Jack & Jill Politics

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2012 or Never
Republicans are worried this election could be their last chance to stop history. This is fear talking. But not paranoia.

 .By Jonathan Chait

Published Feb 26, 2012

Of the various expressions of right-wing hysteria that have flowered over the past three years—goldbuggery, birtherism, death panels at home and imaginary apology tours by President Obama abroad—perhaps the strain that has taken deepest root within mainstream Republican circles is the terror that the achievements of the Obama administration may be irreversible, and that the time remaining to stop permanent nightfall is dwindling away
“America is approaching a ‘tipping point’ beyond which the Nation will be unable to change course,” announces the dark, old-timey preamble to Paul Ryan’s “The Roadmap Plan,” a statement of fiscal principles that shaped the budget outline approved last spring by 98 percent of the House Republican caucus. Rick Santorum warns his audiences, “We are reaching a tipping point, folks, when those who pay are the minority and those who receive are the majority.” Even such a sober figure as Mitt Romney regularly says things like “We are only inches away from no longer being a free economy,” and that this election “could be our last chance.”

The Republican Party is in the grips of many fever dreams. But this is not one of them. To be sure, the apocalyptic ideological analysis—that “freedom” is incompatible with Clinton-era tax rates and Massachusetts-style health care—is pure crazy. But the panicked strategic analysis, and the sense of urgency it gives rise to, is actually quite sound. The modern GOP—the party of Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes—is staring down its own demographic extinction. Right-wing warnings of impending tyranny express, in hyperbolic form, well-grounded dread: that conservative America will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests. And this impending doom has colored the party’s frantic, fearful response to the Obama presidency. 

The GOP has reason to be scared. Obama’s election was the vindication of a prediction made several years before by journalist John Judis and political scientist Ruy Teixeira in their 2002 book, The Emerging Democratic Majority. Despite the fact that George W. Bush then occupied the White House, Judis and Teixeira argued that demographic and political trends were converging in such a way as to form a ­natural-majority coalition for Democrats.

The Republican Party had increasingly found itself confined to white voters, especially those lacking a college degree and rural whites who, as Obama awkwardly put it in 2008, tend to “cling to guns or religion.” Meanwhile, the Democrats had ­increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, particularly the growing share of secular whites, and remained dominant among racial minorities. As a whole, Judis and Teixeira noted, the electorate was growing both somewhat better educated and dramatically less white, making every successive election less favorable for the GOP. And the trends were even more striking in some key swing states. Judis and Teixeira highlighted Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona, with skyrocketing Latino populations, and Virginia and North Carolina, with their influx of college-educated whites, as the most fertile grounds for the expanding Democratic base. 

Obama’s victory carried out the blueprint. Campaign reporters cast the election as a triumph of Obama’s inspirational message and cutting-edge organization, but above all his sweeping win reflected simple demography. Every year, the nonwhite proportion of the electorate grows by about half a percentage point—meaning that in every presidential election, the minority share of the vote increases by 2 percent, a huge amount in a closely divided country. One measure of how thoroughly the electorate had changed by the time of Obama’s election was that, if college-­educated whites, working-class whites, and minorities had cast the same proportion of the votes in 1988 as they did in 2008, Michael Dukakis would have, just barely, won. By 2020—just eight years away—nonwhite voters should rise from a quarter of the 2008 electorate to one third. In 30 years, nonwhites will outnumber whites.

http://nymag.com/news/features/gop-primary-chait-2012-3/

there was no bad news in the poll for the President, so they have to try and go negative in the headline. 9 POINTS is ‘ inching up’?

G-T-F-O-H with that.

………………..

Battleground Poll: GOP president’s race takes toll, Obama inches up

By JAMES HOHMANN | 2/27/12 4:30 AM EST

A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll reveals the prolonged nominating battle is taking a toll on the GOP candidates and finds the president’s standing significantly improved from late last year. 

President Barack Obama’s approval rating is 53 percent, up 9 percentage points in four months. Matched up against his Republican opponents, he leads Mitt Romney by 10 points (53-43) and Rick Santorum by 11 (53-42). Even against a generic, unnamed Republican untarnished by attacks, Obama is up 5 percentage points. In November, he was tied.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73308.html#ixzz1nahetof3

Obama’s Constitution-friendly Religion

February 27, 2012

By Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Jeffrey T. Kuhner of the Edmund Burke Institute, who last year accused President Obama of having “black nationalist sympathies” (whatever those are) wrote a column for the Washington Times on February 23, which he entitled Obama’s pseudo-religion, arguing that the “President’s secular moves” are “out of step with Judeo-Christian culture.” His claim is that “Mr. Obama is a radical leftist. Like all such extremists, he has nothing but contempt for traditional Christianity and the family.”

 If Obama’s “secular moves” are “out of step with Judeo-Christian culture” they are very much in step with the U.S. Constitution, for which Kuhner and his friends show only contempt. 

It is fitting that Kuhner should so despise the Obama “revolution” given the feelings English conservative Edmund Burke, “the great prophet of Anglo-American conservatism,” had for the French Revolution and the ideal of “we the people” (as expressed in his Thoughts on the Revolution in France, 1790). It is equally no surprise that radical liberal Thomas Paine wrote a point-by-point rebuttal of Burke’s attack called, appropriately enough, The Rights of Man (1791-2).

 It is significant, before we go on, to remember and to understand that Thomas Paine had to flee England when he wrote The Rights of Man and that for having done so, for having literally defended the rights of man in print, he was found guilty of seditious libel! Paine, the Englishman who was so instrumental in winning the American War for Independence (The Liberty Tree, 1775, Common Sense, 1776), was never able to return to England.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/obamas-constitution-friendly-religion

Preposterous GOP Argument of the Day: Romney’s Cadillacs Make Him More Electable

February 26, 2012

By Jason Easley

Chris Christie offered up of the most preposterous argument of the day when he claimed that Mitt Romney was more electable because he owned Cadillacs and numerous other cars.

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE: So the cat is out of the bag, Bob, on the fact that Governor Romney is wealthy. I mean, so he– so he has a number of cars. Many people who have made a lot of money over time do. And so I– I think this is just something where to be candid, folks are looking for him to make trip-ups. He’s telling the truth about the cars he has. What if he didn’t answer the question about how many cars he had or didn’t talk about it, then people would be saying he was hiding it. Listen, Governor Romney has been successful. I think, that’s what we want in a President of the United States. Do we want somebody running who has been a failure at everything they’ve done and is– is that going to recommend him for the White House? He’s been a great success in business. He has been a great success as executive, as governor of Massachusetts. I think that’s the kind of guy we want in the White House. 

Christie’s was engaging in some desperate spin when he tried to connect Romney’s fleet of vehicles with electability. He could have stopped his at the point where he talked about Romney’s wealth, but no he had to take it a step beyond by claiming that Romney’s wealth makes him an electable candidate for president. Bob Schieffer opened his interview by praising Chris Christie’s ability to answer questions from the media. Christie responded to this praise by dodging one of the first questions that he was asked. 

The question was about Romney’s inability to connect with regular folks, who believe it or not, don’t own multiple luxury cars. Christie’s answer was a magical mystery tour that ended up with Mitt Romney somehow being more presidential because he owns a bunch of cars. The absurdity of making this argument in a nation where millions of people are still unemployed is lost on the Republican Party.
Contrary to what the Koch Brothers might believe there is no connection between a person’s wealth and their ability to govern the country, zip, zilch, zero, nada, none. Romney’s ownership of Cadillacs makes him no better as a potential general election candidate than John McCain’s multiple houses did in 2008. As Donald Trump demonstrates every time he opens his mouth, wealth does not equal intelligence or even, intellect.

Chris Christie managed to turn the art of the spin into a theater of the absurd, and prove once again that Republicans really think you are that stupid.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/romney-cadillacs-electable

A week ago Philadelphia Weekly ran an issue on soul food. While not commenting on the mac and cheese issue, it was a nice highlight to African American restaurants. Whole issue here
The article on Elena’s is the highlight

The issue on the 1st of Feb for Black History month contains are series on new faces in the the African American community. The articles on Al Butler at 900AM WURD and Marla Davis-Bellamy at Cease Fire Philadelphia are highlights.

To this day I do not understand why the Philadlephia Tribune can not run articles like this. All it takes is a Desiree

another on point comment from Balloon Juice:

40.kay – February 27, 2012 | 9:17 am · Link@Villago Delenda Est:
@Villago

 Delenda Est:

It’s completely fascinating to me, because it so fits in to what we were told about finance masters of the universe, and risk, and how that turned out to be complete bullshit. They insulated themselves. They risked nothing, personally. They took huge gambles with other people’s money and lives, but they always, always got paid, and they always, always walked away.

Romney won’t tell us who he is or what he stands for, because there’s personal risk involved in doing that. We’d be rejecting HIM if he were to do that, so he won’t, and he thought he could win w/out it, so why gamble?

He could still pull it off, but, jesus, what a disastrous approach for a president. I can’t imagine him in some kind of crisis or emergency, and the only crisis or emergency that gets to the president is where there’s a host of risk-laden choices, and no one else wants to be blamed if it goes bad.

 ”It’s completely fascinating to me, because it so fits in to what we
were told about finance masters of the universe, and risk, and how that
turned out to be complete bullshit. They insulated themselves. They
risked nothing, personally. They took huge gambles with other people’s
money and lives, but they always, always got paid, and they always,
always walked away.”Two words, BAIN CAPITAL

Pragmatic my ass. Self serving Negro in the WH for the financial institutions,
”
The banks that service about half the nation’s mortgages on
behalf of investors will be able to share losses on their junior
loans with bondholders and get credit toward the cash they
pledged to spend in the settlement, said an Obama administration
official involved in drafting the $25 billion agreement. Second
liens would typically be wiped out before senior-mortgage
investors take a loss, said Laurie Goodman, managing director at
Amherst Securities Group LP in New York.

It’s “a gift to the banks, at investors’ expense,” said
Goodman, a member of the Fixed Income Analysts Society’s Hall of
Fame. “A proportionate write-down of the first and second
represents a reversal of normal lien priority.”
$308b gift vs $25b fine of which $19b is credit back is a damn theft on the part of the financial institutions aided and abetted by President Obama. Land wasn’t this valuable when white folks stole in from Native Americans.

Banks Win Reprieve on Home Equity Loans in Settlement

found this over at The Obama Diary:

Megan Smolenyak is the genealogist who traced President Obama’s Irish roots and found Michele Obama’s roots on a South Carolina plantation. She has a new (paperback) book out, “Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing.”

There is one chapter on our President outlining her search for his Irish “home-town”. In an earlier chapter on “Famous Cousins” she notes that “While his father was from Kenya, his mother has deep American roots that meander back to the early days of Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts (not to mention New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kansas). I’m probably missing a few states, but the point is that his family is well-represented in colonial America.” She writes of enthusiastic response of Moneygall when they found out an ancestor of the President came from their town. She also traveled to Moneygall for the President’s visit. She concludes this chapter with, “So yes, even though he’s only 1/32 Irish, no one will ever convince me that there’s anyone as Irish as Barack O’Bama.”

She chose to trace Michelle’s background (two full chapters) at her own expense ($8,000+) because, “I regard the presence of Michelle, Malia, Sasha, and first grandmother, Marian Robinson, in the White House as historic. They are the first descendants of slaves to reside in the White House as members of the first family, and in my opinion, that’s a big deal. In a period of less than 150 years, to progress from slavery to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue speaks volumes about this family and our nation.” She found Michelle’s great-great-great grandmother recorded in an 1850 codicil to a will, she was a “girl about six years old named Melvina” who was willed to another. As an adult she was valued at $475.00. Most of Michelle’s ancestors were from Virginia. Before Emancipation it was illegal for them to marry. After the war, the Register of Colored Persons cohabiting together as Huasand and Wife on 27th February, 1866 was created in Henry County. Most of her ancestors did register and were then recorded as legally married with their children considered illegitimate. One couple lived the majority of lives on separate plantations in different counties but still managed to create a sense of family. It is likely Michelle has Irish and Indian ancestry as well. The author concludes the first chapter on Michelle with “I could now trace the migration of the Shields family from South Carolina to George to Alabama to Illinois — and on to the White House. Now that’s a Great Migration.”

In a later chapter the author relates an assignment given her one February, Black History Month, to trace the ancestry of a well-known African American. Ancestry.com provided her 48 hours to trace the background of Rev. Al Sharpton. Rev. Al agreed but was not involved until the very end (which took more than 48 hours) when he was informed about the findings. She relates the conversation in which she informed him that his family was owned by Strom Thurmond’s family. “It’s Sharpton’s silence that I remember best. Rev. Al is never at a loss for words, so it almost scared me… It’s one thing to know on an intellectual level that your ancestors were slaves, but another entirely to know the specifics… And that takes time to absorb. That’s what Sharpton was doing in his silence.” His great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, Sr., was as a young boy willed jointly to two inheritors. One inheritor died and his inheritors sold his half of Coleman to the other original inheritor of the boy. The document notes that “half of a Negro boy Coleman” was sold. “You can’t buy half a box of soap, but not too long ago, it was acceptable–normal, even–to buy half a human being. And that, to me, was as close as you can come to an instant education on slavery.”

 One thing the late Christopher Hitchens did was to reintroduce me several years ago to Thomas Paine.

Text excerpt from the Hitchens book:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15328527

Talk of the Nation audio:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2007/10/the_hitch_is_back_for_real_thi_1.html

February 27, 2012 8:36 AM
 Mitt Romney and the Popeye Defense

 By Ed Kilgore

As you may have heard, Mitt Romney made a surprise appearance at the (subsequently suspended) Daytona 500 yesterday, and made another one of his patented gaffes that draw attention to his wealth and elite status, as Sarah Boxer of CBS reports:

Mitt Romney went to the Daytona 500 NASCAR race Sunday for what should have been a chance to show he’s one of the guys. Instead, in casual conversation with an Associated Press reporter at the Florida track, he reminded people once again that he is not exactly a regular Joe.

Asked by the AP reporter if he follows NASCAR, Romney responded, “Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans. But I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners.”

Earlier in the day on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Romney how he’d respond to people who say he doesn’t “connect” with regular people, and played him a clip of his boast last week in Michigan that he owned four American cars, two of them Cadillacs. Here’s how Mitt responded:

You know, I can’t be perfect. I just am who I am….

If people think there’s something wrong with being successful in America, then they’d better vote for the other guy. Because I’ve been extraordinarily successful. And I want to use that success and that know-how to help the American people.

Frankly, the Popeye defense (“I am what I am and that all what I am,” the sailor man often said) isn’t a real good one for Mitt Romney, particularly when it is combined with claims that anyone wondering if a guy like him understands what it’s like to experience real economic insecurity.must either be an envious would-be looter or one of those class-warfare socialists. The loud-and-proud I’m-better-than-you posture is also a bit problematic for someone trying to become the presidential nominee of a party that relies heavily on the argument that Barack Obama is an out-of-touch elitist.

But given a wide-open chance by Chris Wallace to “correct a misconception” about himself yesterday, Romney did not address any of this, but instead talked about the misconception that someone representing Massachusetts couldn’t be a teeth-grinding, hippie-hating conservative, so to speak. That’s his message in the primaries, and he’s sticking to it.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/mitt_romney_and_the_popeye_def035653.php

February 27, 2012 10:28 AM

120% of Republicans Favor Repeal of ObamaCare!
 By Ed Kilgore

There’s a new Gallup survey out on the proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that helps illustrate why the exact numbers on issues that divide partisans are a bit irrelevant. Here’s Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones:

Americans divide evenly when asked if they favor (47%) or oppose (44%) a Republican president’s repealing the 2010 healthcare law if elected this November. Republicans overwhelmingly favor repeal (87%) and Democrats overwhelmingly oppose it (77%). However, Republicans hold their views much more intensely than Democrats, with 56% of Republicans strongly favoring repeal and 39% of Democrats strongly opposing it.

Since every single Republican in Congress voted against the legislation, and the GOP presidential candidates have differed only in terms of the vehemence with which they denounce it as a socialist threat to fundamental American freedoms (and/or as quasi-genocidal), it’s a bit beside the point to figure out exactly what percentage of GOP voters favor repeal. It’s not as though there is some “sensible center” among Republican office-holders that “the base” must discipline in order to keep them from tolerating this approach to health reform once supported by quite a lot of GOP leaders and thinkers.

It is germane that self-identified independents oppose repeal by a 47-40 margin. And in the event Republicans do win the White House and/or control of both Houses of Congress, it may well become important to determine whether voters really do support a return to the status quo ante, including the right of insurers to deny coverage to people on grounds of pre-existing conditions (not a popular position among any category of voters in the past). But like a lot of other measurements of “intensity,” the exact percentage of Republican voters favoring their party’s monolithic position on “ObamaCare” isn’t quite the big deal it is often made out to be, unless the question is whether the statute will be publicly burned after it is repealed.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/120_of_republicans_favor_repea035655.php

Monday, February 27, 2012
GOP Stupidity? Bring It On.
Posted by Bon The Geek

Author Robert Creamer agrees with what I’ve been saying for a while: GOP stupidity has jumped the shark to such a degree that it is actually a benefit to Dems.

Mr. Creamer starts with the obvious birth control issue, which has by far done the most damage.  Republicans generally play it safe and pick on minorities who don’t have the numbers to come together and make them pay at the polls for their ignorance.  Now they’ve taken on an issue that affects women on a huge scale, and instead of backing away from the minefield they are charging right in.  Further down in the article he covers a few smaller or less recent mistakes that are piling up.  They are falling apart, and it’s starting to show.  Choosing between Planned Parenthood and Forced Parenthood isn’t much of a contest.

Taking on half the country’s medical rights is stupid.  It’s a texbook bad move.  It’s right up there with a land war in Asia, or going against a Sicilian when death is on the line.  It’s worse than messing around with Jim or saying “I’ll be right back” if you suspect a killer in a hockey mask is on the scene.  Yet these fools are so proud of their righteousness that they are forgetting their job is to take care of Americans.  All of them.  And until they figure it out, they are doing more harm to their reputation than any mudslinging from the left could ever accomplish.

Not all women are pro-choice, as is their right.  However, the numbers show that virtually every woman supports contraception, and the majority of men.  The GOP attack on that has brought the cheers to silence, and made many women realize that our medical rights are in jeopardy.  It’s not just abortion now, and that has led to many questions and clarifications.  If the two issues become permanently linked this could be the event that starts the return to medical services for women.

  They had a chance to ease up.  Any one candidate could have stepped in with the voice of reason and scooped up millions of votes.  Instead, this double down epic fail shame spiral is what Republicans have to cope with.  Creamer’s article does mention the trickle-down effect to all Republicans.  I had been more focused on all things presidential, but of course he’s right.

The saving grace is that our votes are secret and personal.  Voters will have the privacy they need to make candidates feel the backlash.  Of course, it’s an entirely different matter altogether as to whether Republicans will attribute it to their misogyny, or if they will blame it on something else.  Right now, I’ll be satisfied if they have the debate while looking for a new job.

http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2012/02/gop-stupidity-bring-it-on.html

‘There’s nothing he’s not willing to do’

By Steve Benen -  Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:46 AM EST.

The political world rarely offers examples of projection as perfect as this one.

The clip, by way of my friend Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch, shows scandal-plagued activist Ralph Reed, talking to Republicans in Florida about how dangerous President Obama and his team are in a campaign.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j66tT8DxXH0

As Reed sees it, “They’re coming with a knife in an alley…. Don’t underestimate Obama and don’t underestimate his team. There is nothing they will not do to win an election. This guy is as tough and as mean and as cynical as any politician you’ll ever see. There’s nothing he’s not willing to do.”

Perhaps I’m oversensitive on this, but characterizing the president as a violent thug, ready to strike “with a knife in an alley,” seems to come with a not-so-subtle racial subtext.

But even putting that aside, the irony of Ralph Reed, who disgraced himself in the Abramoff scandal, complaining about anyone being ruthless is almost amusing.

Reed did, after all, once describe his own campaign tactics this way: “I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag.”

Is this guy really in a position to accuse others of being “mean and cynical”?.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/27/10518398-theres-nothing-hes-not-willing-to-do?threadId=3356299&commentId=62854221#c62854221

The success story Romney doesn’t want to talk about

By Steve Benen -  Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:13 AM EST.

In his official portrait, Romney sits alongside his health care law, which he doesn’t want to talk about.

It seems hard to believe now, but as recently as four or five years ago, Mitt Romney’s successful health care reform initiative in Massachusetts was supposed to be his springboard to national office. It wasn’t just his signature accomplishment as governor, it was a historic victory for Romney, giving him the kind of bragging rights few policymakers in either party could claim at the time.

And why not? Romney’s breakthrough achievement demonstrated his ability to tackle major policy challenges and work with members of both parties to pass a sensible, mainstream legislative milestone. Of course it would be the sort of accomplishment to build a presidential campaign around.

That is, at least, until President Obama’s Affordable Care Act was modeled after the Romney law, and the provisions of the ACA were deemed The Worst Policies Ever by Republicans nationwide.
Making matters considerably more complicated, as Ezra Klein noted this morning, is the fact that “Romneycare” is working quite well.

Mitt Romney has been very clear, and very confusing: His health-care reforms are working in Massachusetts, but they’re not a good model for the rest of the nation. New numbers out from Massachusetts — and from the rest of the nation — suggest he’s only half right. [...]

“From 2006 to 2010, employer-sponsored health-care premiums for a family rose about 19% in Massachusetts, while they rose about 22% in the US as a whole,” [Fred Bauer] writes. “Compare that to the period between 2002 and 2006, when Bay State family premiums increased 40% and US family premiums rose only 34.5%.” Individual premiums have also been growing more slowly than the national average.

So Romneycare is working. Across the board. But perhaps, as Romney implies, there’s something that makes it unsuitable for the rest of the nation.

If that’s so, however, we’re not seeing it yet. Romneycare’s cousin, the Affordable Care Act — or, as it’s more frequently known, Obamacare — isn’t fully in place, and won’t be until 2014 at the earliest. But it has passed. And since it has passed, health-care spending has been dropping.

The result is a political mess for the former governor. Romney helped create a worthwhile health care policy that’s having a very positive impact, and common sense suggests he’d brag about this on the campaign trail.

But he can’t, because Republicans have been conditioned to believe Romney’s policy and its federal cousin are based on a Hitler-inspired assault on capitalism that will kill the elderly.

The single best and most impressive thing Romney has done in his entire adult life is, paradoxically, the one thing he’s least eager to talk about. To shine a light on his achievement is to remind voters of his support for government mandates, while inadvertently making the case for the same Obama law Romney has promised to destroy, regardless of the consequences.

This wasn’t an issue during Romney’s 2008 campaign, because the GOP had not yet rejected the health care ideas they had traditionally supported. Now, he’s stuck between a rock and hard place..

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/27/10518568-the-success-story-romney-doesnt-want-to-talk-about

I work for Uncle Sam, and I’m proud of it

By Jason Ullner, Published: February 26

The author is a career Foreign Service Officer who has served in Tel Aviv, Baghdad and Washington. The views expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of the State Department or the U.S. government.

I am a federal bureaucrat. A professional government employee. And guess what? I’m damn proud of it.

It seems that all I hear these days are the once and future leaders of our country tripping over themselves to denigrate the work we do. I’m tired of it, and I’m fed up. I don’t claim to represent anyone other than myself, but I would bet that a fair number of federal employees feel as I do. We are lawyers, doctors, PhD students, economists, writers, electricians, construction workers, security officers and technology specialists. We are not a drain on the national economy; rather, we are a primary reason why the United States remains as great as it is.

Like many federal workers, I have sacrificed: a high-paying job in the private sector; a year of my life (and the first six months of my daughter’s life) spent in Iraq; long hours; high stress; pay freezes. I’m not complaining; in fact, I quite enjoy my career and my life in the Foreign Service. Yet when I hear our politicians talking about “fixing” Washington, I often wonder to myself: whom would they like to “fix?” Is it the guy I see on the Metro every day, heading to work at the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that our food is safe? Is it the woman going into Commerce Department headquarters to support U.S.

companies abroad? Or do they mean the thousands of people who support our troops overseas? How about my fellow Foreign Service officers, who put themselves in harm’s way in Baghdad, Kabul, Damascus and hundreds of other places around the world?

I have no doubt that some within the federal bureaucracy simply show up each day to collect a paycheck. I also have no doubt that this happens within any number of multinational corporations, small businesses and law firms. But I know for a fact that most of us do this job not because we want to make a lot of money but because, simply put, we want to serve our country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-work-for-uncle-sam-and-im-proud-of-it/2012/02/14/gIQAVDcdcR_story.html

Posted at 10:55 AM ET, 02/27/2012
The right is losing the argument over Wall Street
By Greg Sargent

The American Future Fund, a well-funded Republican independent expenditure group, is up with a $4 million ad campaign in nine states that is designed to undermine President Obama’s populist message.
How? By attacking him as a stooge of Wall Street, pointing out that he supported the financial industry bailout and has staffed his inner circle with Wall Streeters — a seemingly atypical argument from a GOP group

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSwO-Br_a0Q&feature=player_embedded

Jonathan Chait points out the chutzpah on display here, noting that Mitt Romney’s Super PAC and campaign are heavily funded by Wall Street, that Wall Street types are furious with Obama for all his mean and nasty rhetoric towards them, that Obama passed Wall Street reform, which is hated by the industry, and that Romney has pledged to repeal it, in keeping with Wall Street’s wishes. As Chait notes, given all these facts, it’s amusing that the new Republican message is: “Obama is soft on financial crime.”

Yes, it’s ridiculous. But it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time this happened. As you may recall, the Rove-founded Crossroads GPS initially ran ads attacking Elizabeth Warren as too cozy with Occupy Wall Street and insinuating she supported protest violence before abruptly shifting gears and running a spot accusing her of being too cozy with the big banks, based on the fact that she … oversaw bailout spending. This, even though Warren was perhaps the nation’s most prominent critic of TARP.

And here you can see one of the key reasons these outside groups exist: They can spend huge sums of money on ads that are truly amazing in their up-is-downism — ones that are designed to do nothing more than blur lines, muddy waters, and sow confusion — even as their chief beneficiaries avoid any accountability for their absurdity. After all, not even the Romney campaign would be audacious enough to run an ad like the above. Would it?

Of course, there’s an upside to this. The massive amount being spent on ads designed to foment mass public ignorance over who is really fighting for whom is a pretty clear sign of who is really winning the argument here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-right-is-losing-the-argument-about-wall-street/2012/02/27/gIQADluvdR_blog.html

Posted at 12:31 PM ET, 02/27/2012
Will `Obamacare’ be a big liability in November? Don’t bet on it.
By Jonathan Bernstein

Will the Affordable Care Act hurt Barack Obama in November? Republicans today are gleefully circulating a new article by Susan Page that makes this case based on a new USA Today/Gallup poll, which finds that a majority of registered swing state voters thinks passage of health reform was a “bad idea” and that it should be repealed.

But I think it’s wrong to conclude from this that “Obamacare” will damage Obama in November. This conclusion misses the way that issues generally work in presidential elections.

The first point Page makes is the weakest: that ACA is responsible for “uniting Republicans in opposition” to Obama. In fact, it works the other way around. If Republicans are united against Obama’s various programs, including health care reform, it’s because they are already united against Obama. There’s never been any real question about whether Republicans would be unified against Obama this fall — no matter what he did or does.

Her second point: Health care reform is “eroding his standing among independents.” I think that’s probably wrong, too. For the most part, this sort of issue functions on the symbolic level (given that implementation is still mainly in the future). Far more likely is that this works the other way around, too: Independents in this poll overall appear to give Obama mediocre ratings, which they are also applying by extension to his signature legislative accomplishment.

What’s more, very few people in the poll report that health reform has had any effect on them personally, with 72% in swing states saying it has had “no effect.” I do expect that to change as the campaign goes on. Republicans will argue that every premium increase and every botched health care outcome is a result of “Obamacare,” while Democrats are going to highlight the popular elements of the law that have already been enacted. It is certainly possible that one of these messages will emerge as stronger once engaged. But it’s highly unlikely that today’s pre-campaign opinions predict that outcome.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/will-obamacare-be-a-big-liability-in-november-dont-bet-on-it/2012/02/27/gIQAgZc5dR_blog.html

What’s Your Name? Who’s Your Daddy?

by BooMan

Mon Feb 27th, 2012 at 01:10:05 PM EST

Mitt Romney (rapper name: R Money) doesn’t understand why people are hating on his bling-bling. It worked for Notorious B.I.G. back when gangsta rap learned to serve its masters. I mean, how is the following any different from R Money’s rap?

You wanna be my main squeeze babyDon’tcha, you wanna gimme what I need babyWon’tcha, picture life as my wife just thinkFull length mink, fat X and O linksBracelets to match, conversation was all thatShowed you the safe combinations and all thatGuess you could say youse the one I trustedWho would ever think that you would spread like mustard?For you older folks, “Be thankful for what you’ve got, though you may not drive two great big Cadillacs, diamonds in the back, dog on top, diggin the scene with the gasoline…”

This is America. A man’s got a right to flaunt his money and his connections. You, too, can be R Money’s bitch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rqlCaFg5TtE

When Romney tells us that corporations are people, that’s code for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98958txVSrE&feature=player_embedded

Seriously, when Donald Trump is something like the national ideal, why is Romney’s act falling on deaf ears? He may not watch NASCAR but he knows many of the car owners. See, he’s high class, not low class. When did this ever become a liability?

I watched some of The Oscars last night. It was all, “Look at me!! I’m so fabulous.” On the red carpet they asked “who” not “what are you wearing?”

How is Romney out of step?

………………………

Romney could be selling us the American Dream. He could be giving us Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Just like the record executives took gangsta rap from its original focus on drugs, poverty, and police brutality and turned it into hoes, clothes, and gold bling, Romney could promise to make us all rich. Lord knows he’s as packaged as any beer or boner advertisement. We’re all primed for the “greed is good” message. We hear it a hundred times a day.

This is America. It’s not that R Money has a losing message. He just can’t rap.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/2/27/124928/417#1

Walker: The Recall Costs Money — Think Of The Children And Seniors

 Eric Kleefeld- February 27, 2012, 10:03 AM

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) appeared Monday on Morning Joe, discussing the upcoming recall election against him by the state Democrats and organized labor. And among other things, he said, the recall is only hurting children and seniors — by costing money.

MSNBC’s Willie Geist asked Walker: “You find yourself in the middle of this, mired in a recall election. The latest Marquette poll has you 47 approve, 47 percent disapproves, split right down the middle in the state of Wisconsin. This could be a long fight for you — a special election scheduled to take place in June, a primary in May. How distracted are you from doing the business of Wisconsin by trying to essentially win re-election in the middle of your term?” (Note: The May and June dates are not yet officially declared by state election officials, but are the likely outcome of the administrative process.)

“Well, we’re focused,” Walker responded, “but it’s a huge distraction, not just for me, for the legislature. I mean, it’s $9 million of taxpayers’ money just to run this. Think about the number of kids we could help, think of the number of seniors we could help in our state with $9 million that we didn’t have to waste on this — this frivolous recall election.
“But really, I mean, in the end, I think it’s amazing, after a year of being attacked by out of state special interests, the tens of millions of dollars that were poured in, the fact that we’re ahead of any of the Democrats in the race I think bodes well for the election.

“But you know, I had to work hard to earn the trust of a majority of people in my state two years ago. I’m gonna have to work even harder to renew that trust with a majority of voters in our state. And I think in the end, when they see that we’re heading in the right direction — we’ve turned the corner, it is a new day in Wisconsin. But we’ve got a lot of work to do to get the state working even better.

“I think elections are about the future, and we paint the picture of the contrast: Do we want to go forward, or do we want to go back to the days of the double-digit tax increases, the billion-dollar budget deficits, and the record job loss? I think that’s what really is at stake here.”

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/walker-the-recall-costs-money—-think-of-the-children-and-seniors.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

Shhh…don’t scare the white people. They might speed up removing birth control, limiting college to rich and white people only, closing the border, putting more brown people in prison and voter suppression. Oh.