After Voters Reject Rescue Plan, California Tax
Cuts to Slash Vital Services

post from Crooks and Liars on 21 May 2009 08:00:15 PM. © Crooks and Liars

For the life of me, I can't figure out California government. The state appears to be dominated by Democrats, yet the state government seems to take its plays right out of the right-wing Club for Growth playbook. And the proposition program seems like a recipe for disaster! I can't even tell who the good guys are:

Reporting from Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers scrambled Wednesday to avert a financial meltdown, and public officials across California braced for annihilating cuts on the day after voters trounced their leaders' rescue plan for the state.
Within two hours of returning from Washington, D.C., the governor huddled behind closed doors with Democratic and Republican legislative leaders to grapple with a projected $21.3-billion budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year and stop state government from running out of money by July.
But the Republican governor delivered at least a bit of good news: Obama administration officials had backed off their threat to rescind $6.8 billion in federal stimulus money.
The hacking of government began quickly, by the hand of a little-known state panel that sets elected state officials' pay. Citing a need for shared sacrifice, the group decided to reduce those salaries by 18% starting next year.
Otherwise, on a bright, clear morning in the capital, the most certain thing was the dark and angry mood of the voters. They had overwhelmingly rejected a package of ballot measures intended to produce about $6 billion through the middle of next year with taxes, borrowing and other means; limit future government spending; and bolster the state's rainy day fund.
Only a measure to punish elected officials by denying them pay raises in deficit years won approval -- easily.
Schwarzenegger, who alienated himself from fellow Republicans in February by reversing his pledge not to raise taxes, took the results as a mandate for the plan he unveiled last week to slash billions from education, healthcare, law enforcement and social programs, and to borrow $2 billion from local governments.

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Fissures Grow In Right-Wing Business Lobby As
Caterpillar Speaks Out In Favor Of Clean Energy Legislation

post from Think Progress on 21 May 2009 08:00:00 PM. © Think Progress

ensign121 Yesterday, President Obama sat down with members of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board to discuss the pending Waxman-Markey energy reform legislation. One of the advisers is James Owens, who is the CEO of Caterpillar and also a member of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the right-wing trade group that has taken a hard-line approach against any energy reform that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When the President asked Owens if he saw a “competitive disadvantage” as a “big manufacturer” in dealing with energy reform, Owens said placing a cap on carbon would actually spur innovation:

OWENS: I agree with Jeff. I think we have the technology, we have the smarts here, and the product technologies, the economic incents of what’s needed. And that’s why I think of us in industry support a clarity around a carbon price, because that’s going to drive a lot of innovation and a lot of efficiency and will get with the program of reducing carbon emissions.

Owens continued laying out his support of clean energy legislation, noting most of Caterpillar’s renewable energy related products are currently sold “outside the United States…partly because of the way we regulate emissions site-specific, as opposed to looking at combined emissions and energy efficiency.” He also emphasized that giving the markets a price for carbon would “help our country be more competitive using the technologies that are out there.”

Owen’s increasingly outspoken tone comes at a time of tectonic shifts in the business community on clean energy. Currently, some of the most powerful traditional business trade groups — the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers — are devoting their efforts to “kill” clean energy reform legislation. But member corporations of these groups are at odds with this approach. The Natural Resources Defense Council conducted a study of the Chamber’s board members’ position on climate change legislation and found:

And out of the group of businesses that have publicly stated their positions, 19 favored federal action and only four opposed it. And three of those four are coal-mining companies.

Earlier this month, the utility company Duke Energy announced it would abandon its membership to the NAM over the trade group’s radical opposition to climate change legislation. When ThinkProgress asked NAM’s chief energy lobbyist about Duke Energy’s departure, NAM cowered and tried to hide its position. Similarly, member corporations such as Nike and Johnson and Johnson have applied pressure to the Chamber to drop its opposition to clean energy legislation.

With Caterpillar and other corporations calling for action on clean energy, the question becomes: will the NAM and other trade groups continue to lobby and fund ads opposing this legislation, or will member corporations find more relevant trade groups that will advance their interests in Washington?

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http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/21/caterpillar-nam-waxmanmarkey/

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Special Today

post from Talking Points Memo on 21 May 2009 07:58:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Every day, as you know, we bring you The Day in a Hundred Seconds. Today, though, weaving together the day's two speeches, it's particularly inspired and brings together what the day was about. Take a look. [...]

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hp

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Treme ought to be interesting

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 21 May 2009 07:50:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Homicide was a classic and The Wire was even better. There are so many terrible programs out there but The Wire really stood above the rest. Great story, great acting, great writing. (As a native of Baltimore, I always noticed a few strange attempts at doing the Baltimore accent but had no idea many of the actors were actually British.) Now the creator of those stories has a new show about New Orleans but also the failures as a nation that we are still trying to fix. This ought to go down well with Republicans.

He has taken on drugs, crime and corruption in Baltimore; and brutalised young soldiers in Iraq. Now David Simon, the creator of the hit TV series The Wire, is to create a drama that treats Hurricane Katrina as an allegory for the financial, social and cultural disasters that have shaken the US over the past year.

The series, called Treme, after a New Orleans neighbourhood, was commissioned by HBO earlier this month after a successful pilot, and will air in the US in 2010. Filming will start later this year ? after the hurricane season abates. The 10- or 12-part drama will be, Simon told the Guardian, "an allegory for the trauma that the country as a whole went through two years later".

"The fact is that the levees on the canals were substandard, and done on the cheap at an immense profit. Ultimately that becomes a metaphor," he said. "New Orleans was relying on things that were believed to be genuine bulwarks against tragedy and disaster. People felt that there were similar bulwarks protecting our financial institutions and foreign policy. Now, two years on, we are all essentially in the same boat as New Orleans. Katrina was an outlyer of where we are today."

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esting.html

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Late Afternoon/Early Evening Open Thread

post from Daily Kos on 21 May 2009 07:44:04 PM. © Daily Kos

video details and more

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I Do Not Believe In Coincidences

post from My Left Wing - Front Page on 21 May 2009 07:32:23 PM. © My Left Wing - Front Page

I do not believe in coincidences.

Not when they are this blatant I don't.

This convenient.

Four incompetent fools (or more likely three fools and a government agent or two or three) from one of the nastiest exurban ghettos in America (Newburgh, NY...one of the places where the minority victims of NYC gentrification go to suffer without benefit of national news coverage. Bet on it. Been there. Been scared shitless by the horror I felt on its streets.) are busted to big, BIG press coverage as they impotently plant faked explosives at a Jewish Center in Riverdale, NYC. And when do they "choose" to do this? (Like they "chose" make bombs out of silly putty? Get real.)

When?

Why...the day before Dick Cheney is to go on TV in an unprecedented attempt by a member of a disgraced administration to belittle the attempts of the incoming administration to fix what the previous gang of criminals totally screwed up.

And in true runup-to-the-Iraq-War manner, the national media uniformly hype the farce.

"HOTTEST THING EVER!!!" they scream. Brought to you by Big Pharma, Big Money and the right wing of the PermaGov.

And the leftiness blogs?

Silent as King Tut's tomb.

Wake the fuck up.

They live.

The war for our souls continues.

They Live

Possibly the most accurate B-level horror movie ever made.

Bet on that as well.

Wake the fuck up.

AG

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http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=24943

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Dick Cheney Asks Obama to Wave His Magic Wand

post from Firedoglake on 21 May 2009 07:31:55 PM. © Firedoglake

During the week that Dick Cheney ordered Libby to out Valerie Plame, Mary Matalin told Libby that "Bush" should order everything on the Wilsons declassified (it's not clear whether Matalin meant this to include Plame's identity or not). She said "the[...]

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http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/21/dick-asks-obama-to-wave-his-magic-wa
nd/

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Cheney's Chutzpah

Almost self-parody: Behind the overwrought reaction to enhanced interrogations is a broader misconception about the threats that still face our country. You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance[...]

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Diwaniya: Iraqi Forces Make Heavy Deployments

Sporting new uniforms, Iraqi forces made a visible heavy deployment in the southern city of Diwaniya on Sunday, locals told Slogger.

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