Motley Moose – Archive

No really, that’s what he said:

Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections. We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than what divides us.

Of course, on the day of Obama inauguration, the Congressional Republican leadership held a secret meeting where they agreed to oppose President Obama on everything (whether it was their idea or not), including every single economic proposal — all while the U.S. economy was crashing.

As President Barack Obama was celebrating his inauguration at various balls, top Republican lawmakers and strategists were conjuring up ways to submarine his presidency at a private dinner in Washington.

The event — which provides a telling revelation for how quickly the post-election climate soured — serves as the prologue of Robert Draper’s much-discussed and heavily-reported new book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives.”

According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) — who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.

For several hours in the Caucus Room (a high-end D.C. establishment), the book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama’s legislative platform.

The logic is inescapable.  The Republican nominee for President of the United States thinks the leadership of his party are neither good, nor generous people.  Since Americans always come together after elections and Republicans plotted to do the opposite, and have in fact executed those plans, Republicans are not Americans.

Q.E.D.

Shit like this:

http://www.harpers.org/archive…

There were energetic shouts of “Aye!” and “Nay!” as a Puerto Rican party functionary-Zoraida Fonalledas, the chairwoman of the Committee on Permanent Organization-took her turn at the main-stage lectern. As she began speaking in her accented English, some in the crowd started shouting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

… would not happen at a Dem convention or at Netroots or whatever. This is why I believe only white males have more than one option at the voting booth. For the rest of us there is only 1 party and 1 party only. I will always be a Democrat because I don’t have the privilege to have a choice.

P.S. My guy Barack Obama got a BORICUA on The Supreme Court.    

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In 1899, when Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States, Census figures indicated that 61.8% of Puerto Ricans identified as white. By the 2000 Census, however, 80.5% of Puerto Ricans identified as white. In other words, more than four out of five Puerto Ricans were white in 2000.

How did this happen?

More below.

Louisiana cuts state funds to libraries. Will your state be next?

(This is written by an American expat who is a librarian living in the European Union, where libraries are far better publicly funded.)

Louisiana state library funding has been eliminated

Citing budget concerns, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed a $25-billion budget that eliminates almost $900,000 in state funding for its libraries. In a statement, the governor’€™s chief budget aide, Paul Rainwater, said, In tight budget times, we prioritized funding for healthcare and education. Operations such as local libraries can be supported with local, not state dollars.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co…

(This economics diary was written by an American expat who holds an MBA degree and lives in the European Union).

WHY DOESN’T THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAVE A PROGRESSIVE WEALTH TAX FOR MILLIONAIRES?

Why in America are millions of millionaires allowed to hold an estimated $11.6 trillion dollars in assets without an introduction of a wealth tax? At a time when America is broke, when 59 million Americans have no medical insurance; over 44 million live below the poverty line and subsist on food stamps, and childhood poverty has hit record levels, wherein a third of American homeowners are in underwater mortgages. Isn’t it time for America to join other highly industrialized countries in calling for a wealth tax on the millions of Americans who are millionaires?    

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The United States has permanent membership in the Security Council along with the China, France, Russia, and United Kingdom. Each of these countries may veto any resolution they desire to.

There have been occasional calls to reform the Security Council. The most discussed option has been adding Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan as permanent members.

Let’s take a look at each of the current Security Council members:

More below.

Just a short diary on the Ryan pick for VP.  About a month ago, Rachael Maddow said that she must be the only person in America who thought Ryan would be the VP choice. I told my sister that, no, she would be the 2nd.

Because, 14 months ago, an MM member wrote this:

Since you cannot get political news

I will bring you this from the future:

Romney/Ryan 2012

Rep. Paul Ryan would be the best fit for Romney. I wrote earlier that he would choose someone with fundie or TP cred. I will amend that to eliminate the fundie side. The last thing Romney wants is to open the religion issue in his campaign. A fundie VP pick would do just that. So TP it is and Ryan fits to a T. Romney’s no spring chicken (64) and Ryan gives him some youth and sex appeal.

The weird thing is this would be similar to the Dole/Kemp ticket of ’96 (although Kemp wasn’t young). Get this, Ryan was a speechwriter for Kemp back in the ’90s. That’s spooky.

by: virginislandsguy @ Sun May 29, 2011 at 09:16:31 AM EDT

It goes without saying that this move by RMoney is a sign of desperation and weakness.

For my next trick, I’m predicting that the BLS employment numbers for August, September and October will be good to explosive on the upside. This is because the seasonal adjustments have been out of whack for the last 3 years.

Floyd Norris of the NYT analyzes this in “Another (Seasonally Adjusted) Slowdown”

The result is that the seasonal adjustments make things look better than they are in the winter, when fewer workers are being let go than the government expects, and worse in the spring and summer, when the workers who were not let go cannot be rehired. There is, of course, more than seasonal adjustment going on, but I suspect that the underlying swings are far more modest than the monthly figures seem to indicate.

…

If that analysis is correct, the job numbers are likely to seem poor for the next two months, but to pick up with the September report on Oct. 5, and then to look impressive in the October report, which will appear on Nov. 2, four days before the election.

Anecdotally, from the comments:

I know somebody who works for BLS and makes exactly the same argument . I don’t know why this is not more widely communicated

If this comes true, it will destroy the sole rationale for RMoneys campaign. I stick by my prediction of Obama 53%, RMoney 43%, Johnson 2%, Goode, etc 2%.

The shootings at the Oak Creek Gurdwara reminded me of the story of Bhagat Singh Thind who could be fairly described as the man who caused the United States Supreme Court to define White in the same way that inspired the murderous Wade Page.