As promised in his last State of the Union speech…

From Politico:

Stepping firmly onto Republican turf, President Barack Obama will announce Friday that he will ask Congress for the power to merge agencies to streamline government and improve efficiency.

First up on his list: the elimination of the Commerce Department and the Small Business Administration, which will be merged with the Office of the U.S. Trade representative and other independent business agencies into a new, unnamed Cabinet agency to create a more efficient experience for businesses.

“The government we have is not the government we need. The last reorganization of the whole government was done by Herbert Hoover,” Jeff Zients, deputy director for management and chief performance officer at the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters. “Since then, agencies have been layered on top.”

But will Republicans get on board?

They seem to be signaling they might…

“Americans want a government that’s simpler, streamlined, and secure. So after presiding over one of the largest expansions of government in history, and a year after raising the issue in his last State of the the Union, it’s interesting to see the President finally acknowledge that Washington is out of control,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “And while we first learned of this proposal this morning in the press, we’ll be sure to give it a careful review once the White House provides us with the details of what it is he wants to do.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, another frequent critic of Obama’s, said he stands “ready to work with President Obama on proposals to reorganize federal agencies.” Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which oversees governmental reorganization, added: “While I have been disappointed that the White House has not embraced earlier bipartisan Congressional efforts seeking collaborative engagement on proposals to reorganize government, I hope this announcement represents the beginning of a sincere and dedicated effort to enact meaningful reforms.”

We shall see…

And he raised quite a bit in Q4 2011.

From The Hill…

Mitt Romney followed up an easy victory in the New Hampshire primary by announcing he raised $24 million in the last three months of 2012, further establishing himself as the candidate to defeat in the GOP presidential race.

The total is the strongest quarter so far for Romney’s campaign and leaves him with $19 million in cash on hand. It is likely to dwarf what his Republican rivals report for their fundraising totals, and adds to a sense of inevitability that he will be the Republican challenging President Obama this fall.

How much did he raise all of last year?

Romney raised a total of $56 million in 2011, and has benefited from the support of outside groups, which have run ads in early-contest states savaging his rivals. This has allowed Romney to preserve some of his own resources.

Impressive…sort of.

Because candidate Obama raised $129M in 2007.

And in Q2 in 2011, President Obama and the DNC posted impressive numbers…

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign reported that it and the Democratic National Committee together raised $86 million for the second quarter, blowing past what they said had been their goal of $60 million for the period.

Obama himself raised $47 million—more than he raised in the second quarter of 2007, and more than the entire GOP presidential field that has reported its cash haul so far.

I don’t think there’s any way he’ll be able to keep pace with Obama in 2012 in terms of fundraising, but maybe he doesn’t have to if enough money flows into those SuperPACs to attack Obama.

But then again…what are those SuperPACs really going to be able to do? Usually that’s an avenue for dirty laundry. But they can’t really attack Obama with the Reverend Wright thing anymore. And Fast and Furious and Solyndra really haven’t gone anywhere.

More as it develops…

After Warren Buffett spoke out about taxing the rich more, the rich were polled and overwhelmingly agreed with the billionaire.

Here’s more from Wall Street Journal:

A new survey from Spectrem Group found that 68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more) support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income. Fully 61% of those with net worths of $5 million or more support the tax on million-plus earners. [...]

Explains George Walper of Spectrem: “What this tells us is that there are a number of wealthy folks who said: ‘Gee, we need to increase taxes to stimulate the economy. No one likes to be taxed more, but the reality is maybe it has to be done.’ ”

Walper added that he was also surprised at the positive reactions to Buffett’s political agenda. “I thought that among this group there would be a feeling of ‘why doesn’t he keep his nose out of it?’”

Pretty astonishing, right?

And I think it’s also important to note what people said who favored more taxes and what people said who didn’t.

First the pro-Buffett crowd…

“When you have someone who made four and a half billion pay fifteen percent, and because it’s a hedge fund, I have a problem with that.”

“Quite frankly if Warren Buffett gets taxed an extra fifty thousand dollars or your typical investor of two hundred and fifty [thousand] or larger has to pay an extra thousand dollars in tax; It’s not gonna change his lifestyle. Whatever he or she was gonna buy, he or she is gonna buy.”

“I think theoretically it would be good for this country and put some more money in the coffers, personally it wouldn’t be good for my family so I’m kind of at conflict between self interest and what might be good for the country.”

Now the anti-Buffett crowd…

“I think some of that spirit of America is lost when you start penalizing so to speak, the folks who have more.”

“I think there should be a voluntary check box on the tax form that says, if you would like to send in more please do.”

“For myself, if there were an increase in taxes, I’m probably gonna button up some spending.”

By the way…how priceless is the first anti-Buffett quote?

Yeah, our American spirit will really be diminished if the rich start paying taxes on investments and dividends that Reagan proposed. Sure.

Not that this is any surprise. Usually when flat tax proposals are put out there, this is the common thread. The rich get a massive tax break and the middle class get the shaft.

Here are the numbers…

The old system would be replaced by the nines:
- A flat 9 percent income tax for everyone – no more, no less
- A 9 percent tax on corporations
- A 9 percent national sales tax [...]

If you have a family of four with an income of just under $50,000, they could end up paying more under the Cain plan. Currently, they are taxed around $3,850 in income tax. Under Cain’s plan, they would be taxed at 9 percent or pay $4,500.

That’s $650 more.

Although the family would save almost $4,000 in Social Security taxes, it would have to give up the child tax credit worth the same amount. Furthermore, it would pay an additional national sales tax of 9 percent on everything purchased, including groceries and clothes, which totals about $2,000.

That means under the Cain plan that family could end up paying $2,725 more.

So that family would have a 5.5% tax rate hike. And the folks at the top? Their taxes would be cut in half. And what about those at the bottom, roughly 18% of the population, who don’t pay income taxes because they make so little that they can’t afford to? They’re getting an 18% tax hike? Seriously?

And, by the way, how does Cain fund Social Security or Medicare if those rates are cut? The answer…he doesn’t. They’re defunded. So the middle class and the poor will be paying even more to maintain their current lifestyle.

Long story short, this plan is a joke. Or based on fantasy. Either way, it’s a no go.

Dylan Ratigan wants to get money COMPLETELY out of politics. Not just corporate money or soft money…ALL money. Pretty bold.

But when you consider his stat, which is the title of this post, it’s pretty sobering to consider how much of a vice grip money has on how our political system is shaped. Because it’s really not about the best ideas anymore, and that should have all of us concerned.

To find out out more, visit Get Money Out and consider signing their petition.

A very sobering piece to write, no doubt, but needed nonetheless. Especially when you consider the revised GDP numbers from 2008.

From Frum Forum:

Two years ago, Commerce estimated the decline of the US economy at -0.5% in the third quarter of 2008 and -3.8% in the fourth quarter. It now puts the damage at -3.7% and -8.9%: Great Depression territory.

Those estimates make intuitive sense as we assess the real-world effect of the crisis: the jobs lost, the homes foreclosed, the retirements shattered. When people tell me that I’ve changed my mind too much about too many things over the past four years, I can only point to the devastation wrought by this crisis and wonder: How closed must your thinking be if it isn’t affected by a disaster of such magnitude? And in fact, almost all of our thinking has been somehow affected: hence the drift of so many conservatives away from what used to be the mainstream market-oriented Washington Consensus toward Austrian economics and Ron Paul style hard-money libertarianism. The ground they and I used to occupy stands increasingly empty.

A decline of -8.9%.

Conservatives…let that sink in for a moment.

Anybody now think the stimulus was too big?

This from the Economist:

We can’t know exactly how things would have played out in a world in which key policymakers had better data. If the true scope of the economic disaster in the fourth quarter had been clear, however, it seems certain that Ms Romer’s models would have shown a need for more stimulus, that the White House would have agreed to push for more (and perhaps a lot more), and that Congress would have been much more receptive to a bigger bill. A drop of 8.9% does seem much more terrifying, after all, than a 3.8% decline. Bigger stimulus would have reduced the economic deterioration in subsequent months. The Fed might also have been more aggressive.

Of course, it’s not impossible that knowledge of the dire state of the economy would combine with a bigger stimulus plan to shake faith in American finances. It is unlikely, however. At the end of 2008, America’s net debt-to-GDP ratio was less than 50%. Other large economies were also tanking, and money was flooding into Treasuries. In late December of 2008, yields on 10-year Treasuries fell to near 2%.

America had plenty of room and every reason to borrow and spend heavily. What it didn’t have, unfortunately, was an accurate picture of the economic situation. And that was a crippling limitation indeed.

Frum closes it out with this tribute to Susan Sontag’s famous challenge to her left-wing brethren in 1982:

Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Wall Street Journal editorial page between 2000 and 2011, and someone in the same period who read only the collected columns of Paul Krugman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of the current economic crisis? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?

Your thoughts?

In an op-ed I HOPE will get picked up across the country, Henry Bloch explains why taxes need to be raised on the rich ASAP.

From KC Star:

I do not understand some Republicans’ resistance to the idea of tax increases on the wealthy. The argument we have been hearing from some politicians about the rich being the “job creators” is misguided. First of all, let’s not forget that our economy was doing better and the nation’s unemployment rate was lower before the Bush tax cuts, which benefited the top 1 percent of earners the most. Secondly, one would be hard-pressed to prove that low tax rates result in increased job creation. Companies today are holding record levels of cash, yet unemployment remains stubbornly high.

I have been a student of the U.S. tax system for more than half a century. From the mid-1930s to the early-1980s, the marginal tax rate for the highest income earners in this country was between 68 percent and 94 percent. That’s double and triple of what it is today. Yes, it’s time we balance the budget, but it is also time we balance the tax burden.

He’s a registered Republican.

Your thoughts?

This is one of those times that I don’t know if this is a brilliant political move or absolutely foolish.

Wash Post has details…

It works like this: The plan “would give the President the ability to request smaller increases in the debt ceiling — coupled with proposed spending cuts of at least $2.5 trillion over the next year. It would provide for up to three separate sets of votes on a resolution disapproving of the increase — one later this month, the second in the fall of 2011 and the third in the summer of 2012. The plan is modeled on the 1996 Congressional Review Act, which established expedited procedures by which Congress may disapprove agencies’ rules by enacting a joint resolution of disapproval.”

The first set of votes would avoid the current default danger and ask the president for a $700 billion increase in the debt ceiling; two subsequent requests would be for $900 billion increases.

On the one hand, Mitch McConnell’s move makes it seem like Republicans won’t take responsibility for the mess they helped cause. In short, passing the buck because they wouldn’t agree to closing tax loopholes and expiring tax cuts that were set to expire anyway.

On the other hand, it may appear as if just Obama is raising the debt ceiling, which isn’t a very popular thing to get behind right now.

The opinion on the right…”NO!!!! Don’t let the debt limit be raised!”

The opinion in the middle…”NO!!!! Don’t let the debt limit be raised! And why haven’t you agreed to cut spending?”

The opinion on the left…”NO!!!! Don’t give any concessions on Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security!”

Here’s some more analysis from the Wash Post:

The proposal would in effect be a way out of the current standoff, which was forcing Republicans to choose between infuriating conservatives with a revenue hike or continuing to flirt with the consequences of default, which was viewed as completely unacceptable by business leaders.

At bottom, McConnell’s proposal is the latest GOP line on the debt ceiling — it’s Obama’s problem, not ours — taken to its logical and legislative conclusion.

It’s unclear what the House GOP’s lack of open support for the proposal means in practical terms. And there’s been no reaction yet from the White House.

As I think about it a bit more, I think Americans will think Republicans are kicking the can down the road once again, especially since many agree with the tax increases on wealthy Americans and closing the loopholes Obama has proposes.

Your thoughts?

You can’t look at today’s news and do anything but wince. 18,000 jobs created and the numbers in April and May were revised downward.

Unpacking the numbers a bit, 57,000 private sector jobs were created, while budget cuts pushed 39,000 folks out of work in the public sector.

So how are businesses doing?

Quite well…

Combined second-quarter earnings for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index are expected to be up 13.6% from a year ago, according to an analysis of Wall Street forecasts by Brown Brothers Harriman. “Corporate profits have been much stronger than the economy in general,” says Charles H. Blood Jr., a market strategist at the New York financial-services firm.

Sure there are worries. There are always worries. But that hasn’t stopped corporations from piling up more cash reserves than they ever have and keeping wages low.

In fact, it’s historic…

[...] they say this recovery is unlike any other in more than six decades because of the “absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers.”

The study’s authors-Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada, Joseph McLaughlin and Sheila Palma-write that from the start of the recovery through the end of the first quarter of 2011, national income increased by $505 billion. But none of that growth came from a rise in aggregate wages and salaries.

So what accounted for nearly all of the growth? Pretax corporate profits, which rose by $465 billion-or 92 percent of the total.

The researchers compare this recovery to other post-recession periods since 1975. Of the four, only one-2001-03-saw corporate profits account for more than half (53 percent) of national income growth. And in 1991-92, corporate profits’ share was minus 1 percent, while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for 50 percent.

Let’s make sure we all see that number clearly…92 percent of the total national income has been gained via corporate profits.

What to make of this? Well, I have my opinions, and I’ve shared them before. Frankly, it’s pretty ridiculous, but nobody can force corporations to hire anybody or pay their workers more. But isn’t it a shame that the mood in this country in many C-suites seems to be so stingy? I mean, I get tightening belts, etc, if it’s needed. But it’s clearly not. The big time private sector is flourishing.

And where does that flourish go?

As if you really had to guess…

The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. The earlier study had put the median pay at a none-too-shabby $9.6 million, up 12 percent.

Good times.

I think David Brooks frames the debate pretty effectively…

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue increases.

A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.

The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.

This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.

Of course Brooks is getting raked over the coals by the right-wing blogosphere today, but does this not make sense? Especially since the administration is even willing to cut scared cows…

Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit [...]

And David Frum weighs in about consequences…

Republicans in Congress need to understand that there will be a political price to them, not only to the president, if they force the United States into reneging on its contracted obligations. They need to hear that message from inside, from donors and supporters. That’s not a “pro-Obama” message as some hot-heads charge. It’s a pro “full faith and credit” message. The Obama program can (and in large measure should) be repealed. But default is not an acceptable tool of politics.

Brooks’ column is a manifesto for the times, it should be nailed to the Republican equivalent of the church door at Wittenberg.

At this point, I think Republicans will have to blink. There’s no squaring trillions in debt reduction with billions in tax increases. Well, unless they listen solely to the Tea Party. Then they’re exactly what Brooks describes…

The struggles of the next few weeks are about what sort of party the G.O.P. is — a normal conservative party or an odd protest movement that has separated itself from normal governance, the normal rules of evidence and the ancient habits of our nation.

Your thoughts?

It was forceful, it was direct and it was very pointed in putting the lie to the Ryan’s budget cuts that don’t include any revenue plans.

And let me say this for the record…Ryan’s plans are cruel. He had a chance to lead on this, but he failed.

In any event, Obama said that EVERYTHING was on the table and he pulled no punches today. With good reason. The budget issue had gotten away from him and he was trying to reign it back in. He would reduce the deficit by $4T over the next 12 years, with 75% of that coming through spending cuts, and 25% coming from revenue generation.

So what is he cutting?

Discretionary, defense, and Medicare/Medicaid spending will be affected significantly over the next 10 years.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. Check out the speech…

Your thoughts?

It’s pretty basic. Increase revenues and lower expenditures.

Here’s more from NY Times:

In his remarks, which come after Friday’s bipartisan deal to cut domestic spending by about $38 billion for the remainder of this budget year, Mr. Obama will not offer details but will set deficit-cutting goals, White House officials said. The numbers were still under discussion on Sunday.

“He’ll lay out his approach this week in terms of the scale of debt reduction he thinks the country needs so we can grow economically and win the future — a balanced approach,” David Plouffe, the senior White House political strategist, said on “Fox News Sunday,” one of four talk shows on which he appeared Sunday.

“Obviously, we need to look at all corners of government,” Mr. Plouffe said, adding, “We’re going to have a big debate.”

What are Republicans saying?

Republicans reacted skeptically to word of Mr. Obama’s speech. “I sit here and I listen to David Plouffe talk about, you know, their commitment to cut spending and knowing full well that for the last two months we’ve had to bring this president kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending,” Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said on Fox.

This even though Obama has said he wants to cut spending…but just doesn’t want to do that during one of the worst recessions in history. Oh well, par for course with the Repubs.

If something substantive comes out of this, will Obama get credit for tackling yet another tough issue? Probably not. Republicans have no reason to cooperate with him and ever reason to keep saying no to nearly everything this President proposes.

We shall see…

Both Newt and Rick are making presidential rumblings and that means that paying them on a “news” channel is a bad idea…apparently.

From New York Times:

On Wednesday, the cable news channel suspended two paid contributors, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who are both weighing presidential bids.

While the channel’s move seems pre-emptive — Mr. Gingrich is expected to signal his intentions on Thursday — it still leaves Fox with three other potential candidates: Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and John Bolton. But those three, according to Fox, have not shown serious intentions to set up presidential exploratory committees.

This is what they had to say…

“We can’t have Speaker Gingrich on our payroll while he is in the midst of an exploratory committee to see if he’s going to run for office,” Dianne Brandi, Fox News’s executive vice president for legal and business affairs, told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s a clear conflict.”

So, Gingrich and Santorum are gone. Now they need to do the right thing with Huckabee and Palin (I seriously doubt Bolton would run). We all know those two are running.

By the way…

No other television networks employ anyone who is expected to run for the Republican nomination.

Do they employ any Democrats?

Just saying…

The liberal blog Open Left suddenly announced today that they’ll stop posting content because…

we have gradually run out of money to maintain operations. It is a difficult decision, but we kept going for as long as we could.

But…

The site will not disappear, and all published content will remain online {…}

Wait…what?

Open Left is run on Soap Blox, which is a blogging platform and hosting service. The blog platform appears to be free and the most expensive hosting costs $40 a month. Sure, there are add ons, but Open Left doesn’t get a ton of traffic. They say they’re going to keep the website up, so it’ll cost $480 at the most every year. If you add in extra storage and overages every month, maybe it costs $1,000 a year…maybe.

So the idea that it was too costly to maintain the site is hard to swallow. Why didn’t they just throw a fundraiser? Think they could get 100 people to pitch in $10…or more? This is, after all, some of the same readers who rocketed Howard Dean from obscurity to the national stage because he was able to raise a ton of money online.

Bottom line…if they really cared about their readers they’d simply tell them that they can’t pay their writers anymore so content contributions will go down. And that’s assuming they paid their writers in the first place. Many political blogs simply invite people to blog and pay them zip. The platform, readership and communication is enough compensation. Also, I’ve been frank with all of you about content dropping in the down years between elections…and our hosting costs more than what they were paying. Do you see us going away?

Just saying…Chris Bowers and crew could easily keep that site up and post to it when they want to. But they’re not making any money. That’s the reason they’re quitting. Not very “open” if you ask me.

Actually, let me correct the title. He didn’t just not disclose it…he lied about it. Because there’s no way he simply forgot.

From LA Times:

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed. [...]

In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas also reported spousal income as “none.” Common Cause contends that Liberty Central paid Virginia Thomas an unknown salary that year.

Wonder if he’ll disclose her 2010 income?

Of course Thomas is famously an advocate of zero transparency when it comes to campaign contributions, so it’s not like this is necessarily surprising. Still, what could happen to Thomas for these very obvious violations? Would you be surprised if I told you absolutely nothing?

And not only will nothing happen to him, but, well, you’ll see…

But Steven Lubet, an expert on judicial ethics at Northwestern University School of Law, said such an infraction was unlikely to result in a penalty. Although unfamiliar with the complaint about Thomas’ forms, Lubet said failure to disclose spousal income “is not a crime of any sort, but there is a potential civil penalty” for failing to follow the rules. He added: “I am not aware of a single case of a judge being penalized simply for this.”

The Supreme Court is “the only judicial body in the country that is not governed by a set of judicial ethical rules,” Gillers said.

So let’s get this straight…the highest court in the land with the most at stake doesn’t have any code of ethics? Talk about unfettered and unchecked power. We seriously need to reform the SCOTUS. No more lifetime appointments. Sure, maybe lifetime appointments made sense back in 1776 when the life expectancy was 35, but not anymore. It doesn’t make any sense.

Your thoughts?

UPDATE:
This from ABC:

“It has come to my attention that information regarding my spouse’s employment required in Part III B of my financial disclosure report was inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions,” Thomas wrote in a letter to the committee that handles the reports.

I call shenanigans. Especially when you consider this…

None of Thomas’ forms, covering activities through Dec. 31, 2009, mention his wife’s work at Liberty Central, a conservative political education group she co-founded in January 2009 in part to energize Tea Party activists.

But the group did not officially launch until May 2010, which will only be covered during in the next disclosure period.

More as it develops…

I bet you never thought you’d see those two in the same headline. I’m a bit surprised myself. Bernie should know better.

From The Weekly Standard comes the text of the email from Sanders…

Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country. I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reelection campaign at www.bernie.org. There is no question but that the Republican Party, big money corporate interests and right-wing organizations will vigorously oppose me. Your financial support now and in the future is much appreciated.

And from The Daily Caller comes the Tea Party email…

TEA PARTY WON’T BE SILENCED FOLLOWING ARIZONA SHOOTING

This weekend we all were horrified to hear the news of the violent shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others in Arizona.

One thing that surprised us was how many in the news media and liberal political figures and organizations immediately launched into an attack on the tea party movement – assigning blame for the shooting to our grass roots, Constitutionalist movement in general, and Gov. Sarah Palin in particular.

Friends, this is outrageous.

It is quite clear that liberals are trying to exploit this shooting for their own political benefit, and they used deception and dishonesty to try and smear all of us and our beliefs.

You know what the truth is? The truth is that the shooter, Jared Loughner is the one responsible for this atrocity. But liberals are trying to place the blame on society for embracing the tea party movement.

We here at the Tea Party Express find that disgusting and revolting.

This isn’t a new concept for liberals. Let us harken back to the words of Ronald Reagan when he called out the Left for similar behavior in years past: “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” – Ronald Reagan

If Jared Loughner does have a definable political ideology it is that of a far Left anarchist. Loughner is a mentally disturbed young man who sought his ideological fulfillment from the Communist Manifesto – hardly the Bible of the Tea Party movement. He posted videos of flag burning on his YouTube channel – again, antics more consistent with Blame America First liberals, not the tea party movement.
In fact, Loughner’s interactions with Congresswoman Giffords date all the way back to 2007 when he confronted her with a question he had, and received an answer he found unacceptable. You read that right – Loughner’s interactions with Congresswoman Giffords date back to 2007 – well before the tea party movement had even been launched.

This was all an effort to try and demean us and diminish support for the tea party movement, since the Left could not beat us at the ballot box. Sadly way too many people in the media cooperated with this smear campaign.

The media didn’t tell you that the left-wing website, DailyKos, had targeted Congresswoman Giffords, putting a BULLSEYE on her, did they? But that’s just what happened.

Instead they tried to blame Gov. Sarah Palin. Friends, their hypocrisy and double standards are appalling.

This kind of media bias is a large part of why our tea party movement exists – because the voices of We The People have not been represented fairly by the news media, and listened to by our elected officials.

Well guess what: to those liberals in the news media and on the political Left who think you can silence us, you are wrong! Your efforts to try and smear us and shut us up will fail.

We have nothing to do with this awful, tragic event in Arizona. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords and the victims and families of this massacre.

But we will still fight just as passionately for this country we love, and the vision of our Founding Fathers as outlined by the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

We’re taking our country back through the ballot box and in the public square – through peaceful means. And we will prevail, because our ideas and ideals are stronger than the scare/smear/defame tactics of the leftists we face.

We ask you to please stand with the Tea Party Express and show your support for our efforts.

You can make a contribution online right now to the Tea Party Express – CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE.

As always, if you prefer, you may also make a contribution via mail, by sending a check to:
Tea Party Express
8795 Folsom Boulevard, Suite 103
Sacramento, CA 95826-3720

Listen, both of them are inappropriate, but the Tea Party email is pretty egregious since it never would have existed if this tragedy hadn’t happened. Basically, I can buy that Sanders would have sent out a “hey, how ya doing?” email to his constituents since the shooting isn’t the basis for the email itself. So yeah, while it doesn’t make it right or in good taste…it certainly doesn’t make me want to take a bath like the Tea Party one does.

Your thoughts?

Peter Beinart makes a good point about our massive defense budget and undeclared wars…

In modern times, conservative presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have tried to reconcile their efforts to rein in federal power with their support for a large military and an interventionist foreign policy. But both times, the latter has seriously trumped the former. Under both Reagan and Bush, aggressive, militaristic foreign policy produced more presidential power and larger deficits.

Tea Partiers say their movement is a response to the way government power, and government debt, grew under both Bush and Obama. But if they looked seriously at the reasons for that growth under Bush, they would see that much of what they’re upset about is the military and homeland security spending justified by his expansive “war on terror.”

Anyone genuinely worried about debt can’t ignore the fact that defense constitutes a majority of federal discretionary spending. And anyone devoted to a strict interpretation of the Constitution can’t ignore the fact that America is still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Pakistan, Yemen and lots of other places, without formal congressional declarations of war, although that is what the Constitution requires.

Come on now Peter, we all know something is constitutional when they say it is.

Specter lost his senate seat, but he has some parting shots for Republican appointed judges.

From CNN:

“Ignoring a massive congressional record and reversing recent decisions, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito repudiated their confirmation testimony given under oath and provided the key votes to permit corporations and unions to secretly pay for political advertising – thus effectively undermining the basic Democratic principle of the power of one person, one vote,” said Specter. Chief Justice Roberts promised to just call balls and strikes and then he moved the bases.”

Wait a second…activist Republican judges? That’s crazy! They’re strict constitutionalists!

By the way, Specter lost to Joe Sestak for the Dem primary victory…who then lost to Republican Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth…who doesn’t think corporations should have to pay any taxes. He also claims to want to end abortion and put doctors in jail.

Wait…let me say that again…Specter lost to Joe Sestak for the Dem primary victory…who then lost to Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth…who doesn’t think corporations should have to pay any taxes. He also claims to want to end abortion and put doctors in jail.

Welcome to our crazy new world.

Take a look…

I’m sorry, but I literally can not understand the thought process here. They talk about deficit spending until they’re blue in the face, but they favor massive, unpaid tax cuts for the super rich, while wanting to deny unemployment benefits for the people who need it most. Baffling.

Well, okay, not baffling. What I’m guessing is that many in that 62% hear “unemployment” and think people are just lazy. However, in order to get unemployment benefits you have to prove you’re seeking work. Meanwhile, they have no problem with corporations making record profits but not hiring anybody.

Oh, and they’re also forcing people to work longer hours for no more pay…

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 2.3 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Labor productivity is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of the combined hours worked of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers. Output increased 3.7 percent and hours worked increased 1.4 percent in the third quarter. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) Nonfarm business productivity increased 2.5 percent from the third quarter of 2009 to the third quarter of 2010, as output increased 4.3 percent and hours worked rose 1.7 percent.

Good times.

I am less thankful about what our leaders are doing to our currency. Last year I introduced a new tradition on Thanksgiving – watching the carving of our currency as it is sliced by administration fiscal policy and diced by Fed monetary policy.

Your 2010 Thanksgiving dollar dinner leftovers are served:

For our main course, let us check in with Peter Schiff, who you may recall was right in 2006-07 predicting the impending recession and crash of the real estate bubble. He was right in 2008 about the dollar and early in 2009 when he warned President-elect Obama about the folly of trying to borrow and spend ourselves into prosperity. Monotonously he was right again one year ago when he told us to keep buying gold at $1,084 /oz (up 27% to Wednesday’s close of $1,372/oz) as a hedge against the devaluing dollar.

We cannot expect this remarkable record to continue. Schiff is an economist a financial consultant* – a profession second only to economists with a reputation for being more wrong than right (Paul Krugman being a notable high profile example, having correctly predicted eight of the last one recessions). But, while he is on a hot streak, it behooves us to pay attention to what he has to say.

Serving up the meat and potatoes – Schiff on the insanity of Congress mandating a two headed Fed charter. They are required to manage monetary policy to maintain a stable currency, and also to promote maximum employment by umm.. devaluing the currency:

The Chimera of the Fed’s Schizophrenic Mission - Peter Schiff

For a side dish, Peter Schiff checks in with CNBC and browbeats the usual suspects on Fast Money:

C’mon. A six minute long primitive animation about economics, Fed policy, and quantitative easing – going viral? Three million views? How does that happen?

Finally, for a relaxing after dinner smoke – Enjoy “The Bernanke” as he hits the road to defend the QE2 policy to the world. Good luck with that, Ben.

Cross=posted from “Divided We Stand United We Fall“