Lazy crazy days of Summers

Well. On top of having averted an air strike by the US and another chemical weapons strike by Assad inside of Syria this week, here's more good news from inside the Beltway.

Former White House economic adviser and Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers has withdrawn his name as a candidate for Federal Reserve chairman...

I couldn't be happier. He would have been a disaster in that spot. Of course, I don't suppose we'll get Janet Yellen either. Certainly not if President Obama really believes the banking industry is just fine. It's not. It's still very much broken.

Team Yellen

Considering the ongoing dismal state of our so-called economic recovery, it's rather clear the Fed's monetary policy under Bernake was (as the kids say) all fucked up and bullshit. So now that we got rid of Helicopter Ben, Obama has a clear choice. It's between the Bankster's best friend, Larry Summers or the Bankster's greatest fear, Janet Yellen. Joseph Stiglitz is on Team Yellen. So am I because:

The controversy over the choice of the next head of the Federal Reserve has become unusually heated. The country is fortunate to have an enormously qualified candidate: the Fed’s current vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen. There is concern that the president might turn to another candidate, Lawrence H. Summers. Since I have worked closely with both of these individuals for more than three decades, both inside and outside of government, I have perhaps a distinct perspective…

Whoever succeeds Ben S. Bernanke as the Fed’s leader will have to make repeated judgment calls about when to raise or lower interest rates, the levers of monetary policy.

Two elements enter into these judgments. The first is forecasting. Wrong forecasts lead to wrong policies. Without a good sense of direction of where the economy is going, one can’t take appropriate policies. Ms. Yellen has a superb record in forecasting where the economy is going — the best, according to The Wall Street Journal, of anyone at the Fed. As I noted earlier, Mr. Summers’s leaves something to be desired.

Of course, the galling reality is Summers will most probably get the job because, the damnable Boy's Club. This is why we can't have nice things.

Breaking: Jay Carney is good at his job

Which is more than can be said for Yahoo!'s hit piece on the PressSec. Sure slow news cycles breed some lame non-stories to feed the insatiable maw of the 24/7 media beast, but this interactive compilation of Carney's verbal tics is dumber than the most inane BuzzFeed list ever posted.

I'm down with Wonkette's critque. The interactive is pretty much just an excuse for unjustified mockery. It serves no useful informational purpose. A comparison between former PressSec "evasions" might have had some value, but not much. Every PressSec does this. It's in the job description. I would have found an interactive of how times the media elite asked the same damn question in one briefing after Carney has already answered it the first time much more enlightening.

I imagine this is supposed to taken as lighthearted mockery meant to while away the summer doldrums but there's an underlying meaness to these pieces that's vaguely disturbing. I watch these journos on the twitter, ever alert for the "phrase of the day" they can turn into a snark competition. What you rarely see is much focus on the substance of what Carney, or Obama, say about the policy.

The snark barely masks the media's dislike of this administration. It's hard not to think the media hates them because they're too good at their jobs. Neither Obama nor Carney often deliver easy soundbytes that can be quickly transformed into a click-baiting fauxtroversy. Makes the journos work harder. Which is not to say journos are lazy but they do love an easy narrative.

Pseudoscoop of the day: secret email addresses

Another big AP scoop. Administration appointees maintain "secret email addresses" if by secret you mean a separate unpublished intra-office address they use to conduct agency business. AP is not buying the reasoning that they do this to avoid having to filter out extraneous public contacts from their accounts while they engaged in critical communications required to do their job. Because you know, nobody else does that, anywhere. Not ever. And never have before. If by never you forget to mention it was a common practice for years in the Bush administration.

Leaving aside that omission, do you know anybody know who doesn't have at least two accounts, even when they're not highly visible public figures? I don't. Furthermore, AP has no evidence of any misconduct involved in the use of the private addys. They aren't in widespread use. In fact AP found only a few of the employees have them at all. They appear to be mainly confined to the agency heads. There's no evidence they're being used to circumvent public records laws. All the AP has here is allegations from "Republicans in Congress" and the "Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank." Plus their own gut feeling that the very existence of such accounts "drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions."

I find that rather hilarious, in a sardonic laugh kind of way. In fact, I seem to remember Bush administration White House staff using effectively illegal accounts with the practical result of circumventing public records laws. And then somehow managed to "lose" millions of them having to do with major policy decisions and deceptions of the Bush tenure. Many important electronic records were never recovered. What I don't remember is any great outcry from AP demanding accountability then.

But leaving history behind, the AP did manage to get the private address for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. They were asked not to publish it, but they decided to ignore that request "because the secretary is a high-ranking civil servant who oversees not only major agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services but also the implementation of Obama's signature health care law." I imagine having her private address inundated with crazed emails from crackpots every time Beck or Malkin or whoever sic their hordes of flying monkeys on her won't be interfering with her ability to conduct the business of the people at all. So great journalism in service of the public interest with that bold revelation guys.

What's most amusing about this little outrage is I see these journos bitch all day long on the twitter about having to deal with angry trolls who blast them with unwanted communications. Willing to bet they all have private addresses as well that they use to conduct their work. Maybe in the interests of media transparency, they'd like to give those out to the public... I didn't think so.

How big is media surveillance under Obama

I'm as unhappy as the next guy about government surveillance on journalists and private citizens but I sure wish the media had been this focused when the Bush administration was doing it illegally. Even the NYT is verging on scaremongering about Obama's DoJ. I mean the hed screams US Leaks Inquiries Show How Wide a Net is Cast. About midway through the article it admits, "It is not clear how often the government has obtained reporters’ communications records."

The only person they could get on record for the story is one government guy whose life was ruined under the Bush administration for allegedly leaking about warrantless wiretaps -- on everybody. Meanwhile here's an interesting twist to the Rosen saga.

On Saturday, a Fox News executive said that the notice had gone to News Corp., its parent company, on Aug. 27, 2010, but that Fox News was not told until Friday. The executive said they were still trying to sort out how the notice fell through the cracks.

You might have thought this would be something the parent corp would have brought to their news station's attention right away. Kind of convenient they suddenly discovered it after the AP got all sorts of steam out of their surveillance. And again, in these Obama era cases it's not about wholesale spying on the population or the media. As the government states, "law enforcement officials said the leaks were alarming because someone had shared information while overseas intelligence operations were still under way."

If somebody can show me where any of these stories exposed government misconduct, I'm happy to join in the outrage but so far all I see is a few journos outing active counter-terrorism operations in countries that do pose a danger to our national security, effectively shutting them down because of the exposure. I don't feel so well served by that kind of traffic baiting journalism.

I have to agree with Kevin Drum about this hue and cry over this.

Something about the Rosen case just doesn't add up. But a lot of people don't seem to be taking the possible outing of an intelligence source very seriously. They're acting as if the DOJ prosecution is over a completely meaningless story. That might be, but I think a bit less circling the wagons, and a bit more serious questioning, might be in order here.

I often watch these big journos on the twitter. They hate Obama, not for his politics but because he doesn't treat them with the respect they believe they deserve. Sadly, I don't believe the vast majority of them deserve the respect. They aren't informing the public. When he does hold a presser, they leap to find a single phrase out of hundreds of words and manufacture some kind of fauxtroversy out of it. They skip most of the salient points he makes about policy. Too boring. Doesn't bring in the eyeballs. Maybe if they showed the POTUS the kind of respect he deserves, they would get some in return.

Nobody loves the IRS

Personally I prefer to call it a ginned up psuedo-scandal, but Josh is right about the politics of the IRS mess. GOP will be dining out on this one through 2014 and probably longer. This is Grade A prime rib for the angry base. No investigation, no irrefutable hard evidence will ever convince them they haven't been persecuted by the evel soshulist fascist liberal Dimmocrats to steal their First Amendment rights.

God save us if somehow this gets tied directly to the White House for real. Everybody loves a scandal and hates the IRS. The mass outrage will drown out everything else for months. Maybe years.

Blame Congress for the IRS mess - Updated

Once you cut through the self-serving noise over the IRS psuedo-scandal, a few things become clear. Tea Party groups weren't really being targeted for their political beliefs. They were being asked to prove why they deserved a big tax exemption. And let's be real, if the name of your group stands for Taxed Enough Already, you're begging to be tied up in paperwork.

As I said before, I think most of the smaller groups were run by grifters who saw a prime opportunity to profit personally from the fear and anger of misinformed conservatives. More than one of them has been exposed as a fraud since the Kochs laid down that astroturf.

Also, I've seen no evidence President Obama had anything to do with it. He's not checking in with the IRS daily to give them a list of targets. He has no knowledge of their day to day operations. Anybody really think the CEO of a major corporation knows the intimate details of every manager's work day? It defies logic.

IRS was doing its job under the rules that Congress gave them, which were not at all clear. This is the smartest thing I've read about this so far. The real IRS scandal is in who was allowed to operate without challenge:

If that definition sounds murky—that is, if it’s unclear what 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to do—that’s because it is murky. Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. In every meaningful sense, groups like Americans for Prosperity were operating as units of the Republican Party. Democrats organized similar operations, but on a much smaller scale. (They undoubtedly would have done more, but they lacked the Republican base for funding such efforts.)

So the scandal—the real scandal—is that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way. As Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, a government-ethics watchdog group, put it, “it is clear that a number of groups have improperly claimed tax-exempt status as section 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ organizations in order to hide the donors who financed their campaign activities in the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.”

The real problem is the IRS was wasting time chasing the small fry while the big fish were allowed to freely cheat the system. President Obama can't fix that. Only Congress can, by making the rules clearer.

Update: Charlie Pierce has more on why the blame for this IRS mess is on Congress.

The ennui of the White House reporter

In the endless Beltway media shuffle, former TPM mainstay Evan McMorris-Santoro has moved into Zeke Miller's old spot at BuzzFeed. Evan debuts with a look at why everyone hates the White House Beat.

Judging by these quotes from incoming WHPA president McClatchy's Steve Thomma, it sounds more like why the WHPC hates the Obama White House and possibly the readers:

A more pressing problem, Thomma said, is that the White House now looks at the rise of social media and sees a way to circumvent reporters to get their message out. Meanwhile, the televised briefings — which have become a daily D.C. Twitter staple — tempt journalists to make their names by asking provocative questions that might produce viral footage.

"One of the things that has definitely changed in the years I've been doing it is the televising of the briefings," he said. "It made the questioning by reporters part of a story. Much more so than it had ever been. So people started criticizing the questions and the way the questions were asked, regardless of what was in the the answers reporters were getting."

If by "provocative" he means "requests to verify stupid raging wingnut memes," and meaningless horserace questions, then yes, that's a big part of the problem. Press briefings have become little more than a rather desperate looking quest, mostly by media divas in the first row, for a gotcha moment to drive traffic to some manufactured controversy that does nothing to fully inform on the consequences of policy choices. Difficult not to notice the best questions generally come from the back rows.

I'm all for holding any White House accountable. However, I prefer the questions, and the ensuing stories, serve the public good rather than the great god of corporate profits. That is too rarely the case anymore. This is what happens when we allow our entire news chain to consolidate under the umbrella of six mega-corporations. Journalism by spreadsheet serves only the CEOs. Not healthy for the industry or the electorate.

Senate GOP invents the filibluster

Watching the Senate floor while they take a cloture vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination while I'm reading that Grampy McCain's Benghazi curiousity was finally satisfied.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Thursday that the White House's response to his and other Republican senators' questions on the September attack in Benghazi, Libya was satisfactory. The senior Arizona senator said he is now ready to find a way to end the filibuster that is holding up the confirmation vote for defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, CNN reported. [...]

McCain said he is now trying to get answers to questions posed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) regarding Hagel's sources of income. If those inquiries are answered, McCain said, there won't be a need to end the filibuster with a vote. Instead, the Senate could move to vote a straight up-or-down vote on Hagel, which would require only a simple majority of 51 votes to be confirmed.

That was posted at about 2:00pm today. At 4:15pm the nation's greatest deliberative body started sauntering in for a cloture vote. McCain was one of the first no votes. Initial count was 59-39 with one present and GOP's "Diaper" Dave Vitter skipping the vote. So ultimately, cloture fails 58-40. The whole sorry charade is a pathetic farce. And the only reason they delivered this act of the eternal kabuki this afternoon? As somebody said on twitter: "Senate agrees to 4:15 vote on Sen Hagel to showcase how divided they are in time to leave Thursday night for week off."

Recess! Just like elementary school kids on the playground. Only these overpaid asshats don't have to go back to class and do some real work in 20 minutes. They're off for ten days. I'm not even that keen on Hagel getting the job, but this is a criminal waste of time and money on the taxpayer's dime.

Meanwhile, minority whip John Cornyn took the floor in the after vote laments to declare, (as GOPers have been doing for days), this wasn't really a cloture vote. It is not a filibuster. It's a reasonable delay, dammit. The GOPers still don't know all the things about Chuck. Maybe they need to look at his grocery receipts for the last five years so they know if he's been eating kosher or halal. OK, I made that last part up but their demands for information at this point are as nonsensical.

Hell, they were willing to foist off Mitt as President with far less disclosure than they're demanding from Hagel. Not to mention many of them served with the guy for years. Ye gods. Hagel is a freaking red state Republican and a decorated war veteran. If he was nominated by a Republican president, these idiots would be falling all over themselves to vote yes. But it's not a filibuster, it's just filibluster.

The insiders tell me when they reconvene Hagel will be confirmed. Apparently, the GOPers just need more time to grandstand for the rubes back home before they can do the right thing and let the duly elected President pick his own damn cabinet.

[Thanks to Michael J.W. Stickings of The Reaction for kindly linking in at Mike's Blog Round-Up]

Lindsey goes all drama queen over national security nominees

In a sane world there would be at least a tacit agreement that there be a reasonable time limit on Beltway theatrics before a Cabinet nomination is allowed to come to a floor vote. Everyone would recognize endless grandstanding to please the narrow interests of the rubes in the home district is an impediment to responsible governance. Sadly we now live in some bizarre GOP wasteland where success on one side is measured by how long vital processes of governance can be delayed.

So instead of an orderly transition of the U.S. Cabinet, we get Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Closetcase) threatening to place a hold on Hagel and Brennan's confirmation votes because, Benghazi. Again. After weeks of investigation and floor hearings. Lindsey is not sure he knows everything yet. Lindsey needs to know all the things.

Thus, it appears we have our answer to the question Mitch McConnell evaded recently. McConnell claimed he wasn't sure Senate GOPers would filibuster Hagel. Days later, they announce they're blocking both NatSec noms.

Same Republicans who are wailing about defense cuts in the sequester going to bring us all to doom are refusing to allow an up or down vote on the Secretary of Defense and the Director of the CIA. Maybe one of our insider journos could ask them why they think leaving the top administrative positions in those defense departments unstaffed is any less a threat to national security.

Shocked, shocked to find that illicit sex is going on in here

The Petraeus "sex scandal" had exploded. Rumor and conspiracy theories abound. However, it does appear the other woman is Paula Broadwell, author of the unfortunately entitled biography All In.

Twitter is snarking: Ah the classic spurned lover tries to hack your email, except you're the director of the CIA, so the FBI notices, gambit.

Looking at this photo, I suspect that may well turn out to be the story. I see an older guy giddy from the attention from a young, attractive, adoring fan girl.

[photo via Steve Hynd and emptywheel]

It's not impossible that there's some dark nefarious plot going on I guess, but lust makes people do crazy things. I'm inclined to go with Occam's razor on this one. I mean, who doesn't know of any otherwise happily married people who were thrust into close proximity for professional reasons and succumbed to sexual attraction?

One thing is certain. The CEOs of Lockheed and Waffle House are really glad Petraeus is taking the spotlight off their own sex scandals which were mysteriously revealed within an hour of his. Brings a whole new meaning to Friday news dump.

Update: So it appears this came out because Paula tried to access his email. They say no criminal charges pending, so I'm sticking with the lust makes you crazy theory and thinking she was just trying to check up on him.

Meanwhile, she's from Charlotte so the local news guy was parked outside her house. Nobody home but they showed a chalk drawing on the driveway that said, "Dad loves Mom." With hearts around it. Sad.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Petraeus resigns over affair

Few details but just now, CIA head David Petraeus resigned because of an extra-martial affair. All the smart people are saying he had to do it because, blackmail. Not sure how that works once the affair has been admitted. What leverage does the rejected lover have once it's made public?

Always being the outlier, I'm not a fan of his at all, but I find it hard to believe he would compromise national security for sex. Think it's more likely he had a fling with a younger woman, because that's what men so often do at that stage of marriage, and wants to spare his wife and family the media circus which would be relentless if he held on to the job. This way, since it appears he's leaving immediately, the media will lose interest in a couple of days once they tease out what few prurient details they can. 

[cross posted at The Reaction]

Drawing a bright line

In reponse to the Republican demand, as voiced recently by Eric Cantor, that any disaster aid has to be offset with spending cuts, White House spokesman Jay Carney throws down the White House position on disaster aid:

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Carney said the federal government’s priority should be to respond to the disaster. He also noted that Cantor (R-Va.) hadn’t demanded offsets when the Bush administration rang up “unprecedented bills.” [...]

The White House spokesman said it was premature to make a decision yet on the costs of Hurricane Irene for the federal government. “The principle (is) that when we’re having a natural disaster and an emergency situation ... our priority has to be responding to the disaster and helping those regions and states recover,” Carney said.

Holding aid to disaster victims hostage is not who we are, or at least not what we have always been, as a country. It abridges every lost "American value" that the GOPers claim to be pining for and wanting to restore. Interestingly, the post states, "some Republicans do not think disaster aid should be offset."

Really? Name two of them. And why have none of these Republicans spoken out publicly in defense of no strings relief spending? Oh right. Political suicide to suggest to their base that they show a little human decency.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Um Bruce, aren't you forgetting something?

Former Treasury official under Bush, Bruce Bartlett, calls Rick Perry an idiot, so he got that part right, even though I'm pretty sure Perry isn't really as dumb as he pretends to be. But then Bartlett goes off the rails here:

Bartlett said the politics at the Federal Reserve are a serious problem and in part blamed U.S. presidents, who he said have historically not focused their energies on the bank.

"He [Obama] has had open seats on the fed almost his entire presidency and I think that this sends a signal that he just doesn't care very much about what the fed does," Bartlett said.

What he fails to mention is the GOPers have been blocking Obama's nominees for the Board since day one. Maybe he forgot about Peter Diamond who finally withdrew his name after being held in GOP limbo for over 14 months?

Half truths aren't any more useful than full out lies, Bruce.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

What's to debate?

I didn't have high expectations when I voted for Obama. I didn't expect to agree with all his policies. But I did expect him to be a much more forceful leader than he turned out to be. It's increasingly clear, Obama needs news advisors:

As the economy worsens, President Obama and his senior aides are considering whether to adopt a more combative approach on economic issues, seeking to highlight substantive differences with Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail rather than continuing to pursue elusive compromises, advisers to the president say. [...]

Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact. These include free trade agreements and improved patent protections for inventors.

Are they joking? Indy's don't give a flying leap about patent protections and everybody outside of The Village hates trade agreements. Not a day goes by that I don't hear some con or so-called independent curse NAFTA. And this is so wrong:

So far, most signs point to a continuation of the nonconfrontational approach — better to do something than nothing — that has defined this administration. Mr. Obama and his aides are skeptical that voters will reward bold proposals if those ideas do not pass Congress. It is their judgment that moderate voters want tangible results rather than speeches.

The voters they're chasing respond to slogans and machismo. They don't get nuance and small accomplishments, especially when bold moves are clearly required, sure as hell aren't going to impress anybody. As Reuters so adroitly points out:

And opinion polls show that Obama's job approval ratings are edging downward even as members of his own Democratic Party grumble about his leadership and fault his willingness to make concessions to opposition Republicans in Congress. [...]

"He has a unique opportunity now to really make the case to the American people. Congress is home and it is a chance for him to try to build consensus around a bold alternative," said Romer, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. The Congress is on summer recess.

For a change, even the Congressional Dems get it. The Republicans are handing Obama a campaign issue on a golden platter and he refuses to take the gift. It doesn't matter if it passes Congress. Nothing useful is going to pass Congress because the GOPers have gone insane. As Steve Benen puts it so well:

Republicans respond to all of this by … not caring at all. Some may want a weaker economy on purpose, some are too blinded by ideology to consider objective information, some aren’t terribly bright, and some, as David Brooks recently noted, simply “do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities.”

What would work for Obama is to put forth a bold vision. Propose jobs bills instead of adopting GOP framing that government can't create jobs. Demand more short term stimulus spending to repair the economy and let the GOPers shoot it down. Draw the proverbial clear, bright line.

Jobs now, deal with the deficit later. Nobody outside of DC and the Tea Party cares about the deficit. If Obama is perceived as fighting to restore their economic security, he could reprise his 2008 victory all over again. It doesn't matter if he wins the fight. What matters is that he looks like he's fighting for the voters -- the workers -- instead of meekly caving to the Republicans in order to protect the investor class.

No. Not Acceptable Mr. President

Kind of disgruntled today. Sleep patterns all screwed up. Sick of the stupid in the news cycle. Irritated by petulant progressives who demand instant gratification. And now Ezra tells me the White House is backing odious Medicaid cuts.

Dear President Obama. This is not acceptable. The unemployment crisis has made Medicaid coverage critical for millions of poor children and elderly Americans. You can't cut any further without hurting our most vulnerable citizens. I don't want to hear any talk about any more cuts to social programs until raising taxes on the wealthy is slammed firmly onto to the table and defense cuts become a much bigger part of the conversation.

The GOPers are going to do all they can to crash the economy no matter what concessions are made. Now is the time to stand firm for policy rooted in human decency that serves the common good. Nothing less will do.

Incentive to outsource

If you needed any more proof that tax incentives to big business don't and will never solve the unemployment crisis, today the NYT shows us how current tax policy is a disincentive for hiring. In fact, it doesn't even encourage domestic spending on capital goods.

Two years into the recovery, hiring is still painfully slow. The economy is producing as much as it was before the downturn, but with seven million fewer jobs. Since the recovery began, businesses’ spending on employees has grown 2 percent as equipment and software spending has swelled 26 percent, according to the Commerce Department. A capital rebound that sharp and a labor rebound that slow have been recorded only once before — after the 1982 recession.[...]

To add insult to injury, much of the equipment used to replace American workers is made by workers abroad, meaning that capital spending is going overseas. Of the four pieces of equipment Vista bought last year, one was made domestically. The others came from Israel, Switzerland and Germany. ...

It's not that finding ways to automate routine functions is necessarily a bad thing. Or it wouldn't be if the corporations actually passed on the savings to the consumer instead of pocketing the additional profits. But what's good for big business, isn't good for America right now. The millions of "on the verge of retirement" Americans need immediate jobs to recoup their losses from the Bush era. Private sector isn't going to step up to provide them.

If the Bush era taught us anything, it's that an economy that only booms for the owners and investors is neither humane, nor sustainable. Wondering when the White House is going to learn that lesson?

The real debt crisis

Hint to all the very serious pundits. It isn't the US government's debt load. The real debt crisis is the millions of jobless homeowners.

Morris A. Davis, a former Federal Reserve economist, estimates that as many as a million homeowners slipped into foreclosure because of insufficient help for the unemployed. [...]

Administration officials said their programs have had a positive impact, albeit not as large as they had hoped. But they say that the problems of unemployment and negative equity on homes are not easily solved. They also say programs to curb foreclosure are voluntary, so they are limited in how far they can push mortgage servicers and investors, who often make more from foreclosures than from offering aid.

“We are trying to be careful in designing programs that at the end of the day aren’t just about spending money but getting people back on their feet,” said James Parrott, a senior adviser at the White House’s National Economic Council.

Wrong "wise" advisers. Spending money to bail out the jobless in order to keep them in their homes is exactly what will get these homeowners "back on their feet." It's criminal these people have only spent under $2 billion out of $46 billion earmarked to prevent foreclosures.

Painfully clear to me this has nothing to do with money. It's all politics. White House is afraid of the GOP demagoguery about how unfair it would be to people who can afford to pay their mortgages to help those "lazy unemployed" people keep their homes. Never mind the long term overall effect of helping them would boost the economy in ways no tax cut ever could. Screw the banksters. They're already screwing everybody else. Do something to make foreclosure less of an incentive. And screw the moral hazard. Just help these homeowners, dammit.

Budget cuts to freeze the poor

All I can say is this had better be an unfounded rumor. I mean what could be more cruel? Only weeks ago, the White House and Congress in their merry bi-partisan lame duck lovefest had no problem throwing hundreds of billions of extra debt onto the deficit to extend and in fact enhance tax breaks for billionaires because you know, it's just makes them so nervous when a single penny of their government subsidized profits are threatened. But gosh, we're in a debt crisis so, poor people should suck it up and literally freeze under this proposed budget cut.

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, would see funding drop by about $2.5 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion. The proposed cut will not touch the program's emergency reserve fund, about $590 million, which can be used during particularly harsh cold snaps or extended heat spells, three officials told National Journal.

"About $590 million?" That's supposed to mitigate this Scrooge move? Seriously? Millions out of work altogether or severely underemployed. They're already hungry and barely staying one step ahead of homelessness. It's been an unusally cold winter and with climate disruption, which is being ignored when it's not being denied by our political overlords, extreme weather is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. So their solution is to cut fuel assistance? Good Lord, the need has never been greater. Basic decency would suggest they increase the funding. But apparently Obama is worried about the polling.

The president’s budget is due next Monday, and the administration has been bracing traditional Democratic allies for cuts to favorite programs. The White House understands that Americans are skeptical of Obama’s willingness to tackle the estimated $1.5 trillion budget deficit and believes that he must cross a threshold of seriousness in their minds.

Well, I guess freezing the poor to death is one way to prove he's serious about cutting "entitlement" spending. Deadly serious. I wonder what brand of champagne they'll be pouring in the corporate boardrooms to celebrate the President's "cold hard choices?" [graphic via]

Blame Atrios, not Obama

The breathless headline is catchy. "Michelle Obama's 'Get Moving' Program Linked to Pedestrian Deaths". But don't click that link to Mark Levin's pathetic attempt to turn his trash into traffic treasure. TBogg translates perfectly with his trademark snark.

The basic story is the Governors Highway Safety Association is just appalled that "after four straight years of steady declines, pedestrian deaths were up during the first six months of 2010, the latest figures available to be studied." They darkly surmise the First Lady's program to get people to exercise more is putting them in danger as they embrace her call to pedestrianism.

James Joyner takes an academic approach and checks the actual stats and gives us the horrifying rise in the death toll. According to the report, "1,891 pedestrians were killed in the first six months of 2010, up from 1,884 in the same period in 2009." OMG, that's "a 0.4 percent increase" or in other words (counting on my fingers) 7 more deaths.

Of course, this mayhem is wrongly being pinned on Michelle Obama. I mean who listens to her anyway? This tragedy clearly needs to laid at the feet of Atrios. If it wasn't for his diabolical campaign to make everyone move to Manhattan, give up their cars and take mass transit, none of this would have happened. Clearly these victims are being mowed down on their way to bus stops and subway stations.

On a totally unrelated note, I have a suggestion for prissy men who are offended by boobs. Newsflash guys. Those "twin turbos" are not generally removable. Next time try looking at her face instead of her chest.