Listen, it’s not like I’m necessarily surprised, but to make such a dumb lie?

Here’s what he said…

“I have been going to Mt. Vernon,” he explained. Holding out his hands for emphasis, he declared with emotion, “I went to the National Archives, and I held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington.”

So what really happened?

Well, he was near George Washington’s inaugural address…but that’s about it…

Beck did receive a special VIP tour of the archives, arranged by an as-yet unidentified member of Congress. During that tour, he did get a peek inside the “legislative vault,” which isn’t open to ordinary visitors. But Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper insists that Beck didn’t lay a finger on any precious documents, much less George Washington’s inaugural address. That would be a major violation of policy. “Those kinds of treasures are only handled by specially trained archival staff,” she explains. Cooper acknowledges that someone at the archives did show the document to Beck, but that was the extent of it.

Examples like this just makes me more and more convinced that while these folks are getting plenty of attention now, this is not a sustainable path. They’re obviously liars and will say and do anything to get people to pay attention…which will ultimately result in the the wrong type of attention and their credibility imploding.

And that’s why I put that picture of one of the rally attendees up on this post. Not because I want to pick on her, but because folks like her actually need to be educated about what people like Beck are doing to them. These media personalities don’t really care about the country. And yes, I will say that I think Beck is pretty much craven and self-serving here. Because when you so easily lie to tens of thousands of people about something like the above…on the anniversary of MLK jr’s historic speech…and on the exact same spot…it’s not hard to draw a straight line between the lie and the motives for that lie. Glenn Beck cares about Glenn Beck being famous…and that’s about it.

But hey, feel free to disagree and convince me otherwise. I double dare you.

Tony Blair’s memoirs were released today and as you may know by now, Tony Blair has pledged to give all the profits from his memoirs, all £4m ($6m) plus of it, to the Royal British Legion, in an effort to help pay for the recovery and rehabilitation of soldiers injured in combat. This has, unsurprisingly, provoked huge media interest in the UK. Some have described it as a PR stunt, others have even gone as far as to allege that it’s a tax avoidance measure! Though the most popular denunciation of his actions has been that it is borne of a guilty conscience and that the money is tainted with the blood of the soldiers who died in his “illegal” war in Iraq.

Describing it as ‘blood money’, one mother wrote an article in The Independent, explaining that she would feel ‘let down’ if the Legion were to accept money from Blair. Well, God forgive, don’t have his £4million then. Let him keep it and fritter it away on champagne, caviar and fake tan instead. I understand the families are incredibly frustrated and angry with Blair but their sons, daughters, nephews and nieces did join the army. Unfortunately, during a war at least, death is an occupational hazard.

I note that, in the debate currently running on our site Debatewise.org, one contributor asks us to “forget our cynicism” for a moment, and I’m with him on this one. In the cold light of day, when passions are calmed and egos put aside, there are only two things to weigh up when judging someone’s action: the preceding motive and the succeeding consequences. Firstly, it is, if not likely, at least possible that Blair really does want to honour the sacrifice that soldiers make on the front line every day. Secondly, whatever his motives, surely the consequences of this money outweigh them. No one can argue that this vast sum of cash is going to harm the British Legion or the soldiers it helps.

I wondered whether our American cousins would have reacted in a similar way had it been George Bush pledging a few million to a war veterans charity, or would you just have taken the money and run? I know I would. Money is money, is money and ‘aint nothin’ gonna change that.

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Yesterday, mw laid out a few compelling scenarios for this fall and they look plausible to me. After all, we’re talking about numbers from folks like Nate Silver.

And today we see that the mood for GOPers is a lot more than the Dems. At least according to Gallup.

Here’s the key graph…

And, as always, enthusiasm matters…

Maybe it is going to be an anti-incumbent year after all?

More as it develops…

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I see her in the distance running toward me on the beach. It’s really her – Divided Government. I’ve missed her. She looks so great, so tempting, so desirable, yet so far away. She appears to be getting closer, but… why is she running in slow motion? Is she real or is it all a dream?

Divided Government occurs in the US federal government when the party that controls the executive does not command majorities in both branches of the legislature. To restore divided government in the mid-terms, Republicans would have to retake the majority in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. That means a shift of 40 seats in the House, or 10 seats in the Senate or both. A tall order.

A few weeks ago, Justin invited predictions for the 2010 midterms. With Labor Day around the corner signaling the official start of the fall political election campaign season, I thought I’d throw my entry over the transom. Of course, this is strictly my opinion, your mileage may vary, and mangement is not responsible for the content of this post. I am also predicting an outcome I’d like to see – so there may be some wishful thinking embedded in this analysis.

Last time I looked, the answer was “no” – divided government was out of reach in 2010. It was the same conclusion I arrived at shortly after the election in 2008. Conventional wisdom also said “no”, but conventional wisdom has taken some surprising turns in 2010.

Conventional Wisdom
In January, the expectation was that the GOP would make gains in both houses of Congress, but fall short of retaking a majority in either. It just looked like the GOP was buried too deep in the sand to dig themselves out in one cycle. The Scott Brown “Massachusetts Miracle” eclipsed that particular ray of conventional wisdom, and since then CW has cautiously settled on a partly cloudy forecast with a chance of heavy Republican rain. The current political weather report gives the GOP a good chance to retake the majority in the House of Representatives, but the Senate is still considered by most to be out of reach. Conventional wisdom is not unanimity, so you can find some grasping at straws, others fearing the worst, and a few wondering how bad it could get. To many on the right, it looks like a done deal. We’ll start our analysis by narrowing down the range of possibilities.
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Most active political bloggers get between 20 – 30 emails a day from PR companies and other news sources trying to get you to write about their news. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of releases from National Journal about new journos they’re adding to their team. I noticed a few higher profile names, but this latest one is a much bigger fish jumping into NJ’s pond so I thought I’d share.

Former Fox News correspondent Major Garrett is joining the team…

Washington, D.C. (August 25, 2010) — National Journal Group announced today that award-winning political journalist Major Garrett is joining National Journal as a Congressional Correspondent, reporting and providing analysis across all of National Journal Group’s publications.

Garrett comes to National Journal from Fox News Channel, where he is currently the Chief White House Correspondent. During his eight years at Fox News, Garrett also covered Congress, two presidential elections, the war in Iraq, and many other issues of national importance. He will join Sue Davis, recently hired from the Wall Street Journal, to lead National Journal’s Congressional coverage.

“Major Garrett is the embodiment of the new team we’re building here at National Journal,” said Editor-in-Chief Ron Fournier. “He is known across Washington as one of the hardest-working journalists in the business, a fierce competitor on his beat, and a good and decent man. It is a rare combination, and one we’re incredibly lucky to be bringing into our newsroom.”

So that’s Garrett, but what about the others?

Here’s some more about the team NJ has been putting together…

In the last several weeks, National Journal Group has added several talented writers, editors, and analysts, including veteran magazine writer and editor Matt Cooper, political analyst Matthew Dowd, The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, USA Today’s Aamer Madhani, the Wall Street Journal’s Yochi Dreazen, Sue Davis, and Fawn Johnson, Politico’s Josh Kraushaar, Coral Davenport, and Tim Alberta, the Tribune Washington Bureau’s Jim Tankersley, Campaigns and Elections’ Jeremy Jacobs, Modern Healthcare’s Matt Dobias, and more. Further announcements will be coming in the next days and weeks.

National Journal Group, which includes premium publications such as National Journal, CongressDaily, Hotline, The Almanac of American Politics, and Global Security Newswire, is undergoing a transformation that will build upon its reputation for intelligence and depth, infusing it with currency and speed.

All this for online news? Or could they be thinking about something more public? In Garrett’s case, you don’t go from being the Chief White House Correspondent to a different gig unless it’s something as big or bigger than that.

Hmmm…

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The stimulus did nothing for our economy?

It didn’t prevent a second Great Depression?

It didn’t help create demand when we literally had deflation?

It didn’t prop up a system that relied on consumer spending when consumers weren’t spending?

The CBO shines the light:

In its latest quarterly assessment of the act, the CBO said the stimulus lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 and 1.8 percentage points during the quarter ending in June and increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.

And, by the way…

The higher figure would come close to making good on Obama’s pledge that the act would save or create as many as 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.

So, let’s talk about that now infamous 8% unemployment number that was floated in 2009. If the Obama administration hits its employment projections…how is it responsible for employers laying off more people than they had expected?

As always, there are the usual caveats…

The CBO cautioned that the the act’s effects are expected to “gradually diminish during the second half of 2010 and beyond,” leaving the private sector to pick up the slack in an economy that is already showing signs of deteriorating rapidly.

So, the question remains…should we just allow the economy to go back into the hole? Or should we figure out a way to stimulate it once again? Because if you’ve studied history and you look at The Great Depression, the deficit hawks swooped in after The New Deal and essentially forced Roosevelt’s hand to start cutting spending.

What happened?

The economy went into a tailspin again…

By 1936, the main economic indicators had regained the levels of the late 1920s, except for unemployment, which remained high at 11%, although this was considerably lower than the 25% unemployment rate seen in 1933. In the spring of 1937, American industrial production exceeded that of 1929 and remained level until June 1937.

In June 1937, the Roosevelt administration cut spending and increased taxation in an attempt to balance the federal budget. The American economy then took a sharp downturn, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production fell almost 30 per cent within a few months and production of durable goods fell even faster. Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938, rising from 5 million to more than 12 million in early 1938. Manufacturing output fell by 37% from the 1937 peak and was back to 1934 levels. Producers reduced their expenditures on durable goods, and inventories declined, but personal income was only 15% lower than it had been at the peak in 1937. As unemployment rose, consumers’ expenditures declined, leading to further cutbacks in production. By May 1938 retail sales began to increase, employment improved, and industrial production turned up after June 1938.

But we didn’t truly recover until the war started and we began spending like crazt. Obviously we don’t want something like that to happen, but to ignore history and call for spending cuts right now seems short sided and almost guarantees a double dip Great Recession.

Still, what should we do moving forward? I put the question to all of you.

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So, I’ve definitely been guilt of pushing the anti-incumbent meme, but it’s appearing as if the exact opposite is true.

By a margin of 317-7 (4 of which were Repubs, 1 of whom was Arlen Specter), incumbents have been winning primary fights left and right.

And the AFP is noticing…

PHOENIX, Arizona — Despite surging anti-incumbent fervor ahead of November legislative and state elections, no incumbent is expected to lose in US primary votes Tuesday, results that would deal a setback to insurgent candidates.

Voters head to the polls for primary elections in Arizona, Florida, Vermont and Alaska and results are being closely watched as a litmus test of voter mood.

Tuesday’s results may predict whether insurgent candidates, especially Republicans backed by staunchly anti-government Tea Party groups, will continue to make advances over those with more moderate views.

And, while I’m not a big fan, Rachel Maddow called this back in early June…

But what about the Tea Party? Weren’t they supposed to be taking the country back this year?

Don’t believe everything that Fox News tells you…

The Tea Party movement, which sprung up in 2009 as a grass roots revolt against Obama’s tax, economic and health reform policies, has electrified the Republican Party base.

Taking its name from a revolt against British rule in colonial Boston in 1773, the group has emerged as a powerful force in nominating Republicans for November’s mid-term legislative and gubernatorial elections.

Tea Party candidates have already won important Senate primary victories in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, and in other states, over more mainstream Republicans.

But Tuesday’s results may show the anti-incumbent narrative has been oversold.

Well, I take that back…it might be the year of the anti-incumbent sentiment in the Republican party…but so far you’re not seeing a lot of attrition when it comes to those voting for politicians who are already in office.

More as it develops…

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I suspect that I am the only political blogger who has not yet posted about the mosque/not mosque expected to be built/not built in a location somewhere near/not near ground zero in New York.

I have avoided this issue thus far because I feel a lot like this guy – or this guy – or perhaps like William Shakespeare – “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.“ I see this as little more than a excuse by partisans and bloggers on both the right and left to flog their favorite bogeymen in the hope of securing a minor political advantage. The significance of this story is just not worth the ink and electrons spilled on it.

But, that has not stopped anyone else, so let me make my position on this question perfectly clear – This blogger stands firmly with Michael Bloomberg, Grover Norquist, Chris Christie, Joe Scarborough, Michael Gerson and Barack Obama (Friday, 8/13/10 version) in support or indifference to the location of the Cordoba project mosque – and stands in opposition to Harry Reid, Howard Dean and Barack Obama (Saturday 8/14/10 version) who do not explicitly support the location of the Cordoba project mosque.

In America, in matters of religious tolerance, there should be no close calls, no qualification of primary principles, and the first amendment should not be location dependent. I am not sympathetic to the distinction of “rights” vs. right which strikes me as a Clinton-esque parsing for those looking to rationalize forcing the Cordoba Project to move the mosque/cultural center.

I”m going to make this easy on myself and crib extensively from a previous post invoking the views of a founding father whose words are as relevant now as they were 230 years ago.
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Note the big drop in the past week. Obama had been bumping along at around pretty much even approval/disapproval, but then he made a principled, correct stand on what religious freedom means to us a nation…and his approval drops?

And, by the way, this isn’t even a mosque. It’s a small prayer center inside of a muslim community center. Think of a YMCA with a chapel in it. That’s all that’s being proposed. I think when people here “mosque” they think of a big domed building that’s sitting right across from ground zero…but that ain’t it. This thing is two blocks away on a side street and tucked inside of a much larger proposed complex.

But wait…there’s more!

Pew finds that more Americans now think that Obama is a muslim.

Wanna know why?

When asked how they learned about Obama’s religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media. Among specific media sources, television (at 16%) is mentioned most frequently. About one-in-ten (11%) of those who say Obama is a Muslim say they learned of this through Obama’s own words and behavior.

The ignorance is just jaw dropping. What’s more, this study was taken BEFORE the mosque thing popped up. So who knows what those numbers look like now.

It’s weeks like this that make me think this country could be doomed. Because if people are this uninformed (or willfully misinformed), how is any politician going to be able to sell us on what really needs to happen over the course of the next couple decades?

Those in the know realize that we have major pain ahead and that the course we’re on is unsustainable. However, Americans have been brought up to be selfish and greedy, and while that works at the corporate level to power innovation, it divorces us from the reality of what it means to be a unified nation. We are individuals, yes, but we must also understand that even though we have a huge amount of cultural, spiritual and political differences…we’re all in this together and it’s going to take all of us to dig ourselves out of the hole we’ve created. And it shouldn’t take something like 9/11 to rally us again.

Excuse me, but I’m now going to reread Watchmen.

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From WSJ:

Schlessinger said on “Larry King Live” Tuesday that she “made the decision not to do radio anymore” because she wanted to regain her First Amendment rights and say what’s on her mind.

Sure, that’s why she’s quitting…not because her advertisers told her they’re through with her after she blurted out racial obscenities on air.

Wow. What a hack.

Furthermore, this tired First Amendment argument really gets me going because, news flash, Dr. Laura wasn’t hauled away to jail or sued or had any of her rights violated. She lost her job. That’s it. And she actually quit before she suffered the embarrassment of not having her contract renewed.

So please Dr. Laura, if you think you need to quit radio in order to be free to say racially insensitive things in public…by all means. And you’ll find that people will shun you just as quickly off the radio as on.

Welcome to the real world.

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Now they’re just rubbing it in our faces…

From Wash Post:

Jack Horner, a spokesman for News Corp., said in an interview: “It’s patently false that a corporate donation would have any bearing on our news-gathering activities at Fox News or any other of our properties.”

News Corp., which also owns the New York Post, Wall Street Journal and Times of London, said in a statement that the company “believes in the power of free markets, and the RGA’s pro-business agenda supports our priorities at this most critical time for our economy.” Two RGA spokesmen did not return messages.

Listen, it’s true that other media conglomerates donate to these organizations, but they’re not the cult of personality that NewsCorp is and this donation is actually pretty substantial when compared with others in the field. For instance, GE donated more than $200K…but that was to governors in both parties last year.

Also, there’s no word whether or not NewsCorp will donate to Democratic interests. But they have in the past…

Until now, the News Corp./Fox political action committee had given 54 percent of its donations to Democrats and 46 percent to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — including $8,000 to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s campaign committee and $5,000 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s organization. News Corp. also gave $45,000 each to GOP and Democratic campaign committees on Capitol Hill.

And here’s more about the size of this donation…

The $1 million donation by News Corp., made in June and first reported by Bloomberg Businessweek, is among the largest contributions to the GOP governors in this campaign cycle. The Republican group, headed by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a possible presidential candidate in 2012, has raised $58 million in the past year and a half, compared with $40 million for the Democratic group. Thirty-seven governorships are up for election this fall.

That’s another question…why governors? What interest could NewsCorp have in getting Republican governors elected when they’re a national broadcasting service?

More as it develops…

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Ready for an exercise in tortured logic? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Pay especially close attention to Roger Simon’s last paragraph:

Honest to goodness, the man just does not get it. He might be forced to pull a Palin and resign before his first term is over. He could go off and write his memoirs and build his presidential library. (Both would be half-size, of course.)

I am not saying Obama is not smart; he is as smart as a whip. I am just saying he does not understand what savvy first-term presidents need to understand:

You have to stay on message, follow the polls, listen to your advisers (who are writing the message and taking the polls) and realize that when it comes to doing what is right versus doing what is expedient, you do what is expedient so that you can get reelected and do what is right in the second term. If at all possible. And it will help your legacy. And not endanger the election of others in your party. And not hurt the brand. Or upset people too much.

So because Obama is trying to do what he promised voters, to change the tone in Washington and be honest with Americans, he’s doomed to fail.

Don’t think that’s what Simon is saying?

Well, here ya go…

The problem for Obama is that he appears to have taken seriously all the “change” stuff he promised during his campaign. And he has been unable to make the transition from candidate to president.

By the way, who controls whether or not stories like the Ground Zero mosque get attention? Hint: it ain’t the politicians.

Basically, “Listen kid, play by the rules and act the way we think you should act or else we will tear you to shreds for doing something we don’t expect.”

By the way, Obama has said repeatedly that he’d rather be a one term president and do the right things then be the type of two term ideologue that Simon describes. And while I’d hate to see him lose in 2012, I find that sentiment to be spot on. So whether you agree with the point that Obama has conducted himself differently than other presidents, I hope we can agree that you can’t change things by being the same.

So, the questions are…will Washington ever make any headway when it comes to reform if the media is this cynical? Or was Simon just playing coy with this editorial and thinks Obama should continue to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t get him reelected? I can hear a whisper of that in his piece, but perhaps it wasn’t intentional.

Sound off!

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I refuse to call it the Ground Zero mosque because, well, it’s not at Ground Zero. It’s close, but it’s not at the site…which I think most people who opposed it think it is.

But here’s the thing…looks like it’s moving to another part of the city.

From Haaretz:

After weeks of heated debate over plans for an Islamic community center near Ground Zero – the site of the 9/11 attacks on New York – it seems Muslim leaders will soon back down, agreeing to move to a new site.

The decision follows a high-profile campaign against the project that included advertisements on New York buses showing images of the burning Twin Towers, an iconic landmark razed when al-Qaida terrorists flew packed passenger planes into them in 2001. The New York Republican party is also said to be planning a hostile television campaign.

Every hack politician who has actively pushed this should be ashamed of themselves. This is a completely worthless debate, driven, might I add, by the same folks who cry every single day about their constitutional rights being violated.

And lest they forget another important point about why a mosque would be appropriate near Ground Zero…a reminder from the Village Voice…

Muslims were victims of 9/11, too. Sorry, but it’s true. And one was an NYPD cadet.

Heads up Republicans…politicizing this might drive some of the base to the polls this year, but it’ll drive nobody else. And as you continue to ostracize groups that are expanding, instead of having an open tent, you’re marginalizing your party in the long run. Because for every voter you keep with nonsense issue like this (and revising the 14th amendment), you lose 2 new voters in the future. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

UPDATED:
Looks like the report was false. The mosque is going forward.

The official Twitter account of Park51, the developer constructing the center, has now stepped in to deny the story. “Reports by Haaretz are completely false,” tweeted @Park51. “We are committed to plans of building Park 51 to serve the community of Lower Manhattan.

Score one for American media. And cross Haaretz off your list of sources for news on this story.

Good.

UPDATED UPDATE:
However, David Patterson is trying to get the mosque to move…

New York Gov. David Paterson (D) will meet with the imam and developer of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero “later this week” to discuss the possibility of removing the mosque to an “alternate location”, according to Rep. Peter King.

King, an outspoken opponent of placing the mosque and Islamic cultural center so close to where terrorists attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, received a call from Paterson this morning.

“We are working with the developers on a staff level but there have not been any formal discussions between the Governor and Imam or developer,” said Morgan Hook, a spokesman for Paterson. “However, we expect to have a meeting scheduled in the near future.”

Something tells me this will keep on going and going and going…

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We here at Donklephant want to make sure you know that we’re laughing at you, not with you…

23) Saul Alinsky (7)
23) Bill Clinton (7)
23) Hillary Clinton (7)
19) Michael Moore (7)
19) George Soros (8)
19) Alger Hiss (8)
19) Al Sharpton (8)
13) Al Gore (9)
13) Noam Chomsky (9)
13) Richard Nixon (9)
13) Jane Fonda (9)
13) Harry Reid (9)
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
11) Margaret Sanger (10)
9) Aldrich Ames (11)
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
7) Ted Kennedy (14)
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
5) Benedict Arnold (17)
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
4) The Rosenbergs (19)
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
2) Barack Obama (23)
1) Jimmy Carter (25)

If I were picking worst blogs, guess which ones would be on that list…

UPDATE:
Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse concurs.

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Pretty straightforward and helpful for those who don’t realize that they’re taxed at different levels of their income, not just one bracket.

See, I’ve discovered, through the course of just asking around, that many folks don’t realize that they’re taxed at different levels. Many think that if they make over a certain amount of money, all of their money is taxed at that rate. That’s why you heard all that talk about taxes being a disincentive to making more money, which is obviously nuts and was meant to confuse the average taxpayer who doesn’t understand how our system works.

In any event, the graph via Wash Post…

And a little more about where this came from:

A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year — and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation’s millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday.

New data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation show that households earning more than $1 million a year would reap nearly $31 billion in tax breaks under the GOP plan in 2011, for an average tax cut per household of about $100,000.

Does everybody now understand how big of a giveaway this is to the wealthiest 2%?

Were the rich hurting in the 90s when the tax rate was 39.6%?

Can we all agree that people making between $200 and $500K can take a $400 hit?

And to those who make over $500K, well, you still don’t have to pay Social Security tax on hardly ANY of your income. And since many of the super rich derive their income from investments, which is taxed at 15% since it’s considered long term capital gains, you’re still gaming the system effectively.

Yes, rich people…you’re still rich and you still win.

Meanwhile, teachers, firefighters and cops don’t deserve to keep their jobs according to Republicans, but they want to give $10 billion more to people who are so wealthy that few of us will ever understand what it is to be in that company?

Good times.

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If you’ve been following the politicking surrounding the $26 billion in emergency state aid, you might be wondering if Republicans are really thinking through their current strategy to its end game.

Basically, the vast majority of the money would save over 300,000 state and local jobs, 100,000 of which are local teaching jobs that would have been eliminated before the school year even started.

Republicans are calling this a “bailout” and say that Dems can’t help but spend more money. Only problem with that logic…this money is paid for by cuts in other programs and would reduce the deficit.

Also, Repubs claim that states need to tighten their belts.

Really?

They do know that the budget gap in these states total $85 billion, right?

But let’s take a step back.

Before Bush came into office, nearly every single state had record surpluses and their budgets were balanced. After The Great Recession, nearly every single state ran a deficit. So, again, we’re presented with a logic gap. You have to either believe that they all became incredibly fiscally irresponsible…

OR…

…that the market imploded, access to credit became very difficult, businesses slashed jobs as a result, pushing up unemployment, making consumers spend far less, resulting in businesses generating even less revenue, thus pushing up unemployment into double digits, which results in far less sales and income tax and subsequently the surpluses vanished.

For even more evidence that states are hurting, you might be surprised to find out that even tax-cutting, deficit hawk Governors like Mark Sanford are taking stimulus money when they had previously said they wouldn’t. South Carolina is $1 billion in the hole. You think Sanford was spending unwisely?

Listen, it’s easy to just say “tighten your belt” and accuse states of being reckless. But, by the way, states have tightened their belts and they’ll have to do more, as is evidenced by the $59 billion gap left after this money finds its way into their hands.

But when the rubber meets the road and the GOPers go back to their states for the fall elections, they’re going to have to explain to voters that they positioned teachers, cops and firefighters as the new welfare queens. To me, that’s a bad spot to be in.

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… by cleverly adopting a circular firing squad formation.

READY…

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs raises his sights and gets a bead on the target:

AIM….
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This updated chart of “Your New Health Care System” got a lot of play around the right-o-sphere, and even a few lefty blogs. The chart is a partisan Republican attack on the PPACA (healthcare reform) bill that was steamrolled on a partisan Democratic vote over the loud but legislatively impotent Republican minority. But to paraphrase a favorite quote – Just because it is partisan, does not mean it’s not true. The chart has received accidental support from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

The CRS Report “New Entities Created Pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is apparently intended to defuse charts like this, but actually details an even more frightening state of affairs:

The report was released in early July, but the MSM and blogosphere are just now beginning to pick up on what it says about our new law of the land.
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Solomon Kleinsmith, who is a contributor here from time to time and just started a great new site The Rise Of The Center, has put together a list of indy/centrist/moderate blogs you should check out.

Here’s a taste:

The Pragmatic Center – Nick Goebel, who I’ve chatted with a bit, has his head on straight. His blog is a mix of common sense political talk on national and Michigan state politics.

Third Party and Independent Daily – This site doesn’t just stick to centrist type stuff, as any third party groups are discussed, but there is a lot of great coverage of smaller stories you don’t see anywhere else, related to those on the front lines of the war against the two party system.

POLI-TEA – Probably the site out there that is most like mine… so of course I think its great! haha… Almost all really in depth discussion. Its a must read.

Centrist Zealot – I only came across this one a few days ago, but its already one of my favs. Schmitty, one of the two man team that runs Centrist Zealot, have chatted a bit and he’s really got his head in the right place. CZ is a lot more… snarky than Rise of the Center, but the content is good.

So, what are your favorite reads around the middlesphere?

And how about in the rest of the blogosphere? Not all liberal and conservative blogs are awful. What do you check out from time to time?

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