Mock, Paper, Scissors

“I’m not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote threshold.”

–Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader who reinforces my belief that the Senate should be abolished, as he allows the GOP minority to hold legislation and nominations hostage for another session of Congress.

“No.”

–Weepy McDrunky answers the question, whether Republicans were “eventually going to have to raise taxes in some way” if the president wins in November.

“Politically all of these attacks may in the end work, but it’s also clear that they are going to come at the expense of governing in a second term” by making it even tougher for Obama to work with Republicans, Gergen said.

“The attacker gets hurt, too.”

–Daved Gergen, reasonable centrist and Bain fanboy

Yeah, because it has been such a cakewalk in the first term, and in the name of centrism, Obama should roll over and let the grownups play by their rules. One should note, for the record, that reasonable Centrist Aunt Gergen is a former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton — the best Republican Presidents of the 20th century.

(Also, for the record, a few months ago Gergen has lectured me on Twitter for being a spitballer! My proudest moment!)

(Hat tip: My Ready Room who led me to CNBC)

Ben Nelson announces his retirement.

“Public office is a place for public service, not personal profit. It’s about promoting the common good, not the agenda of the radical right or the radical left. It’s about fairness for all, not privileges for the few. And, it’s about protecting the rights of individuals, even if it angers the majority. I hope and believe I have fulfilled these principles to the best of my ability.”

To which I can only reply, “Thanks for the finger-f***, Superman.”

(TPM)

Looks like someone at ABC is going to be fired:

–NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Speaker John Boehner; Rep. Michele Bachmann; Romney campaign surrogate Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC); roundtable with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Republican strategist Mike Murphy

–ABC’s “This Week”: “Great American Debate” on the subject: “There is too much government in my life,” roundtable with Rep. Barney Frank, former Clinton Labor Secretary and University of California at Berkley professor Robert Reich, Rep. Paul Ryan and ABC News’ George Will (live, with a studio audience, from the Newseum)

–CBS’s “Face the Nation”: Newt Gingrich

–”Fox News Sunday”: Mitt Romney; roundtable with the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Republican strategist Ed Rollins and Fox News’ Juan Williams

Oh, Peggington Noonington is going to be poured onto set at CNN.

We need to encourage those on the top income scale to create more jobs. We are about income mobility and that’s what we should be focused on to take care of the income disparity.

–Eric Cantor, mendacious turd

Really, Eric? We need to count on the 1% to reform income inequality?

There is no end to the perfidy of Bill Clinton. “Give me a call.” Indeed.

Really Bill? God, I loath than man.

(Gawker)

Yeah, you do that President Carebear. We’ll just add that to your long list of broken promises and outright lies, you douchebag. I wouldn’t trust you to give me two nickles for a dime.

Looks like President Carebear found his replacement for Gibbs, and I bet he’s already shaving once a week or so.

Jeebus, I feel old.

Now, that said, maybe the answer here should not be a parsing of words, maybe the answer is STOP MEETING WITH LOBBYISTS.

Chimpy and the banner

Curveball tells us he made up all the stuff about WMDs that lead to the invasion of Iraq, deaths of so many hundreds/thousands/millions of people and the bankruptcy of the United States:

“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” he said. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”

Of course, the only people who believed him were those looking for a reason to do this, anyway. “And an idiot shall lead them.”

(The Guardian UK)

Does no one pay attention to these things at the White House?

President Barack Obama will name General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt to head a new advisory panel focused on promoting economic growth by investing in business, the White House said on Friday.

I was going to start a long screed about GE, but then I saw that EmptyWheel already has this covered.

But here’s the take-away on this: President Carebear has dissolved The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and kicked it’s chairman, Paul Volcker, to the curb, and has started in it’s place The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and put in this shark, Jeff Immelt to lead it. It seems like only yesterday we noted that GE was already partnering with China for jet engine technology and undercutting their competitor Boeing in the process…

Here’s the thing to know about Immelt: he is a consummate liar, a man whose moral compass spins like a turbine. He can say, with a straight face the US needs more manufacturing jobs at the same time that he shutters plants here and inks deals to open them in China. The thought of this man giving advice to Obama on how to turn the economy around should be frightening to anyone outside of a Board Room

(Reuters)

Traitor Joe is expected to announce he is retiring and will not run for re-election.

I’m guessing this is BS. Maybe he is not running for re-election as an Independent or a Dim, but I doubt that Mr. I’m Still Relevent will not run as a GOPer. It’s sort of like this past term was his Pre-Op, living as a GOPer, and now he’s gonna get the chop and become one. That or maybe he’s caught up in the Swiss Bank scandal that is breaking.

At any rate, I’m hoping the news is right. I’d love to see his catfish-like mug off the national stage.

Remember earlier I mentioned that I was going to keep an eye on the über rich to know when they were heading to the high ground? Me Neither!

Anyway, Paul Volker just resigned from President Carebear’s Economic Advisory Panel, where he served as Chairman and was mostly ignored, shunted to the side, and his advice discounted. You might recall that he was a primary consultant during the, well, primary and general election, and upon inauguration, Volker was completely marginalized, much to everyone’s dismay and shock.

“Volker, I hardly even knew her,” N’Obama didn’t laugh.

The Carebear is now deliberating on just voiding the whole panel, you know, since he never listened to it anyway.

Fasten your safety belts, things are about to get ugly.

(WaPo)

Wow, President Carebear has already signaled that the GOP has won on Healthcare Repeal –the day BEFORE they actually got the gavel:

The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday.

As I’ve noted before, if I am ever captured by the GOP or other terrorist organization, please find a skilled negotiator to haggle for my release.

(NYTimes)

President Carebear, as noted in today’s News Briefs, looks to be appointing a banker to be his NEC chairman; it looks like he will be appointing yet another banker from JPMorgan Chase, Bill Daley (brother of current Chicago Mayor Richard Daley), to replace former Chief of Staff and future Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel.

WaPo tells us…

…Daley, 62, is a political heavyweight who would command immediate respect from the Washington establishment. He led the Commerce Department during President Bill Clinton’s second term and now is the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan & Co…Still, by appointing Daley – a free-trade stalwart who helped secure passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 – Obama could risk further aggravating liberals already wary of the president.”

Well, another Clinton retread, and the guy who helped ship our jobs overseas is about to get a key to the oval office. All I can say is at least Daley isn’t from Goldman Sachs.

In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.

– Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) — who will become chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in the 112th Congress

President Carebear, that mythical Hopey-Changey man has now fully endorsed trickle-down economics and GOP policies.

As many others have noted, he does not have the courage of his convictions, or the spine, to put up a fight. Personally, I think it is much more likely that as a Rockefeller Republican, he is OK with the policy generally.

What little progress we’ve made in the past two years should be credited to Nancy Pelosi who did the real work getting bills through The House where they then went to die in the tender embrace of Harry Reid. The President, of course, was playing 7-Dimensional Chess and could not be bothered to help.

So how did we reward Nancy for carrying so much water for Harry and The Bear? We overwhelming elected the GOP, removed her from being the Speaker of the House, and in her place we installed a known drunk, a mental midget, and absolutely corrupt politician noted for handing out cheques from Big Tobacco on the Floor of the House, the perpetually tanned John Boehner, AKA, Weepy.

It’s really hard for me to work up too much of a sweat overall. The Millionaires and their ilk already were paying almost no taxes, so this Neville Chamberlain appeasement on taxes means little in reality, truth be told. But symbolically it means the world.

Welcome to the 8th term of Ronald Reagan.

And so it goes.

If you can get Obama to resign in late May 2011, it will be 3/5ths of his term. We know that 3/5ths is a magical number for the GOP, divined in the Constitution that you and the Teabaggers so desperately want to restore.

After all, as we learned on 60 Minutes last night, President Carebear is always up for compromise, you might be able to negotiate it. I’m surprised after 36 minutes, Obama didn’t just turn the rest of the program over to the GOP to finish the interview.

(I just caught highlights, but it seems to me that Obama capitulated to every one of the GOP’s memes and will once again be “moving to the center” — now that they have moved so far to the Right that Putin can see them from his back door.)

Just read this. Seriously, what purpose does the Senate serve? Name one constructive thing that they do. I dare you.

You knew this was coming, right? Our beloved independent Dim, that Party of One kinda guy, Traitor Joe has indeed announced that he will do whatever it takes to ensure that the Bush Tax Cuts for the highest earners is renewed.

I don’t think it makes sense to raise any federal taxes during the uncertain economy we are struggling through. The more money we leave in private hands, the quicker our economic recovery will be. And that means I will do everything I can to make sure Congress extends the so-called Bush tax cuts for another year and takes action to prevent the estate tax from rising back to where it was.

The DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), home to Bill Clinton, Traitor Joe, and so many other so-called centrists, is usually seen as being the Neville Chamberlain of the Dims: appease, appease, appease. What cannot be weakened or watered-down must be abandoned. GOP-lite is their motto, and they always point to Bill Clinton as Example 1 that to be successful, the Left has to make concessions to the Right, and never the other way around.

The DLC crowd are the ones during the ’90s who created the triangulate model of politics and lead to Bill Clinton being the greatest GOP President ever, when he enacted the entire GOP agenda for them, amongst many other things ending Welfare as we know it, signing DOMA, approving on NAFTA, and so on.

Would you be surprised to learn that membership in the DLC is based upon large donors? Probably not. Would you be surprised to learn that amongst the members of the DLC is Koch Industries, the same oil company that is funding the Tea Party? You shouldn’t be. The Executive Director of the Cat Food Commission, by the way, is Bruce Reed, who was the long-time CEO of the DLC.

The Dims are going along with Wingnuttia, and now the NRA is exempt from the so-called Disclose Act -

Quick back story: A few months back, the Supreme Court hands down the Citizens United case, which gives corporations the right to spend as much as they want, at any point they want, in elections. In an effort to blunt the impact of that ruling, House Democrats developed the DISCLOSE Act, which would use transparency to combat money. Under the terms of the law, corporate CEOs would have to appear in their ads, and shell organizations would have to identify their top five donors on screen. There would also be an unprecedented amount of donor transparency.

Um, Dims… isn’t giving the NRA special consideration exactly what the DISCLOSE Act is supposed to disclose?

(Ezra Klein)

The Prospect tells us…

Over the past week, top White House officials have been floating a trial balloon for their strategy on the economy. At its core is a decision to put deficit reduction ahead of job creation.

The premise is that the bond markets and allied deficit hawks are demanding action to cut the budget, that Obama lacks the votes in the Senate for a serious jobs initiative, and that polls show voters care more about deficit reduction than about jobs.

Because when in doubt, President Carebear will always do whatever the GOP tells him to do. He is determined to both lose the majority (not that he ever did anything with it) and be a one-term president.

Hey triangulation worked for Clinton.

There were a lot of people, particularly Democrats, who were declaring after the 2008 election that we were beginning a period of Democratic dominance that would go on for decades. Now, all of a sudden, the momentum is with the Republicans. And that’s — thank God — that’s the way people have spoken, you know? That’s our democracy.

If Harry Reid is re-elected, will Joe Lieberman still have all those committee chairmanships next session?

Ho! Ho! Trick Question! When the GOP takes control of the Senate, Traitor Joe will be elected Chancellor, of course.

Tengrain

OK, President Carebear, you’ve given it your best shot, but the GOP doesn’t want to help, they want to destroy you. For them this is pure and simple – it is about power. They would rather see the last of the middle class in line at a soup kitchen than do anything that might actually help with your agenda.

Time to get your game on and ram this Healthcare thing through. No regrets, sir, and no prisoners.

Traitor Joe (Quisling Turd, Con) said on Sunday said that Yemen could be the ground of America’s next overseas war if Washington does not take preemptive action to root out al-Qaeda interests there. Because, you know, that feisty Independent Democrat has nothing to lose anymore, so why not be Grandpa Walnuts’ best friend and push forward the GOP talking points?

Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.

(The Hill)

It’s dead, Jim

…but we’re f***ed now.

The public option is officially dead. And so yet another campaign promise of the Carebear’s falls into the “Not Done and Ain’t Gonna Happen” column. I cannot say that I’m surprised — I’m disappointed, of course, but not surprised.

As noted before, this is the 8th term of Ronald Reagan.

UPDATE 1: TPM says maybe it’s not dead. Yet.

Obama’s embrace of war and killin’ them swarthy furriners has made Traitor Joe all warm and tingley:

In making this decision, President Obama has respectfully disagreed with the majority of the members of his own political party. Therefore, I think it’s fair to say our President has, quite literally, put our national security ahead of partisan political interests.

Because nothing says non-partisan to Traitor Joe like giving the GOP a rim-job.

There really is no end to the length in which Traitor Joe will go to please his own vanity, and of course, do the bidding of his owners and paymasters. Today, Traitor Joe decides the lie to tell is that no one promised the public option during the campaign, and this is why he must filibuster against it.

This is a kindof 11th hour addition to a debate that’s gone on for decades. Nobody’s ever talked about a public option before. Not even in the presidential campaign last year.

– Traitor Joe (Douche – CN)

Woopsie, Joe, that’s kinda a whopper even for you:

Specifically, the Obama plan will: (1) establish a new public insurance program, available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees,” and went on from there.

So now that the ante is up, what does Traitor Joe say next?

Edwards probably had it more than anybody else. But Clinton, Obama, McCain–I don’t see it. Anyway, I’m opposed to it.

So speaketh the Lord, or at least so speaketh the man who thinketh that he be the Lord.

TPM is reporting that…

Nine people protesting in favor of universal health care were arrested this morning after occupying the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), according to Capitol Police.

Protesters chanted “Everyone in and no one out, universal health care now!” and “Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!” as they were dragged from the office, ABC News reports.

Oh, I hope that keeps up for a while. Hey, Traitor Joe, is that a countdown clock to the end of your political career I hear ticking?