Baka.

post from Librocrats - Designed Intelligent on 18 January 2008 12:57:00 PM. © Librocrats - Designed Intelligent

To save the failing economy that he created, Bush has appealed to Congress AGAIN to make his tax cuts permanent.How does not changing something that isn't working save the economy you ask? The answer: In a little over a year, he's no longer president. So[...]

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McCain: The Issue Of Economics Is Not Something
Ive Understood As Well As I Should

post from Think Progress on 18 January 2008 12:54:00 PM. © Think Progress

mccain The New York Times’ Paul Krugman noted recently that, in a moment of candor, John McCain admitted economics isn’t his thing. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” he said. But, “I’ve got Greenspan’s book,” he assured the audience.

If any needed evidence of McCain’s weakness on the economy was needed, simply witness how he has dealt with the need for economic stimulus. After last week’s debate in South Carolina, U.S. News wrote that the question of whether the economy needs a stimulus “vexed” the GOP front-runners, who “appeared unaware of the fiscal stimulus debate currently happening in Washington and being closely watched by Wall Street.”

At that debate, McCain said:

“I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession,” he said, “I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong and I believe they will remain strong.”

In the course of seven days, McCain appears to have reversed course, offering his own stimulus package:

“The fact is we have some tough times ahead,” McCain told supporters in Columbia. But he said the U.S. economy will rebound. “We will get through this rough patch,” he said.

Instead of offering direct middle-class relief for individuals, McCain is proposing cutting the corporate tax rate by 28.5 percent. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s top economic adviser, said his approach is to simply let someone else deal with the problems affecting working Americans. “The best course of action is to let the Fed handle it.”

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AP failed to note McCain switched positions on
Bush tax cuts

post from Media Matters for America on 18 January 2008 12:48:22 PM. © Media Matters for America

In a January 17 article on the"long-term economic plan" proposed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) whilecampaigning in South Carolina,the Associated Press reported that McCain favors an "extension ofexpiring tax cuts from Bush's first term." The AP, however, did not pointout that McCain changed his position onthe Bush tax cuts. In May 2001, when Congress first considered the tax cuts,McCain said in a May 26, 2001, floor statement that heopposedthe bill because "somany of the benefits go to the most[...]

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The Situation Room: Huckabee Gets More Biblical

post from Crooks and Liars on 18 January 2008 12:45:16 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Download (2) | Play (2) Download (1) | Play (2) (h/t Bill)Not content with saying that the Constitution should be amended to reflect the word of God (as if that wasn’t horrifying enough to those of us who value the separation between Church and State), Huckabee keeps playing to his evangelical base with an interview at [...]

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Meanwhile

post from Eschaton on 18 January 2008 12:42:00 PM. © Eschaton

Over there.

BAGHDAD ? For the second time in two days, a suicide bomber struck outside a Shiite mosque in Diyala Province north of Baghdad on Thursday, as worshipers prepared for one of the most important days in the Shiite calendar. The police and witnesses said at least 11 people were killed.

The bomber attacked a civilian checkpoint near the Shafta mosque in Baquba during the ceremony of Ashura, which commemorates the seventh-century slaying of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad?s grandson and a revered figure to Shiites.

Witnesses said that moments before the blast a policeman named Baseem seized the bomber and began shouting, ?stranger,? but was too late to stop the explosion, which killed both men and at least nine other people. Fifteen people were wounded.

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Jonah

post from American Street on 18 January 2008 12:40:00 PM. © American Street

Fresh headlines: # Bush calls for $145 billion economy plan AP - 18 minutes ago# Stocks fall after Bush announces plan AP - 2 minutes agoThe conclusion is left as an exercise for the student.

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Weak Tea

post from Eschaton on 18 January 2008 12:34:00 PM. © Eschaton

Really. Mitt is utterly full of shit about everything, but a press corps which gets angry because a politician promises to deliver jobs? WTF?

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UNSG: Iraqi UN Staffers Threatened, Intimidated

post from IraqSlogger.com on 18 January 2008 12:29:45 PM. © IraqSlogger.com

Click here for a PDF of the full 16-page report:

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Chris Matthews Responds

The other day, just for giggles, I looked at Chris Matthews' profile on the MSNBC website. It says, that, among other things, he is:

[A] television news anchor with remarkable depth of experience, Matthews has distinguished himself as a broadcast journalist, newspaper bureau chief, Presidential speechwriter, and best-selling author.

It's sad that over the past few years, his idea of "journalism" has degenerated to Rush Limbaugh/talk show quality, namely offensive and juvenile sexist remarks about Senator Hillary Clinton as well as other women. His obsession with Sen. Clinton reached tabloid levels the day after she won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, when he said that:

"the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win there on her merit."

You can read more about his near-nuclear meltdown here and here. ("It's not an obsession." Right, Chris.)

Thankfully, the good people at Media Matters watch Matthews so we don't have to. They've brought us the latest, which is - gasp - an apology from Matthews.

Here's the video:

video details and more

It's a start, I suppose, although parts of it are more like "I'm sorry I was an ass. I'd like to rephrase that insulting thing I said about Hillary. Oops, I'm sorry, I was an ass again." For example:

So, did I say it right? Was it fair to say that Hillary Clinton, like any great politician, took advantage of a crisis to prove herself? Was her conduct in 1998 a key to starting her independent electoral career the following year? Yes.

Was it fair to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victim of an unfaithful husband? No. And that's what it sounded like I was saying and it hurt people I'd like to think normally like what I say, in fact, normally like me. As I said, I rely on my heart to guide me in the heated, fast-paced talk we have here on Hardball -- a heart that bears only goodwill toward people trying to make it out there, especially those who haven't before.

(The entire transcript is below the fold.)

Well, Chris, I'm sure you mean no malice, and you're just a bumbling oaf when it comes to apologies. We'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Kind of.

You aren't off the hook yet. Please install a filter between your brain and your mouth, and don't forget that we'll be watching and holding you accountable to your apology.

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More From "The Most Trusted Name In News"

This is ?water wet, sky blue? stuff and I should probably be spending my time on something more productive, but?

It seems that Glenn Beck is now being promoted by CNN as a featured online columnist, which makes me wonder if that network has any journalistic credibility left at all.

And in this piece of drivel, he uses our current economic melt down triggered by the mortgage subprime lending crisis to accomplish two things: the first is to take another shot at Hillary Clinton, and the second is to tell us all that cutting corporate tax rates will solve everything (see, doing that will spur investment and job growth, encouraging people to spend and saving our economy).

The Repugs and their acolytes are nothing if not predictable, aren?t they? But in the real world, this tells us the following?

Congressional Budget Office data show that the tax cuts have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits in recent years. Legislation enacted since 2001 has added about $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half of this deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and about a sixth to increases in domestic spending). Yet the President and some Congressional leaders decline to acknowledge the tax cuts? role in the nation?s budget problems, falling back instead on the discredited nostrum that tax cuts ?pay for themselves.?

...

The claim that tax cuts pay for themselves had already been rejected by the Administration?s own leading economists. Edward Lazear, the current chair of President?s Bush?s Council of Economic Advisers, has stated, ?I certainly would not claim that tax cuts pay for themselves.? N. Gregory Mankiw, President?s Bush?s former CEA chair and a well-known Harvard economics professor, has written that there is ?no credible evidence? that ?tax revenues? rise in the face of lower tax rates.? Mankiw compared an economist who says that tax cuts pay for themselves to a ?snake oil salesman trying to sell a miracle cure.?

And Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson echoed that line refuting Beck here.

Still, though, it would be nice if the Repugs would get it through their heads once and for all that tax cuts don?t do much by comparison to help the economy; indeed, the opposition to this often wrong-headed policy by St. McCain is one of the reasons why he?s in a dog fight with Huckabee in South Carolina; otherwise he would probably be ahead (here - I have other issues with ?Senator Honor and Virtue,? but this shouldn?t be one of them).

And as far as the minimum wage increase which passed last year, Beck said that it would help primarily part-time, younger workers, when in fact (as noted here), it would primarily help full-time workers. And in the case of at least one state, Illinois (here), it was expected to stimulate job growth.

I realize I?d have better luck trying to explain this to my cat than to a hateful demagogue like Beck, but I feel like I have to take a shot at this every now and then (and to get a feel for what a low life this guy truly is, take a look at this).

And here is my final Media Matters link for this post in which Beck admits that he?s ?a recovering scumbag.?

That much is certain.

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