Great site. All the failures of the past eight years are cataloged here. The only thing missing is the consequences for the future that are unknown.
Broken Government Failures by Full List
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Crooks and Liars
Obama should chuck the bipartisanship. The Republicans are going to do everything they can to cause him to fail. Screw them, they had their chance and drove the country into a ditch.
Crooks and Liars: "Obama is in a similar position to FDR, but what will Conservatives do? Will they try to block his policies that he wants to sign into law as soon as his first 100 days begin or will they become part of the solution? I think we know where Mitch McConnell's head will go. They want to appear to be relevant, but it was their control that has put us in this position to begin with.
I hope Obama's love affair with bipartisanship will come to an end very soon. Not because I don't think it's a good idea to have both sides working together, but because Conservatives are incapable of doing just that. They do not want Obama to succeed because it will weaken their grip on American politics for years to come at the expense of average Americans just trying to get by.
It's about ideology for them and not about the healing that our country is in desperate need of. I think Obama will soon feel their un-partisan wrath sooner rather than later and hopefully it will snap him out of any thought he had that he could work with Conservatives, no matter how 'centrist' he goes. So here's the question.
How fast will Obama get fed up with Conservative obstructionism? Will it be in his first 100 days or shortly after?"
Crooks and Liars: "Obama is in a similar position to FDR, but what will Conservatives do? Will they try to block his policies that he wants to sign into law as soon as his first 100 days begin or will they become part of the solution? I think we know where Mitch McConnell's head will go. They want to appear to be relevant, but it was their control that has put us in this position to begin with.
I hope Obama's love affair with bipartisanship will come to an end very soon. Not because I don't think it's a good idea to have both sides working together, but because Conservatives are incapable of doing just that. They do not want Obama to succeed because it will weaken their grip on American politics for years to come at the expense of average Americans just trying to get by.
It's about ideology for them and not about the healing that our country is in desperate need of. I think Obama will soon feel their un-partisan wrath sooner rather than later and hopefully it will snap him out of any thought he had that he could work with Conservatives, no matter how 'centrist' he goes. So here's the question.
How fast will Obama get fed up with Conservative obstructionism? Will it be in his first 100 days or shortly after?"
Investors dump $89B in U.S. securities in historic fire sale - USATODAY.com
Remember when it was thought that the Republicans were good with money, how everyone was grateful that we had an MBA President. Everything George W. Bush touches turns to junk.
Investors dump $89B in U.S. securities in historic fire sale - USATODAY.com: "As the global financial crisis grew more severe this summer, foreigners sold almost $90 billion of U.S. securities — the greatest quarterly fire sale by overseas investors since the government began keeping track in 1960. U.S. investors also are retrenching; they unloaded about $85 billion worth of foreign holdings in the quarter, says the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
'We've had a global panic. Everyone is pulling their money home,' says economist Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute in Washington, D.C.
That's bad for economic growth in the U.S. because it threatens to starve capital-hungry companies and entrepreneurs. But it's especially serious for emerging-market countries that rely heavily on outside financing. Capital flows into countries such as South Korea, Turkey and Brazil were evaporating even before the mid-September Lehman Bros. bankruptcy made things worse.
The reversal of private capital flows signals an abrupt end to a nearly two-decades-long era of financial globalization, says economist Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations. Private flows into and out of the U.S. for purchases of stocks, corporate bonds and federal agency bonds have dropped from around 18% of economic output to near zero 'in a remarkably short period of time,' Setser says."
Investors dump $89B in U.S. securities in historic fire sale - USATODAY.com: "As the global financial crisis grew more severe this summer, foreigners sold almost $90 billion of U.S. securities — the greatest quarterly fire sale by overseas investors since the government began keeping track in 1960. U.S. investors also are retrenching; they unloaded about $85 billion worth of foreign holdings in the quarter, says the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
'We've had a global panic. Everyone is pulling their money home,' says economist Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute in Washington, D.C.
That's bad for economic growth in the U.S. because it threatens to starve capital-hungry companies and entrepreneurs. But it's especially serious for emerging-market countries that rely heavily on outside financing. Capital flows into countries such as South Korea, Turkey and Brazil were evaporating even before the mid-September Lehman Bros. bankruptcy made things worse.
The reversal of private capital flows signals an abrupt end to a nearly two-decades-long era of financial globalization, says economist Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations. Private flows into and out of the U.S. for purchases of stocks, corporate bonds and federal agency bonds have dropped from around 18% of economic output to near zero 'in a remarkably short period of time,' Setser says."
TPM: News Pages | Talking Points Memo | Kempthorne touts Interior reforms in final speech
Is this the dignity that GWB was going to bring to Washington D.C. or was it energy policy that Little Dick Cheney put in place? I'm really going to miss these guys.
TPM: News Pages Talking Points Memo Kempthorne touts Interior reforms in final speech: "The past two years have seen news accounts of Interior staffers who have been found to have improperly interfered with Endangered Species Act decisions; have been convicted of lying to Congress; and have been discovered to have had sex with oil-industry executives, as well as using cocaine and marijuana. Most of this activity took place while Norton headed the office, between 2001 and 2006."
TPM: News Pages Talking Points Memo Kempthorne touts Interior reforms in final speech: "The past two years have seen news accounts of Interior staffers who have been found to have improperly interfered with Endangered Species Act decisions; have been convicted of lying to Congress; and have been discovered to have had sex with oil-industry executives, as well as using cocaine and marijuana. Most of this activity took place while Norton headed the office, between 2001 and 2006."
Op-Ed Columnist - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
I am sure Rush and News Corp are both anticipating this and are laying out the groundwork to slather it all over Obama. In fact Rush started the day after the election.
Op-Ed Columnist - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "A bit more information to go with my post on stimulus: forecasters surveyed by the WSJ predict, on average, that unemployment will reach 8.1 percent by end 2009 and peak at 8.4% — that is, it will keep rising into 2010. That’s a forecast of what will happen with the stimulus plan, not of what would happen absent stimulus, which would presumably be considerably worse.
Two points: 1. This suggests that the consensus is at least as grim as the scenario I laid out 2. This looks to me like an economy that could easily be spun by conservatives as a failure of Obama’s policies."
Op-Ed Columnist - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "A bit more information to go with my post on stimulus: forecasters surveyed by the WSJ predict, on average, that unemployment will reach 8.1 percent by end 2009 and peak at 8.4% — that is, it will keep rising into 2010. That’s a forecast of what will happen with the stimulus plan, not of what would happen absent stimulus, which would presumably be considerably worse.
Two points: 1. This suggests that the consensus is at least as grim as the scenario I laid out 2. This looks to me like an economy that could easily be spun by conservatives as a failure of Obama’s policies."
Dana Milbank - Aspiring RNC Chairmen Wonder: What Would Reagan Do? - washingtonpost.com
Here is what his friends are saying. The worst President in American history.
Dana Milbank - Aspiring RNC Chairmen Wonder: What Would Reagan Do? - washingtonpost.com: "'It's not the easiest thing in the world right now to be a Republican,' Steele began, setting off 90 minutes of self-flagellation: 'We are looked at being to some degree a party that is not friendly to minorities. . . . We lost our way. . . . Republicans should've had a little bit more you-know-what. . . . Obama caught us with our pants down. . . . They've bested us. . . . We can no longer afford to talk one way and behave in another.' Norquist invited the candidates to name the biggest mistake of the Bush administration, and the answers tumbled out: The economic bailout. Greater deficits. Mishandling the Iraq war. Hurricane Katrina. Social Security. Immigration."
Dana Milbank - Aspiring RNC Chairmen Wonder: What Would Reagan Do? - washingtonpost.com: "'It's not the easiest thing in the world right now to be a Republican,' Steele began, setting off 90 minutes of self-flagellation: 'We are looked at being to some degree a party that is not friendly to minorities. . . . We lost our way. . . . Republicans should've had a little bit more you-know-what. . . . Obama caught us with our pants down. . . . They've bested us. . . . We can no longer afford to talk one way and behave in another.' Norquist invited the candidates to name the biggest mistake of the Bush administration, and the answers tumbled out: The economic bailout. Greater deficits. Mishandling the Iraq war. Hurricane Katrina. Social Security. Immigration."
Monday, January 5, 2009
Are the Dems Plotting to Hush Rush?
Fear. There is always has to be something to be afraid of, otherwise their shtick doesn't work.
Are the Dems Plotting to Hush Rush?: "Conservative talk-radio hosts love to position themselves as the victims of liberal media conspiracies, and the Fairness Doctrine gambit certainly fits the bill. But there is little substance behind the overheated rhetoric. Most Democrats have little interest in a big legislative fight over government regulation of the ever-shrinking sphere of broadcast media. And Obama has explicitly said he's not in favor of reviving the Fairness Doctrine. This summer his campaign issued an unequivocal statement on the subject: 'Sen. Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters. He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible. That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.'"
Are the Dems Plotting to Hush Rush?: "Conservative talk-radio hosts love to position themselves as the victims of liberal media conspiracies, and the Fairness Doctrine gambit certainly fits the bill. But there is little substance behind the overheated rhetoric. Most Democrats have little interest in a big legislative fight over government regulation of the ever-shrinking sphere of broadcast media. And Obama has explicitly said he's not in favor of reviving the Fairness Doctrine. This summer his campaign issued an unequivocal statement on the subject: 'Sen. Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters. He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible. That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.'"
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