The Hits Keep Coming

Rand Paul has accused President Obama of being at fault because his toilet doesn't work.

Remember how the Democrats were supposed to be the ones to cut Medicare by $500 million or was it billion. I never can recall what a Karl Rove ad actually says about anything. Maybe because they are never real. But this ad led to the takeover of the House. Well, now Paul Ryan vows that House Republicans have a secret plan to cut Medicare drastically--after they promised to preserve it. Why doesn't this suprise me? No one knows what this great plan is. Ryan last year promised handing out vouchers to seniors.

Republican plans to defund the Healthcare bill will cost American taxpayers $6 billion over a decade. But the GOP points out that this figure is from the OMB, which uses budget gimmickry. As opposed to whom?

Remember when Bobby Jindal gave the first response to President Obama's state of the union? He complained then about funds for volcano monitoring and only days later a volcano erupted. This time the House Republicans cut funding from our weather programs, including Tsunami monitoring and relief. Guess what? We have a tsunami and the West Coast is being battered. Better not tell Ed Markey about this. He spent his time listing the Republicans' attacks on science yesterday when they wanted to pass a bill in the House claiming that climate change and pollution are not affecting planet earth. Markey said he would have given his remarks standing up but he was afraid the Republicans would enter a bill against gravity.

People in Florida are still steaming about Governor Scott's refusal to accept the $2.4 billion for the high speed rail system from Tampa to Orlando. A new study about passenger traffic concluded Florida would have made $28 million a year right off the bat.

Is it me or is it really true Republicans don't know how to create jobs? Both Kasich and Walker also turned down high speed rail projects costing their states' thousands of high-paying jobs. Meanwhile Obama received a check in the billions from AIG for the bailout. They should let Obama make money--he doesn't even with disasters like the BP oil spill.

Speaking of Governor Walker. It seems one of his biggest campaign backers--not the Koch Brothers--may go belly-up because the unions are all withdrawing their money from the M&I Bank, the largest in Wisconsin. Yesterday two unions pulled $200,000 out of the Madison branch forcing it to close. Today the unions have notified the management of the bank they may pull $1 billion out because of its support for Walker's union-busting. The M&I received $1.7 billion from the TARP program. It's now in negotiation to be bought out by the Montreal Bank. A $1 billion hit before the deal closes would hurt the profit-sharing board of directors, all of whom donated to Walker.

Unions have begun to re-evaluate all the tools at their disposal. Unions have over $1 trillion in pension funds throughout the United States and are now viewing these funds as leverage against states' that want to bust unions.

Richard Trumpka has another reason to be happy last night. The TSA is voting to unionize despite unanimity among Congressional Republicans that TSA workers should not be allowed to unionize. It's one of Obama's nicest paybacks for union support.

Tomorrow is Tractorcade in Wisconsin--where tractors and combines will drive to the state capitol building to protest almost anything Walker has been doing. Since the Republican legislators believed they were voting on principle, don't you think they should hagve marched proudly out the front door of the building. Instead, they skulked out of the Capitol using a secret tunnel.

Recall efforts have suprassed the needed signatures for at least two Republican recalls and they should get up to 4 by the weekend. The several web fund-raising campaigns have already poured millions into the state party coffers.

At President Obama's news conference this morning, there was not one question asked about Wisconsin. Not one. His answer on the conditions for Bradley Manning's detention were lame, especially since the State Department's spokesperson already questioned it and called it ludicrous. But no Wisconsin.

On the budget, Obama maintained his position that budget cuts can not hurt essential problems, especially in education. It seems probably the federal government will be shut down because the Republican budget demands are off the wall.

ANOTHER SUGGESTION FOR PROGRESSIVES--defend Elmo, since the GOP wants to kill him. Diane Riehm got all snippy about conservative criticism about PBS and mentioned how Mr. Rogers spoke before Congress about his work with children and melted the hearts of past conservative resistance to PBS. It won't happen again because PBS fired Juan Williams.

David Brooks got in a slam at newt Gingrich saying "I won't allow that guy to run a 7-11, let alone a country." Oww. David Frum piled on by saying, "You can leave one wife. But not two." Then both John Stewart and Steve Colbert zapped Newt with his tales of infidelity.

Diaper Dave Vitter is back. Vitter , who supported the Bush tax cuts, both wars, and the Medicare Plan D, wants to filibuster anything in the Senate unless it attacks the deficit. Ironic since he was one of those instrumental in racking up $5 trillion of that deficit. I doubt whether people would think he's credible. But then again this is the new teabag nation.

Dick Lugar looks like he may have some trouble back in Indiana. It seems the respected Senator has been using the address of his former house as his voting address but staying in a hotel when he returns home. So the teabaggers are questioning his residency. The problem is the newly elected Republican Senator Dan Coats likes to live in North Carolina. This may have legs since the Republican Attorney General is going to jail because he used his former wife's address as a voting address and so he could stay on a local board. He's going to jail for voter fraud.

Senator Olympia Snowe looks like she would lose a Republican primary but would win in another landslides if she ran as an independent. Unlike Dick Lugar, I could see Senator Snowe going the way of an independent.

Senator Santorum should learn not to talk about gay sex. He sort of relented on his past position but then you would still get the Google reference to him as the "frothy mix of" ,etc.

Bernie Sanders, God Love Him, introduced his deficit reduction act today. It calls for a 5.4% surtax on people earning a $1 million or more a year. He claims that would eliminate the deficit. That another suggestion for Progressives--deficit reduction through revenue enhancements. The problem with Sanders' suggestion is that his audience were a bunch of millionaires.

Atlantic Monthly is printing a piece on the anxieties of the rich and wealthy based on a research of attitudes of the well-to-do. One piece stuck out--one person claimed that he would not feel economically secure until he had $1 billion in the bank. Almost all the respondents, who had wealth of $15 million or more, said that economic security would mean at least 25% more in their net worth. I feel the same way.

Sarah Palin warned that the words used by the unions in Wisconsin could get people hurt. I guess as opposed to real actions taken by the state government,which will severely cut aid to public schools and end assistance to the disabled.

Tim LeHaye and Pat Robertson both said today that the Tsunamis are signs of the end time. The Rapture Ready website has more on this for those trying to prepare.

The anti-Muslim hearings by IRA-supporter Peter King has been a real success. But it seems that there are twice as many terrorist attacks planned by non-Muslims than those by the real deal. A few examples--the sovereign nation planned to kidnap Alaskan state troopers. Arrests were made today. A white supremacist was arrested for possessing a weapon of mass destruction and planting the sophisticated explosive device at the Martin Luther King parade in Spokane. Arrests were made today in New Mexico were made today of several people involved in smuggling automatic weapons to the Mexican drug cartels. They were gringos.That's just the last two days.

The Golddust Twins--John McCain and Lindsey Graham are proposing to take the responsibilty for the terrorist detainees away from the department of Justice and Eric Holder.

The Donald really does have people out in Iowa to gauge whether he should run for President. Trump would almost be the ideal Republican choice. He is one of the few people in the world who actually caused a casino to go bankrupt. Like Gingrich, Guiliani, he has the new Republican requirement of 3 wives. He inherited a real estate fortune and leveraged it into so much debt that he could go bankrupt several times but remain filthy rich. An American success story. I think he understands economics as well as John Boehner.

The Bloomberg poll shows that Obama's popularity continues to crater. It's at 51%.

But there is something to George Soros' statement that Obama has lost track of the narrative. All we hear now is about the deficit and not about economic growth and job creation. There is an assumption by people within the Beltway that the recovery is self-generating. I've talked to oil people in Texas, who believe oil will remain from %105 to $120 per barrel and that we are going into a double-dip recession. We will not get back to $73 per barrel oil for another 15 years.

People are amazed that China is running a trade deficit now. I guess you would have to read Paul Krugman to understand how a booming economy runs such deficits. And speaking of Paul, should we not create a Paul Krugman Suicide Watch that would be sensitive to every new proposal from the Republican House? Intervention may become necessary.