For Republicans, Economic Recovery Is Expendable

 Congress, Economy, GOP Says NO, Presidency  Comments Off
Mar 142012
 

Brian Beutler: “Today’s GOP, unlike yesterday’s Democratic Party, pursued a purposeful and unprecedented strategy of blanket obstruction designed to damage the president.”

Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis illustrates a key difference between Reagan’s first term and Obama’s: the pliancy of the Congresses they had to work with. Despite the fact that it was controlled by Democrats, Reagan’s Congress was ultimately accommodative, and the result was significant fiscal expansion, which likely helped bring down the unemployment rate.

Despite presiding over a Democratic Congress, Obama enjoyed no such co-operation. Serial GOP filibusters limited the extent to which he could use deficit spending and temporary tax cuts to hasten economic recovery. Republicans bucked historically bipartisan policies to thwart the president. And when they took over the House in 2011, Republicans pursued an austerity agenda, and, separately, spooked credit markets by taking the government to the brink of default. All of these factors, combined with contraction at the state and local levels, offset the stimulative policies Obama secured at the beginning of his term. And that prefigured a significantly slower labor market recovery than Reagan enjoyed.

Talking Points Memo

The Stock Market doesn’t work as well under Republican presidents, either:

Steve Benen

 Posted by at 12:48 am

Fool’s Gold

 Elections: 2012, Presidency, Republicans, Right Wing Nutzoids  Comments Off
Mar 132012
 

From Doug Mataconis:

Attacking Obama’s “Radical Past” Won’t Work …

This is a debate that goes back to the 2008 campaign itself. Despite the urging of many prominent conservatives and, according to Game Change, Sarah Palin herself, the McCain campaign declined to emphasize things such as the Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers story during the campaign against Barack Obama. Of course, that didn’t stop conservative talk radio and television from bringing up both issues constantly and, on more than one occasion, Sarah Palin herself who said that Obama “pals around with terrorists.” It didn’t work. Not only didn’t these attacks from the right have any demonstrable impact on the President-to-be, but as October 2008 wore on, the gap between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin steadily increased and states that were formerly considered solidly Republican began to drift into Obama’s column. For the most part, of course, this was because of the state of the economy and McCain’s pathetic response to the same, but one cannot help but wonder if this constant drumbeat of negativity didn’t also help turn voters off to the Republican ticket. The low point of the entire month came, I think, when John McCain was forced to explain to one woman at a town hall event that no Obama wasn’t a Muslim who wants to destroy America. The fact that his running mate and his supposed allies in the conservative movement were insinuating something entirely different makes one wonder if he realized just what he had signed up for.

Despite the fact that it didn’t work before, and clearly won’t work again if the best that they can come up with is stuff like this Derrick Bell video, some conservatives seem intent on repeating the mistakes of 2008 all over again. Perhaps it’s because, like the nonsense about teleprompters, it reinforces their own preconceived notions about the President. Perhaps it’s because they have become so used to living inside the talk radio/Fox News bubble that they don’t realize that not everybody views things the way they do. Not everyone, in fact most Americans I would say, don’t see Barack Obama as some crypto-Marxist out to destroy America. They see him as the President in a time when the economy is still pretty bad and the price of everything from gasoline to a loaf of bread is rising and they’re worrying about paying their bills.

As the poll I cited yesterday and the one James Joyner wrote about today make clear, there is certainly an argument to be made to these people against the President. However, you’re not going to do it by dragging out 21 year old videos from Harvard Law School and recycling the nonsensical words of Jeremiah Wright.I think most mainline “establishment” Republicans know this, which is why they’d just like to get the party to rally behind Mitt Romney and get this primary race over with already. The base, however, is stuck in a world where Barack Obama is not just a bad President, but an enemy that must be destroyed. For them, stuff like the Breitbart video is gold. What they don’t realize, though, is that it’s Fool’s Gold.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 2:08 pm

Romney Leads But Americans Distrust Private Equity

 Elections: 2012, GOP Primaries, Polls  Comments Off
Mar 132012
 

Bloomberg National Poll

There are warning signs in the poll for Romney, should the former Massachusetts governor become his party’s presidential nominee. The extended primary season has driven his unfavorability rating up 10 points, to 48 percent, since September.

His past private equity work cuts both ways: it’s a credential that appeals to Republicans, while a slim majority –52 percent — of all Americans view the business practice as harmful to the economy and 68 percent object to the favored tax rate applied to profits generated by the industry.

Romney, 65, has estimated his wealth at as much as $250 million on financial disclosure statements. He earned $21.6 million in 2010, mostly from investments, according to tax returns he released in January that showed he paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent. That compares with the 35 percent top marginal tax rate.

This is interesting:

Nearly, two-thirds of Republicans said the independent political action committees known as super-PACs have done more harm than good to the primary process.

 Posted by at 7:39 am

Sometimes It’s Just For The Laffs

 Birthers, Books, Humor, Right Wing Nutzoids  Comments Off
Mar 132012
 

Jerome Corsi does not care for our hobby and seems to take us Obots much more seriously than we take him. Loren Collins of Barackryphal, far from an Obot, but who reads Corsi so you don’t have to, posted on The Fogbow this very funny snip from Corsi’s ebook, Where’s the REAL Birth Certificate?:

WND has reported that a prominent Democrat, apparently operating with the full approval and cooperation of the president, has directed a team of up to one hundred who are paid to publish disinformation on a wide variety of Web sites to attack and discredit “birthers.”

The Obots have stated that their White House-appointed ring leader is Democratic Party operative James A. Johnson, the former chairman of Fannie Mae, who has posted on various Obot Web sites under the username “JimBot.”

It reminded me of the fun we had last summer when Corsi went investigating on notorious old liar Ed Hale:


(Corsi believed Ed Hale. Nice job, JimBot.)

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 12:55 am

California Republicans Do Not Endorse Orly Taitz

 birferdreams By Verbalobe, Birthers, Elections: 2012, Republicans, Right Wing Nutzoids  Comments Off
Mar 122012
 

Bunch of killjoys.

The California Republican Party unanimously endorsed Elizabeth Emken, an advocate for developmentally disabled children, to run for the US Senate against Dianne Feinstein.

Surprise reaction from Dr. Orly Tairz, Esq., who has spent two years suing Damon Dunn, the last person California Republicans endorsed instead of her:

As expected, corrupt GOP establishment endorsed an insider Washington lobbyist Elizabeth Emken for endorsement.

Well, it just happened last night. Orly is probably warming up.

By Verbalobe

See also:

Republican Liberty Caucus of CA Boots Orly

Can you just imagine her mouth on the Senate floor?

 Posted by at 6:26 am

Connect The Dots

 Birthers, Crime, Domestic terrorism, Judiciary, Right Wing Nutzoids  Comments Off
Mar 122012
 

In 2008, Obama Campaign office in Columbia GA was at 3160 Macon Rd, Store 4A, Columbus, GA 31906 and in South Columbus, 905 Third Avenue, Columbus, GA 31901. This information could not be easier to find. But instead of Googling “COLUMBUS GA Obama 2008 Headquarters” like a sane person would, Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. calls on her Flying Monkeys:

Did BO have campaign headquarters in Columbus, GA? what was the address of his campaign headquarters in GA?

She rouses her rabble by raising one of her old standbys:

OBAMA, BARACK Street Address – 505 FARR RD APT C City, State, Zip – COLUMBUS GA 31907-6275 Probable Current Address – No Telephone – Telephone Accountholder – Social Security – xxx-xx-xxxx [redacted--OFGS] Age – Date of Birth – Deceased – No Date Record Verified – Jan 08 – Mar 08

This information she obtained from reports by her crack researchers Sankey and Daniels investigating Social Security Numbers early in Obama’s first term. One of the results they turned up was that Obama’s SSN belonged to the dead mother of the former Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration. I am not kidding. Susan Daniels is the one who was informed by the Social Security Administration that the first three digits of the SSN do not, as Orly Taitz and Susan Daniels both insist, indicate geographic residence. You may also remember that Neil Sankey is the gentleman who received the Bomford Fake Kenyan Birth Certificate and passed it to Orly Taitz, who promptly began filing it in courts across the country, including the court of Judge Clay D. Land.

Orly calls out to her Flying Monkeys (who really have a terrible record) on her web site*:

I need you to help me to connect the dots. Schofield barracks in HI, is right next to Wahaina [sic] hospital where Sunahara was born, where her birth certificate was issued. I need to connect more dots: HI, Columbus GA, Clay Land, SSNs

Turns out there was a sex offense against a minor over the age of 14, which took place in 2004 at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. The sex offender lived in 2007 at 505 Farr Road in Columbus, Georgia. The army base in Hawaii is near the hospital, Wahiawa General, where Virginia Sunahara was born, too briefly surviving; the same day in 1961 that Barack Obama was born at Kapi’olani Medical Center in Honolulu.

The Birther theory is that this female infant’s birth certificate number, after or upon her death, was used nefariously for Barack Obama’s “forged” birth certificate. Problem is that his birth certificate number 10641 and her birth certificate number 11080, are two different numbers. But never mind, there is an alternative theory that his information was somehow transferred to her birth certificate, even though it’s the wrong number. Not that there is any evidence of either of these things actually happening.
Continue reading »

 Posted by at 12:56 am
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