MICHAEL STEELE, FORMER CHAIR OF RNC, SAYS NOTHING TRUMP CAN DO IN THE DEBATE.

++Michael told Mother Jones that the party is done and Trump can't do anything about it. "Trump can say anything and it doesn't matter."

This IS Getting Ugly

++Bibi blasted back at accusations he leaked American positions at the Iran nuclear talks and says that if the deal is so good why can't Israel see it. This will actually play well here. Of course, letting a country that is not a negotiating partner at the table Monday Quarterback your moves ,particularly when they are accused of disinformation, have a say is too rich. This particularly is galling considering the heavy work Israel called on the United States to do to block Palestinian initiatives in the United Nations and Europe.

++Usually the Obama Administration doesn't take the bait but it's clear Bibi has really gotten under their skin. The United States is discussing whether to leak the framework agreement John Kerry had negotiated between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas or whether to take those elements to the United Nations to have them incorporated into the UN's resolutions on a Middle East solution. It's clear the Administration feels they have burned too many times.

++Bibi said he had an obligation to speak before Congress to warn them of this "disastrous" deal, which the Administration believes he had supported last year. I think we heard at his last Congressional speech about the disastrous Iranian deal, which never happened.

++Something is brewing because the Middle East Quartet is saddling up again and now want progress on the Israel-Palestinian issue. This comes after the United Nations tightened the screws on financing for ISIS and put the hammer down on their financial support throughout the region.

++Tony Blair just returned from his inspection of Gaza. Tell me again why this man is even allowed in the Middle East? 

++Meanwhile Michael Steele, former NRC chairman, appeared on NBC and said we may be fighting ISIS for thirty years. When Chris Hayes jumped into to say "Whoa". Steele pulled the old W, "We have to fight them there unless we fight them here." 

++The war drums are beating as Chris Matthews is crying for blood. 

++I'm getting emails blasting the White House's denunciation of the ISIS killings in Libya not mentioning that the victims were "Christians",note they never said it would be good to say "Coptic Christians".  Now we run up the heat on this issue.

++I remind readers that our Congress has not passed an Authorization of Military Force yet even though President obama did submit a text. Also John Boehner said it was light to shut down the Department of Homeland Security in protest of President Obama;s immigration policy. Not the actions of the fearless warriors.

President Obama Unscripted

On a slow news day, President Obama made a surprise appearance at the White House press room and delivered unscripted remarks about the Trayvon Martin case and why the African-American community has been emotional about it. 

Only the day before Eugene Robinson wrote in the Post that the President wasn't the right one to talk about race given the guff he gets every attempt he's made from the Henry Gates incident on has provoked backlash. But sure enough, the man did it and succeeded.

President Obama's remarks about how he knows what it is to be followed in department stores and car locks clicking when he walks by triggered a flood of African-American males on television recalling similar incidents. The refrain was that each African American male has to sit down and tell his son the same things his father taught him about dealing with the police, how to to look threatening, how to be polite. 

Two most interesting responses, I thought, were Michael Steele, the former RNC Chairman, talking about being followed by cops in Rock Creek Park, and Jonathan Capehart, Post editorial writer and MSNBC contributor. How this is the sorry war story of African-American males was demonstrated by Eric Holder talking to the NAACP about "The Talk" he had to give his son and the audience just murmuring their agreement.

I found Capehart's story the saddest. Here is a young nerdy black guy with glasses who could not be perceived as threatening in the least. You would have to be a raving racist to think otherwise. He was moving because he was in the White House briefing room when President Obama made his remarks. He said his eyes filled with tears when the President talked about his own personal experience that he himself had shared.

Former presidential candidate John McCain complimented the President on his remarks, calling them "impressive" and picked up on his remarks on the "Stand Your Ground"Laws, which McCain said should be reviewed in all the states,including his own Arizona. While the major media were--by and large--complimentary like FOX News Wallace, others thought it was race-baiting and polarizing. Former George W. Bush press spokeswoman Dana Perino criticized Obama for not talking about black males shooting white babies. Sean Hannity blasted the President, suggesting he identified with Trayvon Martin's drug use. 

While some argued it was too late in the African-American communities, there was much relief that the President stood up for the anguish and anxiety the community felt over the not guilty verdict. During the weekend hundreds of cities held marches in solidarity with the Martin family and for justice in the case.And should be said that even after the verdict there was little violence except police riots in L.A. and Oakland.

I found the President's remarks refreshing and his call for a national conversation on the subject appropriate. While this case was especially fraught with racial overtones, the big elephant in the room seems to me the economic and social issues facing all young males in society, white, black and Hispanic. We are commemorating mass shootings in Aurora ,Tucson and Newtown carried out by white males, a Boston bombing carried out by another young male and a shooting in Sanford, Florida by a Hispanic cop wannabe. Homicides caused by guns since Newtown have far eclipsed the deaths in the entire Iraq war. Ladies and gentlemen, we not only have a gun problem but a Young Male Problem. 

The House of Usher

My best advice to House Republicans is--let President Obama cut the budget he actually knows what he is doing.

Yesterday's budget announcement by Hal Rogers was met in Washington with jeers and boos. The Washington Post noted that the Republicans cut anything that would have created a job and not only that but they didn't slash the deficit as advertised. They basically wiped out their own cuts through an unnecessary and unwanted increase in defense spending.

Pete DeFazio (D-Oregon) took to the House floor yesterday to ridicule the cuts proposed by the GOP. His bottom line was that the deficit is terrible so let's cut what is wasteful and unneeded. So out of his hat he proposed cutting the farm subsidies to unproductive farms and the oil tax credits. He pointed out that Exxon/Mobil's quarterly profits were the largest of any country in the history of the world and they pay no taxes in the United States. The total savings from DeFazio's modest suggestion would be around $45 billion and surpass the total the GOP's cuts.

The Republican Study Group, which houses the extreme right of the party, vowed to war with the House leadership for further cuts.

Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow seems to have stumbled onto the story of the House follies as a new unfolding story. Last night she pointed to the fact that 4 out of five bills brought to the floor by the GOP were defeated, including the bill to cut UN funding. To explain this strange phenomenon she brought back Michael Steele, who she has rehabilitated. Actually, the two of them together make for good television. What she quizzed Steele about was his statement months earlier that the GOP might not be ready to govern. Steele gamely tried to explain the GOP needed to get its sealegs. But his explanation was wholly inadequate. Maddow is intuitively onto to something about the chaos of the GOP controlled House.

The failure to pass the Patriot Act, the UN de-funding is simply unbelieveable when you realize that the House leadership generally doesn't bring a bill to the floor unless they know they have the votes. You don't simply allow votes just to say you did them--even in teabag nation. If you remember the nail-biting votes on healthcare and financial reform,it was widely and accurately reported that Nancy Pelosi wouldn't allow the bill on the floor unless she knew she had the votes. And there she liked to have about a 6 vote wiggle room. Here it seems you have a basic organizational breakdown with the GOP. After all they have an overwhelming majority. Their Whip is not whipping. No one seems to be home. They can't count.

Another aspect of the House chaos is this very strange phenomenon of bills, including their proposed budget,not going through committee. In other words,there was no staff work on the budget proposal except for the ideological desires of the leadership and some right-wing staffers. While Rogers could hype the cuts as the largest budget cuts ever--I doubt it--there was no there there. Already the corporate masters are starting to voice disagreements with the budget proposals. After all, if you hire your chiefs of staff from corporate lobby shops, you should at least use them to strengthen your budget approach. Apparently, this is no longer true. And if not corrected, what we will see is more mayhem.

Michael Steele knew better than to argue that the Republicans hadn't been in control for awhile. It was only 4 years ago they had the House. The talent is there to find people who actually know how to write laws if they cared to.

A writer from the Center for American Progress posted an op-ed on Huffington Post that details how a budget is supposed to be made and what House members don't understand. There exists a basic mechanics to appropriations, which has to be understood just to recognize the meaning of the budget you write. Apparently,House Republicans have just thrown the laws of economics out the window.

One of the weirder hearings was Ron Paul's on the role of the Fed. Before we heard from Bernanke, who was appointed by George W after all, we heard the new ideological voices of the GOP. First witness up was Thomas DiLorenzo, revisionist historian who wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln portraying him as a tyrant and despot. DiLorenzo also serves as an adviser to an organization that supports secession--like today not just a cheerleader for the old confederacy. When pressed on this by the Democrats, he said that "Oh that, that was last year." So will the Right forgive Barack Obama for having a coffee in his first campaign over at Bill Ayers' house? Puh-Lease.

But the second witness was even goofier because I fear the man actually has greater traction among today's Right. He was a professor who is an advocate of the Austrian School of Economics. This is the talisman for libertarians and the Right. Those watching the mid-terms might have seen the Maine Tea Party urge a "return to the Austrian school in economics." Ron Paul asked whether the United States should return to the gold standard. The answer was yes,it can't hurt. But the argument of the witness was that the heyday of the United States' economic development was 1870-1920. In other words, they want to take the country back--to the 19th century.Asked whether returning to that style economics would doom the country to regular cycles of financial panics and collapse, he answered in the affirmative. He also claimed that the Great Depression was no big thing--it was only temporary. Ron Paul tried to push on the witness that the creation of FDIC and the FED only exacerbated the Depression and we would have come out of it sooner without the New Deal.

Step back for a moment--the Great Depression generated a consensus that our capitalist system needed to be regulated and its worst excesses corrected. Today, the new GOP doesn't believe this.Ron Paul's witnesses are people who would have spent the rest of their lives on the margins of our politics but now are accepted by one major party as experts. That is scary.

I've come to the conclusion that it would be best if the House were controlled today by followers of Lyndon LaRouche. Bear with me. LaRouche worshipped FDR and always argued for a national industrial policy. While he is as crazy as Paul on the Fed, he would at least propose things that could actually lead to the creation of jobs. What really is stunning is that the House GOP proposals not only do not create jobs but because certain agencies would be cut by 19% they would lead to increased unemployment across the board and a certain double dip recession. Poor Bernanke tried to explain to the Committee that the economy was recovering and much of the unemployment was cyclical but that if more jobs weren't created soon than there would be the issue of structural unemployment. I happen to think we already have the issue of structural unemployment.

You know we're facing ideological problems with Republicans when you have to defend Richard Nixon. Nixon was the one who ended the gold standard and created the EPA.

The GOP lost one member yesterday when his Craiglist entry went viral. Dating while married is not a good political move,especially when you go on line. Rivera will be next--I know I was wrong that he would be first.

The problem with the new House is what do you do when the debt ceiling has to be raised. How can you even explain this to people, who didn't even know the Patriot Act was going to be voted the other day? Or what was in it? Or what about the 13 House Republicans who refused federal health insurance and voted for the repeal of healthcare and now complain that their families may be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions? Hello? What did you think you were repealing? You won't have known because they were no hearings to inform members about what was in the bill they were repealing. They thought they were repealing socialized medicine and death panels. So how can you explain the debt ceiling to people who are so clueless?

I think Rachel Maddow is exploring the fundamental issues of the House. Others are focusing on the outrageous human cost of the cuts when the rich get their tax break and other policy matters. But the total disorder of the House business is so fundamental, it poses an existential threat to Congress as a functioning body of government.

Remember over 80 new members of the House were elected by people that could not spell basic words on their campiagn signs.

Will the House GOP pay a political price for this? I don't believe so because I don't think too many Americans remember what Congress does. Look at the polls on the last Congress, the majority of Americans didn't believe it did anything, even though historians rank it already as one of the most productive in history. I also belive that there is a large segment of the population that actually believes that healthcare reform was actually repealed. When the House reaffirms our motto as "In God We Trust", at least one-third of Americans will believe that this Congress created that slogan.

We are now in the age of magical political thinking.

Tuesday in Crazy Town

Run, Mike, Run! Michael Steele is running again for head of the RNC.

It's sad day when any President declares victory because the Senate voted to bring a bill to the floor. That's what we've come to. By 83-15, the tax bill will be voted on. Probably it will happen tomorrow because Senate rules mean you have 30 hours after the cloture vote for the floor vote. This can be waved. But if one Senator objects, then you can't. Progressives really shouldn't feel bad. The rich don't pay taxes anyway. And would we be concerned about the wealthy if the economy was humming along with low unemployment?

The Administration says that it has the votes for the New Start Treaty. Here the Senate can't filibuster because it's a treaty.

Steny Hoyer is readying a stand-alone repeal of DADT for the House. They've already repealed it but it looks like the Senate will only entertain their own stand alone. Maybe because people are saying time is running out and no one wants to stick around. However yesterday those soldiers discharged for being gay filed suit to be reinstated which brings home Gates concern of having this linger forever and be resolved by the Courts.

Speaking of courts, Virginia Judge Henry Hudson appeared to have a conflict of interest problem on the healthcare bill since he owned shares in a consulting company which lobbied against the bill. The Obama Administration downplayed yesterday's ruling, pointing to some 22 challenges of the healthcare bill, which have either been dismissed or ruled against. Ricky Cantor agrees with the Cooch that this case--the only one they won so far--should be short-circuited to the Roberts Court, Limited immediately.

But problemo--conservative law professors who analyzed Hudson's opinion says the judge committed a big Whopper--he basically over-ruled the Commerce Clause in the Constitution. They claim he didn't heed the "Necessary and Proper Clause" of the Constitution and say that opinion has to be thrown out as a matter of course. Interesting. Sorry, Charlie. The other trivial part of the opinion is that he upheld the healthcare bill, except for the individual mandate. The individual mandate is the only part of the bill the health insurance industry insisted on because it would brng them 40 million new customers.

Julian Assange's lawyer told David Frost--remember him--on Al-Jeezera that there indeed was a grand jury secretly empaneled in Alexandria to nail Assange. Assange was granted bail this morning in the U.K. Michael Moore chipped into pay the bail.

Richard Holbrooke died after his aorta ruptured. Seen as vital to the Afghanistan War strategy, he reportedly said as his last words," You've got to stop this war." I have a little problem accepting this. Remember Bill Casey's famous last words, "I believed." Casey's widow always denied Woodward's account of this, saying that Casey at that time was brain dead. I tend to believe Sophia.

In the interest of civility, I am abandoning the term "Tan Man" or "Old Swizzle Stick" for John Boehner. Since he showed his sensitivity on 60 Minutes, I'm going to call him Gentleman John Boehner. One slight problem in his interview--he wept when he talked about children having the same opportunity as he did to achieve the American Dream. Then why does he never reflect that attitude when it comes to policy? Boehner did admit Obama was "smart, even brilliant", which is better than Huckabee calling Obama "amateurish". Gentleman John longs to play 18 holes of golf with Obama, since he played some 190 rounds of golf this past legislative year. That should give us hope that the next Congress won't do anything too negative.

So President Obama is going to stay in D.C. and not depart to Hawaii until the Start Treaty is approved. He already gave Michelle her Christmas gift--he signed the Child Nutrition Act.

The Left criticizes that the administration cut food stamps by two billion down the road to pay for the bill. The Administration had already raised the sums spent on food stamps by some $50 billion the previous year. This stuff is just more trivial carping.

The Economist Intelligence Unit put out their Democracy Index for 2010. They rate by full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid system, and authoritarian regime. We're number 13--I think. Norway is number 1 as a full democracy. So much for American exceptionalism. Remember they hate our freedom.

George W. Bush gave a radio interview yesterday and he wants everyone to stop referring to Bush Tax Cuts. He apparently hates the term.

Mitt Romney has surfaced to denounce the tax deal. He thinks workers should pay for their own unemployment compensation. I guess this is the next permutation of a "compassionate conservatism." Or maybe he suggests all American workers should have golden parachutes. I'll take it.

The recent Bloomberg poll reinforces what all polls have said before and after the election--more Americans trust Democrats , than Republicans on economic issues. So what was the mid-term all about? We will see soon enough the fruits of the voters' labor.

So we're down to tax deal (basically done deal), New Start Treaty (looks good), DADT (iffy) and the Dream Act (I believe dead duck.) Then we will wait for the tsunami of the next Congress.

Gentleman John Boehner says his first vote will be to cut the budget for Congress. Hmmm.

Morning Coffee--New Guinea Dark Roast

Yesterday Drudge ran a piece headlined "Obama Plays Race Card". Anytime you read something like that watch the other side because that's what they're doing. The Race Card is question was the video sent by David Plouffe with Obama appealing to Organizing for America people that for such high takes mid-term elections there must be an effort to get out the Black, Latino and Women vote. In short, everyone Republicans are counting on not to show up. But I thought the one interesting twist to Obama's statement was his assertion that he wants first-time voters--in this case a 29-year old woman--to cast their second vote in the mid-term elections. This follows the Obama strategy to enlarge the voting base--which is diametrically opposed to the decades old strategy of Karl Rove to shrink the voting base by using wedge issues. This is the President who went out of his way to campaign on Indian reservations.

Meanwhile, the Arizona immigration law has spurred a wild array of responses. Civil rights leader and Hitler-admirer Pat Buchanan writes in "Whose country is this?" that illegal Hispanics are taking jobs away from blacks. He then goes on to say Barack Obama is failing his constitutional duties of upholding the law--which Pat says requires sending the 12-20 million illegals back home. He accuses Obama of being too beholden to the Hispanic lobby to uphold the law and condemning black Americans to poverty. Pat quotes Ronald Reagan as saying "a country that can not control its borders is not a country anymore." He laments the Balkanization of the country into ethnic enclaves like say white gated communities (no, he did say that.).

Governor Brewer of Arizona claims that the state will not suffer any economic consequences from boycotts. San Francisco passed a resolution to sever all business contracts with firms based in Arizona. The Arizona Republican opined that the real damage is done to the public's belief that the law is color-blind and you have a presumption of innocence. New York Times Supreme Court report Linda Greenhouse is so infuriated with the law that she claims she is not going to back to Arizona as long as it's not a "police state".

I received an e-mail from a rightwing Arizonan who wrote his friends that La Raza is pouring people into the state to protest and they're even bringing in Koreans! He protests that the media coverage of the law deflects attention away from the tea party movement and the huge national deficit. He also worries that the state will be sued and suffer financially. He hopes the law will be ruled unconstitutional since it really is bad. I guess so La Raza will stop busing people in from California.

The Arizona Indian nations have weighed in led by the Navahos. "So the squatters are trying to kick out the foreigners, how ironic?"

Some Latinos are reacting with good humor. One car read "I'm Mexican. Pull Me Over." Some vandals drew swastikas on government offices with refried beans.

Rachel Maddow gets kudos for tracking down the authors of the bill and establishing that they were funded by a New York C,Milton Eisenhowity foundation that encourages eugenics and the preservation of the bloodlines of early American settlers. The group is another one of these front organizations claiming to argue for immigration reform.

Kudos again to Rachel Maddow for her segment on the rehabilitated John Birch Society. Unfortunately, it seems that like Scott Brown the John Birch Society is using her name in vain to raise money. But Rachel solved one of the longest outstanding mysteries in American history. No, not flouride in the water. Who was Dwight David Eisenhower's Communist control officer? After all the John Birch Society maintained that Ike was an overt Communist agent. The answer is--none other than his brother Milton. Another mysterty solved--the anti-Christ is Javier Solana and Ike's control officer was brother Milton.

One aspect of the segment was new to me. The John Birch Society was created in 1958 for the expressed purpose of carrying on the legacy of Joe McCarthy. What Rachel doesn't mention is how the John Birch Society got rehabilitated. She had on as a guest Sam Tenenhaus, author of The Death of Conservatism ( random House, 2009), who suggested that conservatives no longer had any major thinkers to keep the movement honest and that the fringes dominated because there are no enemies on the Right. For a follow-up, she should have on Frank Schaeffer who can tell her that the John Birch Society came back through the Religious Right, especially Tim Lahaye and his Left Behind series. LaHaye was a long-time, high-ranking member of the John Birch Society.

Barack Obama almost went black on us at the memorial service for the coalminers in West Virginia. He even got some call-backs from the all white audience as he started to get into his preaching rhythmn when he talked about God. In mid-eulogy, he started into his preaching cadence and came back to it at his finale. I still believe one of his best speeches during the campiagn was at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Georgia when he preached about the Walls of Jericho. I wish he would do more of this but then he would only invite more angry reactions.

The real non-news story is about Obama's own poll numbers. He's been clocking about 50-51% in Gallup's tracking poll, some 20 points above any other person in our political system. What's interesting is that going back to last April, he's consistently maintained the same approval rating.

In the breakouts of the polling data, there are no great surprises. Obama has large approval ratings across the country, except in the South where he is about 40%. The Northeast continues to love him at about 67%. His approval rating among women far outstrips that among men. Everybody under 60 give him above 50% approval ratings; the youth most of all. But over 60, he slips, particularly among white males. Among whites in general, he is at 44% and among white males of the teabagger movement he drops dramatically. But remember he won only about the same 44% among white males last time--which correlates with past Democratic nominees.

Now in Sunday New York Times Democrats admitted they could lose the House this year. This piece was followed up by various talking head reports and the usual woe is us. The House changing back so soon? Hasn't happened in quite some time. If we were in a normal situation where one party was Center-Left and another Center-Right, I could see it as a reaction to keep the system in check. But Center-Left and Radical Right, I'm skeptical. As we've seen, the situations in states are galvanizing voters, especially among the demographics who usually don't vote in by-elections.

But let's say it happens. Bless Michael Steele. He's recruited over 20 African-Americans to run for the House. Some of these candidates admit it's opportunism because they would be farther up in line than their Democratic counterparts for committee positions. Now, let's say 15 of these candidates win and the margin for Republican control in the House rests with these new members. Can anyone believe that with their Democratic Black Caucus members nagging them that they could go along with "Hell No" John Boehner? Could the Republicans really maintain their authoritarian discipline in this situation? They had to have two people stand next to Rep. Cao the last session to make sure he didn't vote for healthcare reform. Things could get interesting.

Over the weekend another potential assassin was arrested in North Carolina. A nerdy white male with rifles and diagrams of scopes was apprehended at the airport because he wanted "to meet President Obama." He had police emergency lights in his car and scanners to monitor police radios. His website showed he was a music technician and a member of A Million Republicans, a group created by Tom DeLay. He had driven from Ohio to North Carolina for the occasion. All of this is giving white people a bad name. I wish they would cut it out.

Stoogeland in Snoozeland

2 inches of Snow here is severe weather. With it quiet around town, you would think that CPAC would leave town like every other political meeting and that would be the end of it. Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh carried on their name-calling for national audiences today. The irony is that the Republican Party has about a 22% approval rating and Gallup has Limbaugh at 22% also. The cage match of the dwarfs.

What makes this fun is the entrance into the arena of Howard Stern who denounced Limbaugh as a traitor today. What is really needed is the return of Stern sidekick Stuttering John to wander the halls of Washington asking embarrassing questions.

Vicki Iseman, who won zero from the New York Times in a lawsuit, appeared on television to deny she ever had an affair with John McCain. Skin-crawling stuff indeed. But why do this and why now? After all Joe The Plumber has the novelty act sewed up for the time being.

Rahm Emmanuel is up to no good. He planted the idea Limbaugh was the head of the Republican Party just so the GOP would blow themselves up. What's worse he said it with a straight face. And of course they blew themselves up.

Ron Paul thinks it's pretty disgusting that a radio announcer could be the head of the Republican party and says it's all a sorry affair.

Don't expect Obama to let up on the pedal now. Republicans are admitting there is nothing much they can do to stop his budget. With Sibelius as head of Department of Health and Human Services expect to see a full court press for an early resolution on health care. Almost everyday produces some major policy changes and alot of acts below the surface to indicate that change is here and going to stay.

Today the Administration released the Bush post-9/11 memos that confirmed that the US military could engage in search and seizure in the United States without warrants. Considering yesterday's news that the Sierra club is a terrorist-linked organization,a normal citizen should be alarmed.

The Dow continued its drop today. No one has any idea where the bottom will be. More importantly, there is not a human alive who knows when the banks will rights themselves. If anything is to be expected, I imagine populist outrage at continuing to pour good money after bad into losing ventures, especially AIG. Since AIG has often been a spook front, why doesn't the Agency bail them out of their black budget?

We are waiting for the blowback from the collapse of the Central European economies. Germany nixed a bailout deal and we should expect a ripple effect throughout Europe, which will surf across the pond. The Ukraine has basically had it. There already has emerged a two-tier system in Western Europe already--Greece, Portugal, Spain are borrowing Euros at higher rates than Germany and their bonds have all been devalued. Add to this the collapse of Central Europe and we're looking at political instability.

From the Bureau of a Misdirected Destiny

I had to use this graffiti I saw yesterday on a fence in Washington D.C. It seemed appropriate when I heard Michael Steele on the local radio station spell out the Republicans view of how to move ahead on the economy. Steele was the most articulate of the Republicans so far in talking substantial economic points but he reiterated the mantra of more tax cuts--some of which actually to make sense if targeted to job creation. With Kay Baily Hutchinson parroting the party line on the weekend talk shows and Mitch McConnell threatening to filibuster the economic stimulus package in the Senate. The question has to be raised: According to Republicans, where is the country economically?

I think there is a consensus of Republicans that we are in a severe recession but with low inflation. Given the genetic programming from the 1980s, when the US had stagflation and after Reagan built up the national debt, the logical Republican argument is to stimulate the economy through tax cuts and fiscal policy and curtail government spending, especially on social programs. Unfortunately, the Fed is out of tools--loaning money at 0% interest--and tax cuts have been used throughout the last eight years. With growing unemployment, the safety net has huge wholes that need plugging. So then are we back in Hoover land as New York Times' columnist Frank Rich maintains? In his Sunday column he pointed out that the Republicans have no sense of urgency of this matter. That's because they really do not understand we are on the precipice of a Depression.

One of the reasons the House stimulus plan passed so easily was that the Obama team came prepared the first week to get the ball rolling. This has stunned Republicans who remember the chaos of the Clinton transition and the slow pace of Bush. It's in response that they are now reacting, except without much intellectual firepower. This past weekend, John McCain claimed the Senate Republicans would offer their own stimulus plan.

How this goes in the Senate is anyone's guess. But Alice Rivlin, the former Clinton adviser, raises red flags for those who believe Obama has the ability to re-invent the country at this time. She warns that China, which is starting to plunge into a recession, will not have the ability or will to buy up our debt as in the past and that this should curtail some of Obama's ambitious goals. Remember during FDR's time the US was a creditor country and not a debtor. So the restrictions on Obama are based on whether the US can sell sufficient treasuries to other countries, almost all of whom are in recession, to cover our massive debt.

Our friends at The Young Turks have voiced their justifiable concern that if Obama puts health care reform and an energy policy on hold so as to adjust the short-term economic problems, by the time he comes back to Congress, the response will be that the US has no money left. That's part of the reason Nobel Prize winners Joseph Steiglitz and Paul Krugman are warning Obama off creating a bank to buy all the "toxic assets" of the American banks. Not only would that quadruple the national debt but it would forestall any meaningful change.

It seems to me that the media should get Republicans to answer simple questions about where we are in the economy, what caused the current situation and what happens if we do not respond in a timely fashion. The media allow Republicans to respond to the Obama plan without critically following up where they are coming from and whether they feel any urgency on these matters.

Republicans governors have abandoned ship on their congressional counter-parts because they have to govern and their states are close to or are in bankruptcy. They have been lobbying the Hill for passage of the stimulus, particularly on infrastructure works and employment plans.

People are rightfully angry at the Bush bailouts and $15 billion given bankers as bonuses. This past weekend the Associated Press did an investigative story that showed the bankers wanted to hire some 25,000 plus of foreign workers with the bailout money and not rehire the Americans. The jobs in question were in the $90,000 wage range.

The problem is that no one can tell whether the economic stimulus package will work in a meaningful way. As Robert Samuelson wrote in the Washington Post the other week, Obama is facing several different financial crises and that to solve them all is like winning the Tour d' France.