lift-off

President Obama watches the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on a television monitor in the Outer Oval Office, July 8. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

african memories

sigh

Media Matters: Fox Business host Gerri Willis made sure her viewers could not fault President Bush for state of the economy … according to the results of a June NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Americans are more likely to hold Bush accountable than President Obama “for the country’s current economic conditions.” … But Fox viewers can’t hold Bush accountable if they don’t have the option.

oh these people….

Jack and Jill: In Iowa, there’s a social conservative pledge called “The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” that is anti-abortion, anti-same sex marriage, anti-divorce etc etc that GOP candidates are being urged to sign. (It includes:)

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.

Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive … When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or not we’re ok with invoking slavery to score cheap political points? It has to stop….

Full post here

Michele Bachmann (here) and Rick Santorum (here) have signed the ‘pledge’

More at ThinkProgress and baratunde.com

Thanks lmrj

the high life

TPM: Rep. Paul Ryan, a leading advocate of shrinking entitlement spending and the architect of the plan to privatize Medicare, spent Wednesday evening sipping $350 wine with two like-minded conservative economists at the swanky Capitol Hill eatery Bistro Bis.

…Susan Feinberg, an associate business professor at Rutgers, was at Bistro Bis celebrating her birthday when she saw the label on the bottle Ryan’s table had ordered … it sold for an eye-popping $350, the most expensive wine in the house…

Feinberg, an economist by training, was even more appalled when the table ordered a second bottle. She quickly did the math and figured out that the $700 in wine the trio consumed over the course of 90 minutes amounted to more than the entire weekly income of a couple making minimum wage.

“We were just stunned,” said Feinberg, who e-mailed TPM about her encounter …After ending their meal and paying the check, Feinberg decided to give Ryan a piece of her mind. She approached the table and asked Ryan “how he could live with himself” sipping expensive wine while advocating for cuts to programs for seniors and the poor…..

The clash became especially heated when Feinberg asked the men if they were lobbyists. “F—- her,” one of them replied and stood up in a menacing way, according to Feinberg’s account…

… The one major aspect of the story in dispute was the topic of conversation at Ryan’s dinner table. Feinberg said all three men were “droning on loudly during the evening that liberals think that if you’re a millionaire, you have done something wrong.”

Full article here

Thanks Fred – and Susan Feinberg 😉

‘pentagon suspends dadt in wake of court ruling’

Army Times: The Pentagon has ordered a halt to all separations of gay troops under “don’t ask, don’t tell” and will begin accepting applications from prospective recruits who identify themselves as homosexuals.

The moratorium issued Friday came after a ruling Wednesday by a federal appeals court in California ordering the Defense Department to immediately stop enforcing the law. The court said the law is unconstitutional because it treats gay Americans differently under the law.

More here

Thank you Suzanne

retweet!

Link

so boehner, where are the jobs?

Steve Benen: …. let’s consider the recent developments the way a Republican would. Here’s a chart showing private-sector job creation in the latter half of 2010, when stimulus money was still being spent, and when Democrats enjoyed the congressional majority:

And here’s a chart showing private-sector job creation so far in 2011, after stimulus spending largely ended, Republicans took control of the U.S. House and most of the nation’s gubernatorial offices, and the national discourse pivoted from jobs to the deficit and debt:

…..Mitt Romney likes to talk all about who “made things worse.” So, you tell me. Were we on track before Republicans gains or after?

Full post here

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Link

Thanks GGail

Tweet this:

RT @dccc: PETITION: Tell the GOP no Soc. Sec. and Medicare cuts while protecting tax breaks for Millionaires: http://dccc.org/OffTheTable

dig deep

No hiding it, this is one seriously, seriously crappy day.

But we all know it’s a joyful day for some (and not just on the right), the higher the unemployment figure the greater the chance they’ll succeed in putting a Koch-funded Republican in the White House in 2012. They’re certainly not concerned about the people who are struggling to find work. The more the merrier.

So, by all means, express your anger and disappointment about today’s news, let it rip! But try to dig deep too, we know these people’s strategy has always been to ‘divide and conquer’, they will pile it on today and in the days ahead in an attempt to demoralize those who support the President in the face of this relentless opposition and obstruction.

So, fight back with the truth:

Nancy Pelsoi today: “In the six months since Republicans have been in charge of the House, they have failed to bring a single jobs bill to the floor or offer a clear jobs plan. Democrats have forced ten votes on job-creation measures in this Congress – and Republicans have voted ‘no’ each time.”

****

President Obama today: “Right now, there are over a million construction workers out of work after the housing boom went bust, just as a lot of America needs rebuilding. We connect the two by investing in rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our railways and our infrastructure. And we could put back to work right now some of those construction workers that lost their jobs when the housing market went bust. Right now, we can give our entrepreneurs the chance to let their job-creating ideas move to market faster by streamlining our patent process. That’s pending before Congress right now. That should pass.

Today, Congress can advance trade agreements that will help businesses sell more American-made goods and services to Asia and South America, supporting thousands of jobs here at home. That could be done right now.

Right now, there are a lot of middle-class families who sure could use the security of knowing that the tax cut that I signed in December to help boost the economy and put a thousand dollars in the pockets of American families, that that’s still going to be around next year. That’s a change that we could make right now.

There are bills and trade agreements before Congress right now that could get all these ideas moving. All of them have bipartisan support. All of them could pass immediately. And I urge Congress not to wait. The American people need us to do everything we can to help strengthen this economy and make sure that we are producing more jobs.”

*****

November 6, 2012 is a long, long way away … there’s lots of work and truth-telling to be done.

*****

PS The media love quoting Gallup’s latest unemployment rate when it’s worse than the official figure – I’m guessing we won’t hear much about this:

Gallup