Obama's visit to India is about business deals
and jobs

Heaven forbid Obama has the nerve to help US business generate revenue and create new jobs in America. The GOP worked itself into a frenzy with their usual insanity and odd conspiracies though the reality was ever so slightly different. Of course, from the GOP's perspective, if the administration is too timid to fight back once again, there's little reason to stop the bizarre claims. Without a serious plan to respond with force, we should expect to see much more of this. One of the biggest complaints that I heard during my recent visit to the US was disgust with Obama's failure to fight back. Does anyone honestly believe this is going to change?

Oh the humanity.

Budget airline SpiceJet will buy 30 B737 planes from US aircraft manufacturer Boeing in a deal worth $2.7 billion, which will form part of $10 billion pacts being sealed during US President Barack Obama's visit. "The order of 30 aircraft, the second of such order by SpiceJet, will enhance it's related stories India's low cost
market," said Bhulo Kansagra, Director and one of the promoters of SpiceJet at the US India Business Council meet.

Boeing India President Dinesh Keskar said the deal, announced today, was signed in late October after it received government approvals.

The deal is part of 20-odd pacts, worth USD about 10 billion, that are to be sealed during Obama's 3-day visit. The agreements are expected to create 50,000 jobs in the US.

OMG...another business deal too! The man is killing jobs.

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Can Paul Ryan And Rush Limbaugh Save America From
Health Care

Big Oil's Republican Party congressional point person, Joe "I'm sorry, BP" Barton (TX)-- who's gobbled up $1,480,630 in not-so-thinly-veiled bribes from the oil industry since 1990-- is coming up with ways to guarantee "freedom" for his Big Oil benefactors. Alabama's Wall Street whore Spencer Bachus is sending off letters to bank regulators telling them to cease regulating right now until his committee can pass the legislation necessary to turn back all the reforms passed in the last 2 years-- the $4,450,324 he's scooped up from the financial interests is more than any other member of the House other than 2 of its other most outrageously corrupt players, Charlie Rangel and Eric Cantor, each of whom has also accepted over $4 million from the bankster-types. Meanwhile car thief and Wall Street's great white hope for a future takeover are oozing their way into everyone's hearts on the television brainwashing machine, explaining how the Republican Party mandate they insist they just got includes turning back the hands of time... across the board and for as much as they can get away with.

With Missouri corruption machine Roy Blunt now going off to even greener pasturers in the Senate, it's unclear who specifically will be tasked with dismantling healthcare reform, probably going all the way back to what the GOP saw as a tremendous mistake in 1965 (Medicare). Presumably it'll be done through Ryan in his new role as Budget Committee chair.

Meanwhile it looks like the legend of Texas will just go ahead and do it for itself; the right has the power to there, so why not? And yesterday Miss McConnell was one of the many Republicans on TV yammering about repealing the health care reform bill.

Resurgent Republicans rallied Sunday behind an agenda based on unwavering opposition to the Obama White House and federal spending, laying the groundwork for gridlock until their 2012 goal: a new president, a "better Senate" and ridding the country of that demonized health care law.

Republicans said they were willing to work with President Barack Obama but also signaled it would be only on their terms. With control of the White House and the Senate, Democrats showed no sign they were conceding the final two years of Obama's term to Republican lawmakers who claimed the majority in the House.

"I think this week's election was a historic rejection of American liberalism and the Obama and Pelosi agenda," said Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who is stepping down from his post in GOP leadership. "The American people are tired of the borrowing, the spending, the bailouts, the takeovers."

Voters on Tuesday punished Democrats from New Hampshire to California, giving Republicans at least 60 new seats in the House. Republicans picked up 10 governorships; the GOP also gained control of 19 state legislative chambers and now holds the highest level of state legislative seats since 1928.

"It was a very rough week, there's no sugarcoating that," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Democrats who controlled the House, Senate and White House for two years now must work with Republicans, who have not shied from pushing their agenda.

"I don't see any sign of the president retreating from his principles, but I do see his willingness to reach out, and wherever reasonable and in the interests of moving the economy and jobs forward, he's going to work with the Republicans, as are the Democrats," Van Hollen said.

Republicans have made clear they plan to work stridently against what they view as a White House out of control and out of touch.

"The president did say this week he's willing to work with us," said Rep. Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican who is in line to become majority leader. "Now listen, are we willing to work with him? First and foremost, we're not going to be willing to work with him on the expansive liberal agenda he's been about."

First target: Democrats' signature health care law.

"This was a huge, huge issue in the election last Tuesday," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "A vast majority of Americans feel very, very uncomfortable with this new bill. People who supported us, political independents, want it repealed and replaced with something else. I think we owe it to them to try."

But the reality remains that Republicans do not have enough seats to marshal through a full repeal if Democrats remain steadfast in their support. Even if Republicans were able to sway enough Democrats to support their effort, it would face a certain veto from Obama.

"Admittedly, it will be difficult with him in the White House," McConnell said. "But if we can put a full repeal on his desk and replace it with the kind of commonsense forms that we were advocating during the debate to reduce spending, we owe it to the American people to do that."

Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who will take leadership of the House budget committee, said the GOP will reign in the overhaul through oversight hearings and cutting off money to implement the law, "but then again, the president has to sign those bills, so that is a challenge."

"You can't fully repeal and replace this law until you have a new president and a better Senate. And that's probably in 2013, but that's before the law fully kicks in, in 2014," Ryan said.

And while all this is going on in Washington, you've got the Republican propaganda machine revved up and roiled persuading the easily persuadable that health care isn't what they want and even shameful to have. Yesterday Digby shined a light on Republican sex predator and drug addict Rush Limbaugh with his tip of the spear assault on healthcare.

Although it sounds ridiculous, Rush is in the process of making his followers believe that the pre-existing condition provision in the health care reforms is something bad and shameful. The reason he's doing this, of course, is because this is the most popular piece of the bill and the one on which the rest of it hinges. If they can divide people on that, the repeal of the plan will be much easier.

Read The Full Article:
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McConnell: I'll Work With Obama on Taxes -- As
Long as He Keeps All the Bush Tax Cuts in Place

Click here to view this media

Here's your Republican bipartisanship folks. From CBS's Face the Nation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells Bob Schieffer that Republicans will be happy to work with President Obama on taxes, as long as he does everything they want and keeps the Bush tax cuts for the rich in place.

And extending them for two years would be just as bad or worse than letting them expire because it just gives Republicans another chance to keep beating this drum for the 2012 elections as well.

SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. Well, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell joins us today from Louisville, Kentucky. Senator, I want to start by giving you a chance to make some news here. You want to extend the bush tax cuts for all income levels that expire this year. You want to extend them permanently. The President?s opposed extending those cuts for the richest Americans, but in an interview to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES tonight, Steve Kroft asked the President if he?d be interested in extending the Bush tax cuts for those upper-income Americans temporarily as say two years. Presumably, in order to extend the tax cuts that he wants for lower-income Americans. Let?s just-- first listen to what President Obama said.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (60 MINUTES): Hopefully, we can agree-- agree on a set of facts that-- that leads to a compromise. But my number one priority coming into this is making sure that middle-class families don?t see their-- their tax rates go up January 1st.

STEVE KROFT: Do you want to make a counterproposal to him right now?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think I?ve -- I?ve already invited them over to the White House.

SCHIEFFER: All right, senator. Does that sound like a starting point for serious negotiations? Can you do some business with the President on the basis of that?

MCCONNELL: Sure. We hope to do business with the President on a number of things. I-- I think the issue here is whether you want to raise taxes on small businesses in the middle of what most Americans think is a recession. I and all of my members, think it?s a-- it?s a bad idea to-- to do that. I do sense some flexibility on the President?s part. And we?re happy to talk to him about it. But let me make sure everybody understands what we?re talking about here. These aren?t tax cuts, these are tax increases. Tax increases in the middle of a recession. This so-called upper-income thing diverts people away from the following fact.

If you do that, you raise taxes on seven hundred and fifty thousand of our most productive small businesses, which represents fifty percent of small business income and twenty-five percent of the work force, at a time when job creation is just bumping along. And we?d all like to get the private sector going again. We really think that?s a bad idea. But look, we?re happy to talk to the President about that and-- and all the other issues that he has on his mind.

SCHIEFFER: Well-- well-- I-- I would just want to get back to what he said because what he seems to be suggesting is that he might go along if you do those upper-income tax cuts temporarily, say for a couple of years or so. Is that something that you-- that you would consider?

MCCONNELL: We-- we don?t raising taxes on small business is a good idea. And you can?t do what he?s suggesting you might do without having a small-business tax increase. Small business is the biggest job generator in America. But we can?t negotiate it this morning. But our view is, don?t raise taxes on small business. We would-- we would rather not do it at any time. In fact, I?ve introduced the only bill that would make the current tax rates permanent. But certainly you wouldn?t want to do it--

SCHIEFFER: But you?d at least--

MCCONNELL: --in the middle of an income slowdown.

SCHIEFFER: From what he said, you?d at least be willing to start talking about that.

MCCONNELL: Well, we?re-- we?re willing to start talking about getting an-- an extension of some kind--

SCHIEFFER: Okay.

MCCONNELL: --so that taxes don?t go up on anybody.

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Messaging & the future: Progressive polling
post-mortem from Stan Greenberg & Robert Borosage pt 2.

This Friday morning I participated in a briefing with pollster Stan Greenberg and Campaign for[...]

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Cheers and Jeers: Monday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

A Brief Publisher's Message

Dear Reader,

Tomorrow, November 9, 2010, we are officially releasing former president George W. Bush's new book, Decision Points, and we would like to make the following request:

> Please do not take copies off the shelf, open them to a random page, insert a quantity of spit, nasal discharge or chewing gum, slam them shut and put them back on the shelf.

> Please do not draw horns on Mr. Bush's head---be they a ram's, a goat's or Satan's. Please also no forked tails or thought-bubbles that say "Heckuva Job."

> Please do not throw the book to the ground and stomp on it while yelling, "You suck!"

> Please do not knock over the bookcase on which Decision Points is displayed, as this could result in a domino effect on the other bookcases and cause damage and/or injury to other customers.

> Please do not attempt to move copies of the book from the Non-fiction section of the store to the Humor or Fantasy sections.

> Please do not whip out a Sharpie and add "Awesome book---if properly shredded" to the list of testimonial blurbs on the back cover.

We know you're upset at how badly he screwed you over, but please: let's be civil.

Thank you,

Your Friends at Crown Publishing

P.S. Democrats, this letter applies to you, too.

(Personally, I can’t wait to read about all the sweets and flowers that got stuck in his hair during his victory parade in Iraq. If I remember correctly, it was awesome.)

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

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Mike's Blog Round Up

So what now? Do we awake this Monday morning with Tea Party America in full swing, with the Republicans preparing to slash government into submission to right-wing ideology? Or will reality prevail, with some perspective on what last Tuesday meant, and with Obama and the Democrats figuring out that appeasement doesn't do them or the country any good at all? Whatever the case, it doesn't help that with a government of, by, and for the people, the people want everything at the cost of nothing. No wonder things look so bleak.

Muddy Politics: How l'affaire Olbermann is good for MSNBC.

Manifesto Joe: Countering the right-wing lies on Obama's Asia trip.

Pam's House Blend: Don't count on DADT repeal before new Congress sits.

Satirical Political: Republicans to let Obama serve 3/5th of term. (You know it could happen.)

And to mark the seventh blogiversary of Mustang Bobby, a contributing editor at my place and one of the finest bloggers around: Bark Bark Woof Woof: Stuff it, George F. Will, that wasn't a rejection of liberalism.

Guest post by Michael J.W. Stickings of The Reaction. E-mail tips to mjwstickings AT yahoo DOT ca.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/michael-jw-stickings/mikes-blog-round-5

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More Trouble at Vermont Yankee

The aging nuclear plant is down for repairs.

MONTPELIER, Vt. ? Technicians at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant will begin work Monday morning to fix a pipe that leaked radioactive water and forced the plant to shut down.
The nuclear reactor was taken out of service at 7 p.m. Sunday. Plant spokesman Larry Smith estimated it would take 13 hours to cool down enough for workers to enter the area and make repairs.
Smith said the leak of about 60 drops a minute was spotted earlier Sunday during routine surveillance. It was coming from a 2-foot-wide pipe that was part of the circulation system involving the reactor, he said. The water was being collected by a sump pump and cycled back through the system, he said.
The cause of the leak was not immediately known. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the public was not in any danger.

It was the second shutdown within an hour at a plant owned by New Orleans-based Entergy Corp.

Entergy’s petition to renew the license may be denied, but Vermont will be left with a vast cleanup job at the site.

Read The Full Article:
http://kmareka.com/2010/11/08/more-trouble-at-vermont-yankee/

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Olbermann's Return Won't Restore Sanity

Two weeks of media melodrama bracket a tumultuous election that shook up American politics, putting a spotlight on the people who presumably report on the spectacle but more and more are out there strutting on the stage.

Keith Olbermann will be back from the on-camera dead tomorrow night after his constituency, and many journalists, showered NBC with Tea Partyish rage. But there should be no unalloyed joy over his resurrection, which only confirms what critic David Carr calls "the Foxification of the cable universe."

Olbermann's return will correct an absurdity but do nothing for what Jon Stewart calls Sanity. As Carr points out:

"The shift of audiences toward cable news outlets--with their manifest agendas--as sources of truth and transparency may have something to do with a credibility gap that now confronts more mainstream news outfits. Lately, the idea of objective journalism has been on a pretty rough ride (that means you, CNN), with viewers deciding to align themselves with outlets that share their points of view--warts, agendas and all."

Stewart's rally was held on the weekend before the voting. Significantly, when the President appeared on the Daily Show just before it took place, he ruefully suggested that the reminder was coming two years late.

Looking back on 60 Minutes yesterday, Obama remarked that "this country doesn't just agree with The New York Times editorial page...I can make some really good arguments defending the Democratic position, and there are gonna be some people who just don't agree with me. And that's okay. And then we've got to figure out a way to compromise."

So Olbermann is back, which is all to the good as balance for the growing Fox dominance of the tower of babble, but the underlying problem is worse than ever.

In a cameo appearance on Election Night, the ghost of Journalism Past, Tom Brokaw, observed that "almost nothing is going the way that most people have been told that it will. And every time they?re told in Washington that they have it figured out, it turns out not to be true."

On cable news, "true" is not the highest priority.



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Time for Obama to Man Up and Request Resignation
of Marines Commandant Over DADT

Marines' leader: Keep policy on gays in military

Having come to office with a promise to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy that requires gays in the military to pretend that they are heterosexual, now President Obama should request and accept the resignation of Gen. James Amos, Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corp, because James Amos is unable to carry out the mission set by the President, his Commander in Chief.

The decision to get rid of DADT, is a political one made in the 2008 Democratic Primaries and General Election.  But, like Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ), Asst. Commandant Amos says:

"There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women - and when you talk of infantry, we're talking our young men - laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers," he said. "I don't know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that's what we're looking at. It's unit cohesion, it's combat effectiveness." 

That sounds an awful lot like what MAMZ wrote and published at his college newspaper against ALL gay participation in the military back in 1993:

Under military circumstances, as much has to be done as possible to focus the unit's mission and keep disciplinary problems to a minimum. Worrying about whether the known homosexual sleeping next to you is watching as you change your underwear may seem trivial as you read this, but to the soldier who's short-tempered after three weeks in the field and four hours of daily sleep, it becomes a matter of great importance to his pride and sensibilities.  (If the above link doesn't work, look here the MAMZ article whose URL address has changed four times in three years.)

The nonsense is the same although it's now seventeen years since the implementation of the DADT policy, which itself was a compromise between those who support equal rights and responsibilities, on the one hand, and those who opposed gay service in the military.


MAMZ also agreed with the most rightward members of the military when he wrote in the same letter:

And in any case, there aren't many people who would change clothes in a group of co-workers if members of the opposite sex were in the same room watching. There is something inherently uncomfortable about it.

I've always found this to be a strange attitude, since men have to undress in front of women and women must become undressed with men in or to engage in heterosexual coitus. And what are the circumstances in life when "members of the opposite sex [are] in there watching?" Does MAMZ really believe that women want to watch him undress, and would that really make him so uncomfortable?

Read The Full Article:
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Make with the republican civil war and the
wingnut-on-wingnut violence already

It's going to be interesting to watch as the republicans point fingers at one another over the failure of their party to retake the Senate last Tuesday. Watching the establishment republicans and the tea party morons circle one another warily, looking for openings to sink the knife, is the only solace I can salvage from last Tuesday.

And as my hatred of Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin knows no bounds, I will take no small amount of sheer, unadulterated joy out of watching those two paranoid, reactionary, bigoted nitwits get brought low by their less ideological fellow travelers who were more than happy to co-opt the tea party reactionaries, but will see to it that the "tea party" numnums suffer the same fate that populism always suffers once the real power brokers tire of their antics and/or stop benefiting from them.  

Jim DeMint is already facing the ire of his colleagues, who blame him personally for the fact Democrats not only still retain the Senate, but they failed ton take out Harry Reid the way they had taken out Tom Daschle before him.

Five of DeMint's "tea party" backed candidates won on Tuesday...Rubio in Florida, Paul in Kentucky, Mike Lee in Utah, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania. Only one of those races was a surprise, and even it wasn't too surprising when you looked at the polls, and in three of the remaining four, Satan could have been on the ballot and he would have been elected as a republican (which would have been quite efficient, in regards to cutting out the middle man, now that I think about it...)

It isn't the winners who are the problem. It's the crop of losers and bona fide crazy people who are the problem...five at least, most likley six.

"Jim DeMint and (2008 GOP vice presidential nominee) Sarah Palin are responsible for the fact that the Senate did not go Republican," Mort Kondracke, a Fox News commentator, said on a post-election panel.

"They're the ones who are responsible for Christine O'Donnell (of Delaware)," Kondracke said. "They're the ones who are responsible for Joe Miller in Alaska. They're the ones who are responsible for Ken Buck in Colorado. They're the ones who are responsible for Sharron Angle in Nevada."

Conservative columnist David Frum said the election results actually weakened DeMint because Republicans lost "three ridiculously winnable Senate seats" by putting up "incompetent Tea Party radicals" that he backed.

"They were supported by an alternative power structure within the GOP - the fundraising power of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund," Frum wrote. "Their defeat raises important questions about the whole Tea Party project. It also weakens the alternative power structure in the GOP and strengthens the power of the party's formal leaders against its informal ones. That's all good news. ... Goodbye and good riddance."

DeMint tread a tightrope as he responded to all the acclaim and aspersion.

In an extended, tense exchange with CNN anchor John King the day after the elections, DeMint denied that some of the other GOP senators are angry with him.

"Many of your fellow Republicans, Senator DeMint, suggest perhaps your activities cost them a chance at a majority," King said.

"Well, I haven't heard that from any of my colleagues out here," DeMint responded.

"Trust me, they're emailing - they and their staff are emailing around, grumbling about this," King said.

For his part, DeMint can't seem to settle on a role. One minute, he is projecting himself as a defiant outsider, and the next he is the great unifier and the party's last hope. The day after the election, he was in the outsider role, sending an email to his successful candidates that read, in part, "Tea Party Republicans were elected to go to Washington and save the country - not to be co-opted by the club. So put on your boxing gloves. The fight begins today."

But in an interview he pivoted back to unifier. "There's no reason for there to be any disunity in the Republican Party."

Then on Meet the Press yesterday morning, he was blaming the establishment republicans for Christine O'Donnell's loss in Delaware. Not her 20 years of wingnuttery on the teevee machine. Not her anti-masturbation and anti-sex pronouncements, not her "I'm not a witch" commercial...but establishment republicans.

Since DeMint can't even agree with himself, the rest of the party is out. And that ought to make for an interesting couple of years.  


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