Afternoon Doldrums at the Last Manatee

National Debt and Deficit. Two separate things. Ezra Klein writes this week that if you allow the Bush tax cuts to lapse you pick up $4 trillion. With Barney Frank and Ron Paul proposal to cut military spending $1 trillion. With the McColm end the cap for Social Security, you runs surpluses through the next century. The CBO reports that with PayGo rules, Healthreform and other measures adopted the national debt is very managable through 2057 and even beyond. With the Cat Food Commission as the Debt Commission is affectionately called, there should be other solutions. So, no problem. The Chinese will not suddenly dump U.S. treasuries as the Republicans have claimed.

BP Oil spill. The $70 million liability cap is moot. BP has already paid out $130 million in claims. BP will go bankrupt to avoid responsibility. This is a line I've heard from conservatives and some oil people in Texas. Not true, what they put into the escrow fund is roughly the eqwuiavlent to about one quarter of their profits. What if that doesn't cover it? They have already told the Obama Administration they are prepared to even put more money into the Escrow Fund if the need arises. Keith Olbermann reported that you had to file your claims 60 days after the disaster or else you don't qualified. The Special Master for the Government says that doesn't apply and the law would have to acknowledge that the end of the disaster hasn't happened. In any case, since he's handling the claims now, he says he will ignore it. Are there problems in adjudicating claims. You bet. Some of the fisherman have cash businesses but the Special Master says he still wants records or witnesses to document one's claims. Do the funds include the whole Gulf? Yes. Anyway, it's estimated that on individual claims there will be about 3 years in whcih claims can be made. Claims from states and the federal government come from the Escrow Fund. If you wanted a slush fund as conservaties claim, you would not want the Special Master, who handled the 9-11 claims, as the boss of it.

Dick Lugar, Nixon's favorite Mayor and one of the last sane Republicans, blasted Mitt Romney's op-ed in the Washington Post against the New Start Treaty. He claims that Romney not only misconstrued articles of the treaty but even--surprise--made things up. The treaty is already supported by George Schultz, Jim Baker and Henry Kissinger on the Republican side, but Senate Republicans are still trying to kill it. This is part of the Make Barack Obama Jimmy Carter strategy.

Peter Beinart in the Daily Beast reminded Democrats that Barack Obama has already achieved more than Carter and Clinton combined and that, despite the right-wing noise machine, the country is moving with Obama's programs more to the Left.

American corporations now have more than $2 trillion in the bank ready to invest. The number has doubled in over a year. So why aren't they investing in jobs. One issue has to do with the change in the nature of American corporations. Like Thomas Alva Edison's General Electric, they have diversified into insurance and finance and do not produce things like they used to. Another factor is that they have become more efficient and less labor intensive thereby not needing the amount of workers they once did. But, from a political point of view, they complain that Wall Street reform has created an uncertainty for them and their concern about the deficit is that their taxes will increase, although they haven't to date. And as I've pointed out frequently only about 26% of American corporations pay any taxes whsoever.

American Exceptionalism--AEI now claims that another element of our nation's exceptional nature is the free-market system. In other words, we are like a Hong Kong created by God.

Tom Tancredo not only see John Boehner's America being destroyed by Barack Obama. He says that the America created by our Founding Fathers is at risk. Barack Obama is a greater than to America than Al Qaeda.

Bill Engels, the leading internet Christian missionary, has blasted Glenn Beck for claiming he's a Christian. He wants you to know that Mormonism is a cult, which says that Elohim, their God, had sex with Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, who is a brother to Lucifer. He didn't mention that Jesus is supposed to return to St. Louis. But he's just tired of Beck and those of his faioth who support him.

In Australia, the Agape Ministries is being sued by two of its parishioners for about $1.4 million because their end time predictions didn't come true. I think this is reasonable. I think American fundamentalists should keep this in mind if they don't experience Rapture in 2012.

The Log Cabin Republicans, with their new board member Grover Norquist,is suing the Obama Administration to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So I guess they have no Log Cabin types in Montana where the Republican party adopted the platform to make homosexual acts illegal.

The Gay made headway in the Federal Court ruling making parts of the DOMA act unconstitutional. Judge Truro said that it violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

Either tonight or next week expect Judge Vaughn Walker to rule on the Prop 8 case. I expect after that ruling heads will explode and the theopoliticians will rant and rave.

President Obama made Harry Reid seem interesting in his campaign stop in Las Vegas. He did go after Susan Angle and her bizarre beliefs about social security, Medicare and education. But he did't mention Angle on the issue of abortion. Asked by a radio host about abortion in the case of a father raping a daughter, she replied that young women often can "take a lemon situation and make lemonade." To which, one leftwing blogger posted Richard Nixon saying "Sometimes abortion is necessary, especially when the situation is black and white". If reid as interesting is strange, Richard Nixon being upheld as a "progressive President" is even stranger.

The West Virginia Attorney-General has ruled that there can be a special election for Senator to replace Harry Byrd. In the meantime, the Governor will appoint a substitute.

I have to stop watching Rachel Maddow on Afghanistan. I find she is having the reverse effect one me. I keep thinking aganst my better judgment that the Obama strategy is doable.

The great Bibi insists that he wants to start direct negotiations with the Palestinians now and that he is capable of making serious concessions. While he was here in town, making nice with President Obama, in Israel the settler organizations have vowed to topple his government if he made any concessions to the Palestinians on the settlement issue. Israeli extreme rightists have been trying to get a law blocking any such initiatives by the executive.

Hillary Clinton seemed to morph her inner John McCain while in Georgia. I expected her to say we are all "South Ossetians" now. If McCain were President, we would be at war with Russia over the disputed areas of Georgia.

It looks like the Grifter in Chief, the Lady Ga-Ga of Alaska, managed to muscle her son-in-law Levi into zipping his lips in return for custody rights to Bristol's child. Levi apologized to the Palins in People Magazine. His sister has gone on the offensive expressing her disappointment in her brother. I guess no Tell-All book from Levi as promised.

Newt Gingrich said part of American exceptionalism is that we are the arsenal of democracy. What was called the "Arsenal of Nazi Germany"? This answer will be explained in a further post. The answer to this trivia question is Detroit, Michigan.