Jack & Jill Politics

the stupid continues to burn:

Newsweek Poll: Republicans Think Obama 'Probably' Wants To Impose Islamic Law

As Sam Stein has pointed out, a majority of Republicans suspect that President Obama wants to impose Islamic law, also known as Sharia, throughout the world, according to a new national poll from Newsweek. But even as they say this, a lot of them aren't completely sure.

The poll asked: “Some people have alleged that Barack Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world. From what you know about Obama, what is your opinion of these allegations?”

The top-line result was definitely true 7%, probably true 24%, probably not true 36%, and definitely not true 25%. Among Republicans, however, it was definitely true 14%, probably true 38%, probably not true 33%, and definitely not true 7%.

Another question asked: “Thinking about Barack Obama and what he has said about issues like the proposal to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site in New York City… Do you think Obama favors the interests of Muslim Americans over other groups of Americans, or do you think he has generally been even-handed?”

The top-line result: favoring Muslims 30%, he has been even-handed 60%. Republicans said that Obama favors Muslims by 59%-34%, Democrats said he has been even-handed by 82%-9%, and independents pretty much matched the top-line, saying he has been even-handed by 62%-28%.

It's interesting to note not only that a majority of Republicans believe Obama wants to impose Islamic law, but that a large portion of those respondents would only say that such a severe accusation was “probably” true.

At a certain point, when it comes to questions like birtherism, Islam or any number of other outlandish accusations, you get the feeling that a lot of Republican respondents simply like to give the somewhat negative response about Obama just out of spite rather than serious belief.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/news…

Push-back Against Pro-veteran Initiatives Launched Using Critics Saying Benefits Are 'Quite Extreme'
- Vietnam-era veterans are treated by neocons and their allies are lazy, shifty malingerers who do not deserve the disability benefits pertaining to PTSD and Agent Orange, areas of concern that to this day the rightwing fights with the message: Get over it, and no free rides for you. Shocking disrespect for a generation still suffering. -

By Michael Leon

Vietnam-era veterans are accustomed to American hostility across society enduring for decades.

The American culture has changed, the Wall and Vietnam veteran popular Welcome back events stand as monuments of respect and empathy for what servicemembers endured in an unpopular war begun by lies.

But a lasting enmity persists in an ideological right-wing cabal opposed to the idea that Vietnam-era veterans receive disability benefits.

Their efforts are cold slaps in the face of veterans.

The Obama administration has politically allied itself with veterans in a flurry of pro-veterans initiatives, including the implementation of new PTSD regulations for disability claims and an extended Agent Orange presumptive illness rules published today, both of which affect Vietnam-era veterans profoundly in addressing severe health problems.

Amid rumors of a coming housecleaning of benefits-hostile neocons in the VA and Veteran Benefits Administration (VBA), including mid-level VA managers, the neocon anti-veteran PR project has begun.

A national AP August 30 piece, ostensibly about diabetes and how it has not been proven to be caused by Agent Orange, is the latest in a line of reports asserting that veterans have it too easy in the VA, VBA claims system.

This could have been written by the American Enterprise Institute: It was written by Mike Baker, evidently the new anti-benefits writer, Allen G. Breed has been taken off the veterans' AP hit-pieces duty.

The Politico, a neocon journal used as an entree into the mainstream is in the anti-veteran game. Old age and Agent Orange are “closing in on Vietnam veterans, a legacy of hurt for those who served — and a very big bill for American taxpayers,” reads the Politico.

This vets-cost-too-much is a meme coursing through the Internet, taking the tract of Sally Satel who has made a career of knocking Vietnam-era vets.

Satel is part of a network, a “cabal,” as veterans' advocate Paul Sullivan calls them, of anti-benefits ideologues in the media, the Congress [believe Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) has been brought off] and of course in the VA.

It's not war that is costly, about which lawmakers have no reservations about spending. No, it's those damn veterans who should go away or at least die.

We can expect more Associated Press writer Mike Baker anti-veteran talking points coming from politicians, pencil-neck thin tank residents and of course the remaining hacks at the VA and VBA.

Here is some the language Baker uses in his piece asserting that the VA and VBA bend over backwards to be fair to veterans:

- even though decades of research into the defoliant have failed to find more than a possibility that it causes the disease, diabetes

- Because of worries about Agent Orange, about 270,000 Vietnam veterans — more than one-quarter of the 1 million receiving disability checks — are getting compensation for diabetes, according to Department of Veterans Affairs records obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act.

- Tens of thousands of other claims for common ailments of age — erectile dysfunction among them — are getting paid as well because of a possible link, direct or indirect, to Agent Orange.

- And the taxpayers may soon be responsible for even more: The VA said Monday that it will add heart disease, Parkinson's disease and certain types of leukemia to the list of conditions that might be connected to Agent Orange. The agency estimates that the new rules, which will go into effect in two months unless Congress intervenes, will cost $42 billion over the next 10 years.

- Lawmakers and federal officials who have reservations about the spending are loath to criticize a program that helps servicemen. They have largely ignored a 2008 report in which a group of scientists said the decision to grant benefits to so many on such little evidence was “quite extreme.”

- “There needs to be a discussion about the costs, about how to avoid false positives while also trying to be sure the system bends over backwards to be fair to the veterans,” said Jonathan M. Samet, a public health expert who led that study and now serves as director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of Southern California.
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2010/08/push-ba…

Pawlenty Orders Minnesota Not To Apply For Federal Health Care Reform Money

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) is taking a bold step among Republicans opposed to the new federal health care reform law. As his latest move, Pawlenty has issued an executive order forbidding his state's officials from applying for grant money from the new law.

Pawlenty's order allows only applications for money that are required by law — which would seemingly mean that this is not a case of nullification, and falls short of such an extreme step — or approved by the governor's office.

Pawlenty's order contains various points of explanation, taken right from Republican arguments against the new law, such as: “WHEREAS, the Act represents a dramatic attempt to assert federal command and control over this country's health care system, which accounts for one-sixth of our nation's economy, thereby reducing individual freedom for health care decisions.”

And also: “WHEREAS, consistent with this determination and in recognition of my obligations to protect Minnesota's sovereign interests and those of its citizens, the boundary between state and federal government must be maintained to prevent an unwise and unsustainable federal takeover of health care in our State.”

This move to swear off federal health care money could be worth a lot — namely, a potential gain of five points in the Iowa caucuses in 2012.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/pawl…

It Seems Like We Have Been Here Before

by BooMan
Tue Aug 31st, 2010 at 03:54:49 PM EST
Think Progress has compiled an enlightening list of all the primary races they could find where a defeated Republican has failed to endorse the winner. Almost every case involves a Tea Party candidate vs. an Establishment candidate, although both sides have come out on top. It has been a brutal primary season for the Republicans, and not just in the high profile cases involving dispatched incumbents. If the past is prologue, I think we can see where this is going. Here are some excerpts from Linda Killian's wonderful 1998 book: The Freshmen: What Happened to the Republican Revolution?

First, there's the similar lack of focus on actual policy and the nuts and bolts of legislating:

So much of went wrong with the 104th Congress came down to the fact that the Republicans just hadn't given any thought to how they were going to run things once they took over. They came up with a nifty campaign plan, some good slogans and buzzwords, some basic tenets about balancing the budget and cutting government. But Gingrich and company had no real game plan for what came next. They were making it up as they went along…

…Gingrich had focused for so many years on the struggle of overthrowing the Democrats that he hadn't paid too much attention to how a bill becomes a law. It isn't by one party in one house in one branch of government attempting to dictate its will to everyone else.

In a way, this same criticism can applied to a lot of progressives who struggled so long to overthrow the Republicans only to discover that Washington still knows how to prevent substantial change. But it is the current crop of radical Republicans who are going to find themselves in a familiar tussle when they get to Washington next year.

Gingrich may have been impatient with the freshmen's stubbornness, but he understood that he held the Speakership because of them, and he knew that to hold on to it the freshmen would have to keep their seats…

…Gingrich may have wondered what kind of genie he had unleashed by empowering the freshmen, but it was too late to shove them back in the bottle. When Ross Perot announced in August that he planned to form a third party, Gingrich quipped that he already had a third party in the House: “It's called the freshmen class.”

A lot of the class of 1994 is still around in DC, but now they are the Establishment. They may recognize earlier versions of themselves in next year's class.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/8/31/15…

WHEREAS Timmy you are a fool playing with peoples lives.

The Myth That Charter Schools Have Saved New Orleans
The national media have praised the decision to let educators flood the Crescent City with charter schools, but the results don't match the hype.

In Spike Lee's latest documentary, If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise, Katharine Montana explains why she chose to live in Humble, Texas, after levee floods destroyed her New Orleans home. “I was forced to make a financial decision for one simple reason,” she tells us. “There is no education system for my son, who has autism. I am up here for that one purpose, and there are thousands of other families who can't go back because they have children who are disabled.”

In an interview with The Root earlier this year, Spike Lee echoed the same argument. The problem is — it's wrong. Schools in New Orleans do accept kids with special needs. However, Montana is right that under the current education system, in which most city schools have been taken over by the state, and many of those converted into independently chartered schools, it's become extremely difficult for students with special needs to find a school for enrollment. For those who do land in a school, services for students with mental disorders, behavioral problems and physical handicaps are lacking.

Montana is also right that more parents like her haven't moved back for these reasons. Families have attempted to place their disabled children in schools, but they have either been told that the school doesn't have special-needs services or been told, gently, that their child would be better served at another school. These problems occur often enough that a due-process complaint has been filed against the Louisiana Department of Education on behalf of 4,500 students in the city with disabilities.

These issues have conveniently been left out of a number of Pollyanna-ish media reports touting the messianic nature of charter schools, and how Hurricane Katrina was a “blessing” to New Orleans' children. A recent article at The Grio, “New Orleans Charter Schools Redefine Education Reform,” reads: “The standardized test results for fourth, eighth and tenth grade public school students have gone up since the storm hit in 2005. This may have something to do with the increasing presence of charter schools, though it is not clear.”

But test scores in those grades were already rising before the storm hit. Between 2003 and 2005, fourth-grade math results grew by 9 percent. Between 2007 and 2009, those results grew by 9.5 percent. In eighth-grade math, the growth in the percentage of kids scoring above basic levels between 2003 and 2005 was greater than the gains between 2007 and 2009. There has been a slight improvement in eighth-grade English and in math at the high school graduate level, but in both categories, the improvement in test scores builds on progress that was already occurring before the mass chartering of New Orleans.

http://www.theroot.com/views/myth-charter-schoo…

It's called karma. He should have thought about these things every time he offered his other outrageous comments.

Good morning everyone.

Sarah and her acolytes will not like this one bit. Vanity Fair's umm…cough…article on the Hillbilly from Wasilla.

Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury
by Michael Joseph Gross
October 2010

Even as Sarah Palin’s public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her. Following the former Alaska governor’s road show, the author delves into the surreal new world Palin now inhabits—a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family—and the sadness she has left in her wake.

PALIN’S PALADINS
Erratic behavior and a pattern of lying matter little: “Such falsehoods never damage Palin’s credibility with her admirers, because information and ideology are incidental to this relationship.”

Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 people clapping their hands in time to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The music accompanies a video “Salute to Military Heroes” that plays above the stage where, in a few moments, the children’s mother will appear.

When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage. He pokes the air with one finger. She mimes the gesture, whips around, strides on four-inch heels to stage center, and turns it on.

And how. Palin and the crowd might as well be one. She’s glad to be here with the people of Independence, Missouri, “where so many of you proudly cling to your guns and your religion”—the first laughline in a 40-minute stump speech that alludes to many of the perceived insults she and her audience have suffered together, and that transforms their resentments into badges of honor. Palin waves her scribbled-on palm to the crowd, proclaiming that she’s using “the poor man’s teleprompter.” Of the Obama administration, she says, “They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ’em, and I do tell ’em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah—we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.”

The crowd’s ample applause at these lines swells to something vastly bigger when Palin vows defiantly that “come November, we’re taking our country back!” The phrase plays on the name of this event, “Winning America Back,” which has been billed as a Tea Party rally organized by a grassroots Missouri political-action committee that no one had heard of until a few months ago, when the event was announced.

Behind the curtain, Piper plays with other children, oblivious to the speech. She runs in circles, plays hide-and-seek, poses for snapshots, and generally acts as if she were in another world—until she gets the signal to do her job: march to the podium, pick up Palin’s speech, and allow Palin to make a public display of maternal affection.

On cue, Piper parts the curtain. As the child appears, a loud and doting “Awww” melts through the crowd.

Sarah Palin’s connection with her audience is complete. People who admire her believe she is just like them, and this conviction seems to satisfy their curiosity about the objective facts of her life. Those whose curiosity has not been satisfied have their work cut out for them. Palin has been a national figure for barely two years—John McCain selected her as his running mate in August 2008. Her on-the-record statements about herself amount to a litany of untruths and half-truths. With few exceptions—mostly Palin antagonists in journalism and politics whose beefs with her have long been out in the open—virtually no one who knows Palin well is willing to talk about her on the record, whether because they are loyal and want to protect her (a small and shrinking number), or because they expect her prominence to grow and intend to keep their options open, or because they fear she will exact revenge, as she has been known to do. It is an astonishing phenomenon. Colleagues and acquaintances by the hundreds went on the record to reveal what they knew, for good or ill, about prospective national candidates as diverse as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and Barack Obama. When it comes to Palin, people button their lips and slink away.

She manages to be at once a closed book and a constant noisemaker. Her press spokesperson, Pam Pryor, barely speaks to the press, and Palin shrewdly cultivates a real and rhetorical antagonism toward what she calls “the lamestream media.” The Palin machine is supported by organizations that do much of their business under the cover of pseudonyms and shell companies. In accordance with the terms of a reported $1 million annual contract with Fox News, Palin regularly delivers canned commentary on that network. But in the year since she abruptly resigned the governorship of Alaska, in order to market herself full-time—earning an estimated $13 million in the process—she has submitted to authentic, unpaid interviews with only a handful of journalists, none of whom have posed notably challenging questions. She keeps tight control of her pronouncements, speaking only in settings of her own choosing, with audiences of her own selection, and with reporters kept at bay. (Despite many requests, neither Palin nor her current staff would comment for this article.) She injects herself into the news almost every day, but on a strictly one-way basis, through a steady stream of messages on Twitter and Facebook. The press plays along. Palin is the only politician whose tweets are regularly reported as news by TV networks. She is the only one who has been able to significantly change the course of debate on a major national issue (health-care reform) with a single Facebook posting (in which she accused the Obama administration, falsely, of wanting to set up a “death panel”).

Read rest of the article here: http://bit.ly/8ZS5Gz

New Job Means Lower Wages for Many
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/us/01jobs.htm…

The Mormon-Christian right alliance
• Conservatives • Religion
Michelle Goldberg has an interesting piece up at The Daily Beast about how Glenn Beck is using his haterade to create unity between Mormons and the traditional Christian right, which is mostly populated by evangelical Christians. If you really step back and look at what he’s done, it’s pretty amazing. Beck is Mormon, but you honestly wouldn’t know it from the general way he carries on, which is to imitate the tropes of right wing evangelical Christianity, with the weeping and the ranting and confessions. I don’t know a lot about Mormons, but I think they’re generally a little more buttoned-up than that. I’m sure much of his audience would agree. They probably think Beck is like them for weeks or even months of watching him before they find out that he’s a Mormon, and by then, they’ve decided he’s in the tribe. So they’re probably warmed up to Mormons by default
Read More
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/the…

You seem to be aiming at widely held companies that focus on stock price, earning and dividends. There are genuine complaints with those models, CEO pay, board selections, etc. Those are a small percentage of the actual job producing businesses in America. Unless me and folks I know, as small business-persons, can find a “sure thing” or an avenue to steadily increase and ASSURE steady work, WE AREN'T hiring. When we barely pay the bills and keep the doors open in ain't happening.

The way it actually works (like it or not) is that I will hire more employees when they will be able to do something profitable for the company. Before that happens, we will have to be profitable with the current employees at 110% of normal capacity (aka overtime). Even then, sales projections will have to support the additional expense for a reasonable time period. Ask anyone about their projections right now……even the optimists in the administration.

I for one look at the stock market as a large casino. Right now we are at the end of a long run of throwing naturals at the craps table. Folks playing the game now don't really have a real interest in how regular small-town Americans are doing, as you are saying. The Dow should be between 6500-7500 if it reflected the real economy.

I digress–your point was “This means there is no spreading of the wealth in the broader sense.” In that you are wrong…..the government is hiring.

Really bad article in my opinion. I give it some credit for discussing VAT, but a lot of problems here. One example, the writer leads early with a statement like:

“The best fix is to eliminate all deductions and exemptions for individual taxpayers”

But then later “exceptions” leak back in:

“…and possibly there should be pretax exemptions for individual savings, like the 401(k). Charitable deductions could be handled the same way. Of course, if exceptions are made for savings plans and charity, the tax rates will have to be adjusted upward—marginal income-tax rates might be cut by a third, instead of half. But such exceptions should be kept to a minimum in order to create a truly clean slate.”

OK then there is the deduction for interest on one's home… This is the essential problem with discussions about anything resembling a “flat” income tax. Very few advocates really mean flat with no exeptions or loopholes. “Such exceptions should be kept to a minimum”? Good luck pushing that through Congress.

This is also too complex of a topic to really grasp without providing some numbers based on sample households.

The stupid burns doesn't describe the situation here

Yes, the general should have known better. He is no doubt better at 'English English' as opposed to the American variety. And the Dulles management should be more up to date on special visitors coming through.

This means the military now has to provide liaisons to a military delegation.

Or perhaps just regular DoD personnel also involved with the conference. Americans are just too casual about escorting foreign VIP types. I cannot imagine a similar contingent of US military officers not being met and escorted by appropriate rank (at least Field rank) in almost any other country in the world.

CJCS is in South Asia now, so Adm Mullen will have an opportunity to smooth over the DoD FUBAR in person.

the title alone made me LMAO

well well…this will be hilarious. I think articles in Vanity Fair are way too long for her to actually READ it.

been wondering that for a long time myself.

Local gvmt's are more or less operating within their means, as per a more stringent budget laws. Federal payrolls are expanding….at least have been. I got word that a view agencies have new hire freeze's after fiscal year ends. Others have not. Layoffs will result when we all decide to deal with the deficit spending. Government is not MY enemy, even though I distrust many things about it. I like having road, fire-protection, non-crazy police protection, a safety-net, etc. and am willing and able to pay for it, to a point.

I also do agree that the pay to play mentality has corrupted Congress and Wall-St. almost totally. I don't know what will fix that, honestly, in practical terms. Guillotines and firings squads aren't in the offing, so we might be reduced to less effective means. I don't think, however, I'll be advocating for the same amount of “reform” as you…….but there needs to be some. The Dodd-Frank bill is laughable. The HCR bill did more to reform Wall-Street than the D-F piece of shyt.

Okay, all Ima say about that new “den furniture” in the oval office is what the MSM is trying to say (showing it all day over the airwaves), but can't say it and that is this:

You can take the Negro out of the 'hood…BUT you cant take the 'hood (you finish it)…

I could get some good naps on that stuff. Mr. Presiden, just because somebody wanna donate something to you, doesnt mean you have to accept it. Where was Valerie Jarrett when they delivered this?

thanks Myth. that's too sweet of you