Politics Plus

Republican politicians and pundits are preparing their next terrorist attack against America.  This is how I think it will come down.  Republicans will want to cut the funding for such things as the the health care bills funding for children’s health care, Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the unemployment benefits extension they just held hostage.  They will say that, because of all the democrat spending (most of which came from Republicans), we just don’t have the money for such frivolous things.  They have a problem.  To accomplish their goal they will have to get Obama to sign the spending bill. But that will not be easy without the right hostage.  Here’s the one they are setting up.

In a growing threat to the fiscal solvency of the nation, Republican opposition to raising the national debt ceiling is hardening. In the past few weeks, a number of GOPers have begun to toe the Tea Party line and declared that they will vote against any increase in the national debt ceiling, including old stalwarts like Reps. Jack Kingston (R-GA), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Jerry Lewis (R-CA), as well as new members like Reps.-elect Tim Scott [Murdoch delinked] (R-SC) and Jeff Denham (R-CA).

The latest freshman to come out against raising the debt ceiling is Rep.-elect Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), who defeated longtime House Budget Chairman John Spratt (D-SC) in November. Echoing Ron Paul, who declared on Thursday that a government shutdown would not “hurt one bit,” Mulvaney told The Hill that he would vote against “any attempt to raise the nation’s debt ceiling” because he is unaware of any “negative consequences” that would result:

Rep.-elect Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who defeated current House Budget Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.) in November, said he would vote against any attempt to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

“I have heard people say that if we don’t do it will be the end of the world,” he said. “I have yet to meet someone who can articulate the negative consequences.”

Mulvaney said that this year, 2011 spending needs to be reduced to 2008 discretionary levels, and argued that the demise of the omnibus offers that opportunity.

While it’s unclear if Mulvaney is being purposefully obtuse or simply sticking his head in the sand, his quandary can be answered by looking at the last time Congress refused to raise the debt ceiling. According to a recent report from the Center for American Progress, here were some of the results:

– The government was shut down for nearly four weeks

– The entire episode cost taxpayers over $800 million

– Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid checks were not sent out

– International confidence in U.S. government bonds was shaken

– All non-essential government employees were sent home without pay

– National parks and other federally-funded services were closed

… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Though there intentions are vile, as always, their logic is sound.  Since they made Obama chicken out on tax cuts for the rich over fear of the harm Republicans might do to middle class and poor workers and the unemployed, it is reasonable for them to expect that he will do likewise over fear of the harm done in a government shutdown.

If they do follow through, they will cave in short order, just like they did when Clinton was President, so Obama must call their bluff.  What worries me is that he didn’t call their bluff before, even though Republicans caved in the previous four times they took unemployment benefits hostage.  I fear that Obama will surrender before the fight… again.

One of the more interesting thing that Wikileaks has revealed is that the Republican cable that Fidel Castro had banned Sicko in Cuba is a lie.  Now for Republican operatives to lie is nothing unusual.  When their mouths are open they are eating, drinking, snoring or lying.  But what does make this relevant is the connection between Sicko and 9/11 rescue workers.

In a classic case of telling the boss what he wants to hear, WikiLeaks released cables asserting that Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko was banned in Cuba. Only problem? It wasn’t.

Michael Moore was as surprised as anyone when WikiLeaks revealed a US cable asserting that Cuban officials banned his Sicko documentary because it depicted a "mythical" view of health care there. He was even more surprised when the media picked up on the cable and reported it as gospel truth. (See the Guardian, whose report in turn got widely disseminated.) The problem is that the documentary—a damning assessment of the American health care system—was not banned in Cuba, he writes at the Huffington Post.

As Digby points out, we used to have this thing that would actually check out stories before running them.

If only there were professional people who gather facts and research issues and interview subjects who could be called upon to investigate such things. I recall that there used to be an organization called The New York Times which was interested in sorting out various secrets and lies but they seem to have gone into another business. (Some strange foreigners still practice this old fashioned craft but here in the US not so much.) Too bad. It could be useful.

The point is apt, and makes the Americans media’s tweaking about Julian Assange look all that much more ridiculous, because it looks more and more that many of these cables were written by people looking to make the bosses happy, not truthfully inform them… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

The article also included a video of Michael Moore in Cuba.

Now, since it presents Cuba in such a positive light, it would appear unreasonable that Cuba would not want their people to see it.

Nameless, as a doctor, would you please take a look at the video and comment on the quality of the equipment and care the people received?

Now here is the irony of ironies.  The 9/11 workers were with Moore, because they could not get the care they needed here for conditions resulting from their service to America.  America’s enemy provided it to them.  Now, over nine years later, they still cannot get the care they need here, because Republicans blocked the bil that would have provided it.  Why?  The money to pay for the care was to come from closing a loophole in the tax code that benefits foreign corporations when US jobs are outsourced to them.  I feel like screaming!

When both Biden and Obama were in the Senate, they opposed Bush/Republican tax cuts for the rich.  In their campaign for the White House, they promised to let them expire.  As they traveled the nation prior to the elections last month, they promised to do whatever it takes to make sure that there will be no bonus tax cut for millionaires and billionaires.  But in the end, there was no hope for a veto, because they not only lobbied for it, but also threw in a $25 billion estate tax cut for 0.2% of the super rich, and raised taxes on 50 million of the poorest Americans.  Now Joe says that things will be different in 2012.  They’ll end it then.  Sorry, Joe.  I don’t believe you!

Vice President Joe Biden said on NBC’s "Meet the Press" Sunday that the compromise tax-and-unemployment benefits package that President Obama signed into law last week was a matter of pragmatism.

The president chose to "compromise to save people who are drowning," Biden said to NBC’s David Gregory. "There’s people out there drowning. There are two million people this month that can’t afford to go get a Christmas tree, let alone buy any gifts, because their unemployment has run out…."

Biden described Obama as "a progressive leader" who understands that politics is "all about the possible."

Still thinks taxes too low for upper-income people

The vice president said that he and Obama still believe that the lower 2001 tax rates for higher-income earners that Obama agreed to extend for two years are "morally troubling" to quote a phrase Obama used in his book, "The Audacity of Hope". But, Biden explained, "Life is a matter of really tough choices."

Biden insisted that the president would come back in 2012 and make the case that the 2001 tax rates for upper-income people ought to be scrapped and that they ought to pay higher taxes.

“We will be able to make the case much more clearly that spending $700 billion over 10 years to extend tax cuts for people whose income averages well over a million dollars does not make sense,” the vice president contended. He said the fiscal commission headed by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles had recently helped make that point in its call for deficit and debt reduction.

He argued that economic growth is likely to be stronger in 2012 than today so a tax-and-spending accord of the kind Obama signed into law last week won’t be necessary… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <MSNBC>

First, there is no reason to believe that economic growth will be stronger in 2012.  The Tax Capitulation Act gives the money that could have been spent on jobs creation to the rich instead.  It is unlikely that there will be any more simulative spending in the next two years, because Republicans will be holding the purse in 2 1/2 weeks.

Second, common wisdom is right, for once, that giving in to terrorists makes them not only more likely to commit more terrorist acts, but also, more recalcitrant in negotiations.  As the decision in 2012 comes right before a Presidential election, you may rest assured that Republicans will have taken hostages yet again, and that Obama and Biden will fear voter reaction enough to cave again, unless Obama has lost the nomination in a primary.

Otherwise, the earliest chance to change this will not come until 2014.

After all they got in the Tax Capitulation Act, you’d think the Republican Party would rest on their laurels for a day or two.  Fat chance!  They liked the way holding 98% of Americans and 100% of America’s unemployed, the victims of Republic an malfeasance, worked for them, so they are at it again.  Their most recent attempt is to threaten to kill START, if DADT passes.  It didn’t work, but they are trying to follow through with the threat anyway.

Vexed and cornered, Republican opponents of the advancing effort to allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military pulled out a final card Friday, suggesting that the future of an arms treaty with Russia was endangered by Democratic efforts to repeal “don’t ask don’t tell” at the end of the lame-duck session.

“It poisons the well,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, on the floor of the Senate during debate on the New Start treaty. Mr. Coker said he did not think “the future of the Start treaty over the next several days is going to be successful” if Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, continued with his plans to pursue the repeal, as well as an immigration bill.

Other Republican senators echoed the view… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

The first attempt to kill START was the McCain-Barasso Amendment, a poison pill that would have requires renegotiation with Russia on missile defense.  That failed.

Negotiations on this treaty began under the Bush Regime.  It has been conducted by professional experts and neither President interfered with the process.  As negotiations continued, Russia continued to dismantle nukes in good faith so that they are already below the required limits.  As I watched the debate, I saw Sen. Hutchinson (R-TX) argue that the treaty is unfair, because Russia is below the limit, and therefore, it should be renegotiated to make Russia give up more.  Is this how America should reward good faith?

As for the fate of START, we’ll have to wait and see.