Disgusting

Absolutely disgusting with no redeeming value, comedic or otherwise.

Lieberman

“I know that some in the party have differences with Joe," Senator Obama said, all but silencing the crowd. "I'm going to go ahead and say it. It's the elephant in the room. And Joe and I don't agree on everything. But what I know is, Joe Lieberman's a man with a good heart, with a keen intellect, who cares about the working families of America."

- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, March 30,2006

So, Joe Lieberman intends to kill health reform, apparently.

President Obama and many of today's senate Democrats should remember that it is they who helped to create this horrible situation.

In 2006, Democratic primary voters in Connecticut chose Ned Lamont over Lieberman as the party's nominee for the United States Senate. Then-Senator Barack Obama was one of the prominent Democrats who rallied to Lieberman to support his bid for re-election during the primary and during the general election as the nominee of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.

Had they not supported a third-party candidate against their own party's nominee, they might have an ally on health reform in the senate rather than an adversary.

I wonder if President Obama is comforting himself with memories of the "good-hearted" Joe Lieberman he thought he was propping up back then. I wonder if he would take any of it back today if he could.

Conservative Fauxtrage over Reid remark shows no sign of abating

The conservative hissy fit over Harry Reid's "slavery" remark continues to build toward the highest pitch.

From Nevada to Washington, calls were mounting Tuesday for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to apologize for comparing opponents of health care reform to supporters of slavery. 

The antagonistic comment, made on the Senate floor Monday, came at a sensitive time for health care reform, with Democratic leaders trying to push a compromise by the holidays, and in the middle of Reid's heated race for re-election in Nevada. The remark did not bode well for either effort. 

 Senate Republicans blasted Reid for the comparison, calling it "offensive" and "unbelievable" and suggesting he was starting to "crack" under the pressure of the health care reform effort. 

 In the comment, Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era -- and during the women's suffrage and civil rights movements.  

For such a supposedly tough, rugged bunch, conservatives sure do spend a lot of time whining about their feelings.  But this is a particularly ridiculous example of a very tired genre of political manipulation. 

 For the record, here is what Reid said:

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Senate Republicans can come up with is: 'Slow down, stop everything and start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right.

 "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, some dug in their heels and said, 'slow down.' When women spoke up for the right to speak up -- when they demanded the vote -- some insisted that they simply stop. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to all citizens, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.

"And more recently, when Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut - one of the people who will go down in history as a chief champion of the bill before us today - said that Americans should be able to start and take care of their families without fear of losing their jobs, he heard the sane old excuses. Through seven years of fighting and more than one presidential veto, it was: 'Slow down, stop everything and start over.'

"History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those who don't think this is the right time to reform health care. But in reality, for many who feel that way, there will never be a good time to reform health care."

No rational, honest person could dispute a word of this.

 Forget the specifics of the healthcare debate for a moment.  Let's just focus on who conservatives are and what conservatism is.

 Conservatives oppose progress because it is progress.  It is what makes them conservatives.  Who would deny this?

 Conservatives believed that because slave labor was such a critical component of the American economy, the institution of slavery was worth preserving.

 Conservatives fought against the enfranchisement of women because it represented a radical change from the complete male domination of American society.

 Conservatives resisted breaking down racial barriers in this country in every arena from voting to education to housing to the workplace, and the list goes on.  Why?  Because the change represented by breaking those barriers made some people uncomfortable. 

 And conservatives believe in preserving a status quo in which the delivery of healthcare is controlled by for-profit corporations who earn their profits by restricting access to healthcare. Why?  Because it is the status quo and changing it make some people uneasy.

 (You know, that and the money.  Never forget about the money.)

 The simple fact is that conservatives resist change because it is change.

 What Harry Reid said was nothing more or less than the truth and no one should never apologize for speaking the truth.

Poll: 'Tea Party Tops GOP on Three-Way Generic Ballot '

This is enough to keep you awake at night if it's your job to get Republicans elected to congress.

Running under the Tea Party brand may be better in congressional races than being a Republican.

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

Tax cuts weakend the stimulus

Bruce Bartlett, a Bush 41 Treasury official, says the stimulus plan worked, but that its tax cuts had the "smallest bang for the buck."

And with regard to the cuts themselves, upper-income "tax relief" proves especially worthless as a stimulative measure.

The CBO also looked at the stimulative effect of various parts of the stimulus package. It found that purchases of goods and services by the federal government--such as for public works--had the largest bang for the buck, raising GDP by $2.50 for each $1 spent. Transfer payments had a lesser impact, but were still significantly more stimulative than tax cuts. Moreover, tax cuts of the sort favored by Republicans have the least impact. According to the CBO, tax cuts for low-income individuals raise GDP by as much as $1.70 for every $1 of revenue loss, while those for the rich and for corporations raised GDP by at most 50 cents for every $1 of revenue loss.

Lest one suspect the CBO of bias, private economists have also found that tax cuts are far less stimulative than spending under current economic conditions. Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, an advisor to John McCain last year, recently testified before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that the Republicans' favorite tax proposals--making all the Bush tax cuts permanent and cutting the corporate tax rate--would raise GDP by at most 37 cents for each $1 of revenue loss. By contrast, increased outlays for infrastructure, aid to state and local governments and extended unemployment benefits increase GDP by between $1.41 and $1.57 for every $1 spent.

Indeed, one can argue that the failure of the stimulus to create or save more jobs occurred largely because Obama included too many non-stimulative tax cuts in the stimulus package. These tax cuts, such as the Making Work Pay Credit, accounted for more than 40% of the cost of the $787 billion stimulus package. Based on the CBO analysis, I don't think there is any question that the economy would be much worse off today if Republicans had gotten their wish and 100% of the stimulus had been in the form of tax cuts.

Republicans still insist nonetheless that tax cuts are the only acceptable solution for the ailing economy, and far too many Democrats are afraid to call that nonsense out for what it is.

Unemployment drops to 10.0%

Still horrible, but less horrible than it was.

U.S. job losses slowed sharply in November and the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined, in a sign the labor market is finally starting to heal as the economy recovers.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by just 11,000 last month, slowing down from a downwardly revised 111,000 drop seen in October, as the recovery encouraged companies to retain workers, the Labor Department said Friday.

It was the best showing since December 2007, when payrolls rose by 120,000, said a Labor department official. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a payroll decrease of 125,000.

Blue Dog Bayh gets GOP challenger

Former Republican congressman John Hostettler is challenging Blue Dog Sen. Evan Bayh by caricaturing him as a wild-eyed, Harry Reid-loving, tax-raising liberalsocialistfascist.

In a YouTube video, Hostettler repeatedly ties Bayh to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, blaming the pair for what he calls a failed economic stimulus package.

“Hoosiers need real jobs created by real companies that are not taxed and regulated to death by new big government boondoggles like government-run health care and cap-and-trade,” Hostettler says. “These new programs will only push jobs out of Indiana.”

Hmm. And here I thought that positioning yourself as a "centrist Democrat" always eager to sell your party out in the name of "bipartisanship" was the best way to keep the GOP from caricaturing you as a wild-eyed, Harry Reid-loving, tax-raising liberalsocialistfascist.

Could it be that nothing will keep the Republicans from doing that? Could it be that the best way to win as a Democrat is to govern like a Democrat and produce results for your constituents?

I guess we'll see.

WIRED: 'Feds ‘Pinged’ Sprint GPS Data 8 Million Times Over a Year'

Wired's Threat Level blog picks up the Sprint Nextel story with new information from the company about the significance of the "8 million" figure cited by its Electronic Surveillance Manager.

According to the company, law enforcement authorities used a Sprint Nextel web portal to initiate 8 million "pings" to cell phones, which allowed officials to track the owners' locations. The company says that does not mean 8 million individual customers were tracked, but they won't say how many were.

The manager also revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed web portal that Sprint provides law enforcement to conduct automated “pings” to track users. Through the website, authorized agents can type in a mobile phone number and obtain global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the phone.

The revelations, uncovered by blogger and privacy activist Christopher Soghoian, have spawned questions about the number of Sprint customers who have been under surveillance, as well as the legal process agents followed to obtain such data.

But a Sprint Nextel spokesman said that Soghoian, who recorded the Sprint manager’s statements at the closed conference, misunderstood what the figure represents. The number of customers whose GPS data was provided to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies was much less than 8 million, as was the total number of individual requests for data.

The spokesman wouldn’t disclose how many of Sprint’s 48 million customers had their GPS data shared, or indicate the number of unique surveillance requests from law enforcement. But he said that a single surveillance order against a lone target could generate thousands of GPS “pings” to the cell phone, as the police track the subject’s movements over the course of days or weeks. That, Sprint claims, is the source of the 8 million figure: it’s the cumulative number of times Sprint cell phones covertly reported their location to law enforcement over the year.

The spokesman also said that law enforcement agents have to obtain a court order for the data, except in special emergency circumstances.

Despite the company's denial, in the audio posted on Christopher Soghoian's blog, Sprint Nextel's Electronic Surveillance Manager, Paul Taylor, refers very clearly to "8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone," and praises the company's web interface for making it possible to fulfill those requests.

Sprint Nextel letting law enforcement use its GPS to track millions of customers' locations

Do you feel safer yet?

"[M]y major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot of things that are automated but that's just scratching the surface. One of the things, like with our GPS tool. We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests. So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just the sheer volume of requests they anticipate us automating other features, and I just don't know how we'll handle the millions and millions of requests that are going to come in.
-- Paul Taylor, Electronic Surveillance Manager, Sprint Nextel.

Sprint Nextel actually has someone with the title "Electronic Surveillance Manager." Think about that.

[h/t Emptywheel]

'Zombie Reagan raised from grave to lead GOP'

In 2007, I wrote that maybe the GOP would have better luck nominating a picture of Ronald Reagan for the 2008 presidential race (And with what we know now, they probably wouldn't have done much worse than they did).

The Onion goes a step farther.


Nice Bobby Jindal cameo, by the way.