This is a good place to put your money

Forget stocks, bonds, or any other extravagant investment vehicles. The best place to put your money is under the hood of your Lamborghini. Or, for the paupers among us, we can start by throwing nickels in the trunks of our 1993 Honda Accords.

Republican plan to cut spending would kill jobs

Lori Montgomery at the Washington Post reports:

A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday.

The report, by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, offers fresh ammunition to Democrats seeking block the Republican plan, which would terminate dozens of programs and slash federal appropriations by $61 billion over the next seven months.

Zandi, an architect of the 2009 stimulus package who has advised both political parties, predicts that the GOP package would reduce economic growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, and by 0.2 percentage points in 2012, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year.

His report comes on the heels of a similar analysis last week by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which predicted that the Republican spending cuts would cause even greater damage to the economy, slowing growth by as much as 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters of this year.

Maybe they maybe should re-title the spending cut bill the “Job-Killing Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011.”

Cookies

A random joke that has popped up on my Facebook feed:

A teabagger, a union member and a CEO sit around a table with a plate of twelve cookies. The CEO takes eleven, turns to the teabagger and says, “Watch out; the union member wants part of your cookie.”

More sad and telling than funny. If you happen to know who conceived of the joke, please let us know so we can attribute it.

When you run out of scapegoats

Ed at Gin and Tacos has some good thoughts on why the police joined the protesters in Madison:

I’ve written at length before on the progression of inter-class victim-blaming in this country since 1980. First they convinced the blue collars to scapegoat the Welfare Queens. Then the suburbanites scapegoated the blue collars and their cushy union factory jobs (hence NAFTA). Then the suburbanites started to cannibalize themselves: first the greedy retirees with their sweet benefits were redefined as Leeches, and now it’s the teachers and public sector workforce. While Americans in general have failed to notice how this game of “Find a new scapegoat every 3 years until there’s no one left with benefits or a salary over $10/hr ” has progressed methodically for several decades, the cops appear to have no illusions about what is happening. They are waking up to reality: “They’re going to come for us next.”

Yes, they are. Though cops and firemen are left out of the Kochs’ Walker’s plans for the time being, imagine that he succeeds in crushing the teachers/public sector unions now. In two years they will need a new scapegoat. It is already well established that the right wing media machine and Teabag-o-sphere can demonize anyone, so why not America’s Heroes? Can you imagine a lot of salutes to the bravery of our police and fire departments followed by caveats about deficits, austerity, and “tough choices”? By the time 2013 rolls around and the public has acquiesced to the public sector being crushed, there’s absolutely no reason that another manufactured budget deficit couldn’t serve as an effective burning Reichstag to rally the timid, scared, angry public behind the whitest “Fuck the Police” movement ever seen.

Police join the protesters in Madison

RAN reports from inside the Wisconsin State Capitol that the police who were sent to disband the protesters from the Capitol have instead joined the protesters:

From inside the Wisconsin State Capitol, RAN ally Ryan Harvey reports:

“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”

Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today:

“Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.”

Ryan Harvey is also reporting updates through his Twitter account.

New York Times Columnist Line of the Day

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality.

Today’s is from Roger “Life of the Party” Cohen, who in his column “Oh What a Lucky Man,” writes:

I believe 2011, in its passage from Arab rage to Arab responsibility, can be the true antidote to 2001.

Morning Constitutional – Monday, 28 February 2011

Good morning, everybody. The King’s Speech was apparently the best picture. Now, your morning constitutional:

Starting to look like Congress may avert a government shutdown for two weeks as Democrats tentatively agree to a plan to immediately cut $4B in spending on programs President Obama has already suggested should be cut.

Libyan authorities blame unrest on Islamic militants and the West, even as protest movements shun the ideologies of Al Qaeda. Even while Qaddafi hangs to power, the Libyan opposition has declared a new government. The UN Security Council unanimously hits the regime with sanctions. France sends aid to the opposition.

Cairo’s schools have reopened. The Egyptian stock market is set to reopen Tuesday.

India’s government unveiled its annual budget and expects its economy to grow 8.5% in 2011 and 9% in 2012.

Tens of thousands of protesters swarmed Wisconsin’s capitol this weekend to rally against Governor Walker’s budget plan that would remove public unions’ right to collectively bargain.

The Senate will take up a bill this week on patent reform, and it’s surprisingly controversial.

The first ever government database of consumer safety complaints is to launch in two weeks, but could be a victim to Republican budget cuts.

Next question in health care reform: How do you define essential care?

I’m sorry, CNN, but you can’t have a story about “two leading senators” when neither of them are in the majority party, and neither of them are actually senate or even party leaders.

Frank Buckles, the last living U.S. World War I veteran, has passed at 110 years old.

Can you speak Scots?

Finally, a homeless man found his daughter after a decade by using Twitter.

The government is not a business

I wholeheartedly agree with Matt Yglesias here:

A state is fundamentally an ethical enterprise aimed at promoting human welfare. A business isn’t like that. If you’re trying to look at America from a balance-sheet perspective the problem is very clear. It’s not “entitlements” and it’s not “Social Security” and it’s not “Medicare” and it’s not “health care costs” it’s the existence of old people. Old people, generally speaking, don’t produce anything of economic value. They sit around, retired, consuming goods and services and produce nothing but the occasional turn at babysitting. The optimal economic growth policy isn’t to slash Social Security or Medicare benefits, it’s to euthanize 70 year-olds and harvest their organs for auction. With that in place, you could cut taxes and massively ramp-up investments in physical infrastructure, early childhood education, and be on easy street. The problem with this isn’t that it wouldn’t work, it’s that it would be wrong, morally speaking.

I’m generally annoyed when people say that the government should run like a business. Why? There’s a feeling out there that businesses are efficient, and that’s how the government should be. Problem is: When they do the same thing (let’s just throw out health care coverage), the government is significantly more efficient than business.

More importantly, they serve entirely different purposes. The one thing they have in common is that they’re organizations. Why, then, should a government not run like a church? Or a book club? Or the Pittsburgh Pirates?

Of course, no discussion of the government/state relationship would be complete without mentioning that George W. Bush was America’s first president with a Harvard MBA.

What do people even know?

Jonathan Bernstein notes the substantial number of people who believe (wrongly) that the Affordable Care Act has already been repealed and offers an interesting insight for those of us who perhaps follow the political arena a little too closely (and, heck, this is a good insight for those who work in politics as well):

I’ve said this before…to get a sense of what politics is like for many Americans, I suggest thinking of something that you do encounter in some way all the time, but that you just have zero interest in. Perhaps sports in general — or, for sports fans, a major sport that you don’t pay any attention to. Perhaps it’s current pop music, or HBO shows, or celebrities. Me? NASCAR, the NBA, and any games made since Missile Command and Stargate Defender. The idea is that I actually do encounter and, in a way, retain a fair amount of information about those things in the nature of headlines that I see but skip the stories, or references made in other things I do read or watch, or conversations I’ve had that veer off in that direction. It’s not as if I know absolutely nothing. It’s just that the stuff I’ve heard is not organized at all, and I’m sure I’ve picked up misinformation along the way, since I don’t scrutinize any of it.

Anyway, when you’re involved in what’s happening in Wisconsin, or Libya, or the budget negotiations in Washington, just keep in mind that most people aren’t paying any attention at all.

For me, this is most certainly the NBA. It’s a sport I know how is played (and actually do follow, to a limited extent, the college-level variant), I’m familiar with the bigger characters (Isn’t that Lebron James character kind of a dick? That’s what I heard.), but I couldn’t tell you a. who’s the best team in the league, b. heck, who’s even good/bad this season, c. anything at all technical about the league, its structure, even what plays work best against which teams or players. Does any team in the NBA actually use a zone defense? (Does any player in the NBA even play defense?)

This insight makes it easier to understand how so many people think the president is a Muslim, think the ACA has been repealed, approved of President Bush’s performance in his last years. Even if the number of all those is strangely close to 20%. I do find that an odd coincidence.

Why do we even have a debt limit?

Pete Davis has a good piece on the debt limit, which the government will probably hit on May 31, 2011 if it is not raised by Congress before then. Sadly missing from the debate on the debt limit (look for the debate to get louder mid-May into June) is the most basic of questions:

Why do we have a debt limit? Congress wouldn’t pass the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917 to fund the First World War without it. Ever since, it has levered all manner of extraneous spending increases, tax cuts, and special interest amendments without having the slightest downward impact on federal spending. As the first two sentences of today’s GAO report say, “The debt limit does not control or limit the ability of the federal government to run deficits or incur obligations. Rather, it is a limit on the ability top pay obligations already incurred.” If you really want to control spending, control spending.

Of course, anybody who would try to get rid of the debt limit would be killed in the messaging war. The debt limit is just a fake construct that makes it appear that you care about the deficit, even while ignoring it. Forget about the fact that if you fail to raise it when you need to, you will default on your obligations, making your debt more expensive, which in the end substantially increases your debt.

Friday Funny: Redneck Kung Fu Fire

There’s just too much going on here: A redneck dressed like a poor man’s Pancho Villa, fire, tacos, kung-fu. I’m not sure, but it’s probably also pretty racist.

Morning Constitutional – Friday, 25 February 2011

Happy Friday!  CBS has canceled production of Two and a Half Men after star Charlie Sheen called the show’s creator “a stupid, stupid little man.”  And now, your morning constitutional:

Across the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of protesters have come out to express their solidarity with the protests in Libya and object to their own leaders.

While demonstrations were largely peaceful in Yemen, Bahrain, and Egypt, in Iraq, protesters burned buildings and security forces opened fire on the crowds.

Thousands of people may have been killed or injured in Libya during the past week of fighting between protesters and pro-government forces, according to the UN human rights head Navi Pillay.

Meanwhile, the US and Europe pursue plans to sanction Libya.

The Wisconsin Assembly passed the bill that would take away most collective bargaining rights from public employees; the legislation now heads to the state Senate, whose minority Democrats are still missing.

The Virginia General Assembly passed a bill requiring clinics that perform abortions to be regulated as hospitals instead of doctors’ offices, a move that some fear will put as many as 17 of the state’s 21 clinics out of business.

Aaron Traister on why men need to speak up for abortion rights.

Lusi, the world’s largest mud volcano, is likely to continue erupting in Indonesia for the next 26 years.

Research from NIH shows that even a  short amount of cell phone use can speed up brain activity in the area closest to the antenna.

How McDonald’s messed up oatmeal.

Finally, authorities caught and released a fox cub that had been living on the 72nd floor of an under-construction skyscraper in London.

Space Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off for Final Mission

Three minutes late for its planned 4:50 EST launch, the space shuttle Discovery set off into space. NASA confirms that the launch was flawless and the shuttle is now in orbit.

Discovery, first flown in 1984, is NASA’s oldest space shuttle in service and has the most experience in space, having flown 38 missions.  NASA explains Discovery’s place in history:

[Discovery] has flown to space more than any other craft, and it has carried more crew members to orbit. It was the first spacecraft to retrieve a satellite and bring it back to Earth. It has visited two space stations. It launched a telescope that has seen deeper in space and in time than ever before. And twice it has demonstrated the United States’ will to persevere following devastating tragedy, returning America to orbit following the two worst accidents in space history.

This will be its 39th and final mission, as the space shuttle program winds down forever. We don’t get many more of these incredible moments to watch.

High Hurdles

Just a crazy video of retired Swedish high-jumper Stefan Holm training. Carry on.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Fox News

If you don’t like being told lies, don’t watch the above clip featuring Megyn Kelly on Fox News reporting the that President Obama and the Department of Justice has decided that they believe that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will not defend it in court. Actually, that’s the true story, not what she reported. Andrew Sullivan gets right down to it:

Megyn Kelly reports that the Obama administration will no longer enforce DOMA – which is untrue – and that this means that states will now be immediately forced to recognize civil marriages from other states – which is also untrue. This is not some opinion; it is a news story read by an alleged news anchor. It’s untrue.

And the only opinion in this segment comes from Maggie Gallagher. Gallagher even says that this has never happened in history before, even as the DOJ’s letter cites obvious precedents, and specifically invites the House to defend the law in the courts. Kelly asks her if this means that one state’s marriages will have to be recognized by others – and Gallagher doesn’t say what she must know to be true – that this move does no such thing.

Long time fan, first time caller

Ezra Klein pretty much nails why the Governor Walker / Fake David Koch phone call story is actually damning:

But if the transcript of the conversation is unexceptional, the fact of it is lethal. The state’s Democratic senators can’t get Walker on the phone, but someone can call the governor’s front desk, identify themselves as David Koch, and then speak with both the governor and his chief of staff? That’s where you see the access and power that major corporations and wealthy contributors will have in a Walker administration, and why so many in Wisconsin are reluctant to see the only major interest group representing workers taken out of the game.

The critique many conservatives have made of public-sector unions is that they both negotiate with and fund politicians. It’s a conflict of interest. Well, so too do corporations, and wealthy individuals. That’s why Murphy — posing as Koch — was able to get through to Walker so quickly. And it shows what Walker is really interested in here: He is not opposed, in principle, to powerful interest groups having the ear of the politicians they depend on, and who depend on them. He just wants those interest groups to be the conservative interest groups that fund him, and that he depends on.

New York Times Columnist Line of the Day

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality.

Today’s is from Gail “The Colander” Collins, who in her column “Revenge of the Pomeranians,” writes:

There is very little in Washington that can’t be explained by an episode of the original “Star Trek,” and Boehner is playing out the one where the Romulan captain prefers the ways of peace but is saddled with a crew that will mutiny if he fails to follow through on the plan to blow up the galaxy.

Poem of the Week: February Evening in New York

More Good News for Gay Rights

As Pop mentioned in today’s MC, the Obama administration announced yesterday that it will no longer defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  The move isn’t really a surprise, since Barack Obama stated his opposition to DOMA and intent to repeal it when he was running for president.  Still, it’s great news for supporters of LGBT rights.  At the same time, this doesn’t mean the law is dead, and in fact, the administration will continue to enforce the law even as it declines to defend it in court– until a final ruling is made, most likely by the Supreme Court.

Image courtesy of LA Times

Dahlia Lithwick, as usual, explains the situation eloquently, explaining the different standards of scrutiny that could be used to review the law and how the administration came to decide a heightened standard is more appropriate.  Here’s Lithwick summing up what the news means:

The president seems to have finally acknowledged a truth played out at the Proposition 8 trial in California last summer: Virtually all of the arguments advanced to deny gay couples the right to marry are based on moral animus and junk science, rooted in discredited cases like Bowers v. Hardwick and in unfounded bias that is increasingly hard to defend in open court. As professor Suzanne Goldberg of Columbia Law School put it today: “This is a spectacular and long-awaited acknowledgment by the federal government that there is no good reason for treating gay and nongay people differently, especially when it comes to recognizing the relationships of same-sex couples.” The main consequence of today’s decision is that the people who actually believe in Bowers v. Hardwick, moral animus, and junk science will get to defend it in court, if they can. The president no longer has to.

Morning Constitutional – Thursday, 24 February 2011

Good morning, folks. Justin Timberlake is not a jerk. Now, your morning constitutional:

At a briefing yesterday, President Obama strongly condemned the use of  violence against protesters in Libya and said that an international response would be coming.

While Libyan leader Qaddifi masses forces in Tripoli to strike back against protesters and defectors, Yemen’s president orders the police to protect protesters.

How unrest in the Middle East and Northern Africa benefits Iran.

The Obama Administration and Department of Justice have decided that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will not defend the law in court.

A stop-gap spending measure proposed by House Republicans would last two weeks and, over those two weeks, cut spending by $4B.

Republican spending cuts would hit economy hard, according to an analysis by Goldman Sachs.

Embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tells other Republican governors to follow his example.

An Ohio plan to curtail collective bargaining rights for public unions could put billions of dollars in transit money in jeopardy.

Solidarity.

A British judge has ruled that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges.

Providence, Rhode Island, sends every one of its teachers a notice that they could be laid off at the end of the school year.

General Motors posts its first profit since 2004.

Russia decides that beer is alcohol.

Finally, Shanghai announces a one-dog policy.