, Christianist hypocrite...Holy Man...the Lostness!...WTF?....Everybody draw Mohammed Day...Misunderstanding 'rights'...Exorcising teh gay...?God?s punishment?...Ahead of her time...Mormons for racial profiling... Perry blames God....Dobson blames GOP...

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http://crooksandliars.com/mike-finnigan/mikes-blog-roundup-494

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A Few Words on Yesterday's British Elections

As you certainly know, yesterday there were parliamentary elections in Britain for the House of Commons. It appears that no one actually won. Gordon Brown will have first shot at forming a coalition government, and if that doesn't work, they'll figure out something. they've got experience. You can read all the details here, it's not relevant to my points.

I want to take this opportunity to point out that I often say that the United States is the only country in the history of the world with free scheduled elections and the bloodless transfer of power, ever since the inception of the nation. Just saying....

Also, you know that there are people who cannot vote in elections. That's true in every country. Great Britain has a nice twist on it. At base, all British citizens, plus Commonwealth and Irish citizens living in the UK can vote once they are 18 as of election day, so long as they are registered. Great Britain does not allow convicted prisoners to vote, which is often a standard in most of the world. If a person was found guilty in the prior five years of corrupt or illegal election practices, he/she also cannot vote, and I'm thinking we might want to consider that, albeit as a lifetime ban.

But the most interesting thing is that members of the House of Lords cannot vote in elections for the House of Commons. Imagine if here members of the Senate couldn't vote in elections for the House of Representatives. How quaint. Of course, that cannot happen here. It goes back to the regularly scheduled elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday every November since 1791. It's all one ballot....again, just saying...

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ions

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Morning Swim: May 7th

I brief look at what's happening in the news on the morning of May 7th, 2010.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://firedoglake.com/2010/05/07/morning-swim-may-7th/

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