snakes

NYT: On the Senate floor and the television airwaves, Senator Mitch McConnell has lambasted the Obama administration over what he has described as its failed efforts to stimulate new jobs through clean-energy projects backed with billions of dollars in federal loans or other assistance.

But Mr. McConnell, of Kentucky, is one of several prominent Republicans who have worked to steer federal money to clean-energy projects in their home states, Energy Department documents show.

Mr. McConnell made two personal appeals in 2009, asking Energy Secretary Steven Chu to approve as much as $235 million in federal loans for a plant to build electric vehicles in Franklin, Ky. “I hope you will realize the importance of such job creation to Kentucky,” Mr. McConnell said in a July 2009 memo supporting an application from Zap Motor Manufacturing.

Federal lobbying disclosure records show that Mr. McConnell’s support for the project came after Zap Motor hired a Kentucky-based lobbyist, Robert Babbage, who has been a frequent contributor to Mr. McConnell’s campaigns and boasts on his own Internet site about his close ties to Mr. McConnell.

…. Another Republican, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, recently asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to appoint an outside investigator to determine how the Department of Energy distributes clean-energy money. But in 2009, Mr. Smith wrote to Mr. Chu asking him to approve loan guarantees from stimulus money for a Texas project proposed by Tessera Solar, documents show.

Full article here

‘facing 9.5% unemployment, president sets off on vacation!’

A 25 day vacation too!

President Obama?

No, no: Reagan – in 1983. The right wing media was outraged! Kidding.

Eric Boehlert (Media Matters): The annual summertime ritual of conservatives attacking Obama for going on summer vacation is swinging into high gear, as the president and his family prepare for a trip to Martha’s Vineyard.

…. Context, though, is sometimes helpful in terms of highlighting how silly the cries of protest from the far-right media really are. For instance, at the same juncture of his first term, Ronald Reagan, like Obama, was battling a bad economy. Unemployment  stood at 9.5%. Reagan’s response his third August in office? He set off for a nearly month-long vacation.

Not only did Reagan go on a secluded, 25-day California retreat, but his top aides reportedly stopped relaying news events to him so as to not disturb the president’s sojourn.

From the Washington Post, Aug. 22, 1983:

As President Reagan relaxes on his mountaintop ranch northwest of Santa Barbara, tucked away from the workaday cares of Washington, his top advisers have decided to put an end to what one of them calls “unnecessary news stories”. The negative news coverage that the president abhors was a topic of discussion at a White House breakfast the day before Reagan left on his present 25-day trip, the 17th stopover at his ranch since his election.

Full post here (via The Political Carnival)

Thanks Fred

‘the truth….about government spending’

Business Insider: …. Federal government spending has risen under President Obama, mostly because of the $800 billion stimulus designed to offset the massive recession he inherited from President Bush. But the increase in federal spending under Obama is dwarfed by the colossal increase under President Bush.

Don’t believe it? Here’s Federal Expenditures from 2000-2011:

As you can see, from 2000 to 2008, under President Bush, Federal spending rose by $1.3 trillion, from $1.9 trillion a year to $3.2 trillion a year.

From 2009 to 2011, meanwhile, under President Obama, federal spending has risen by $600 billion, from $3.2 trillion a year to $3.8 trillion a year.  It has also now begun to decline.

In other words, federal government spending under President Bush increased 2X as much as it has under President Obama.

So, who’s responsible for the explosion in federal spending?

More here

the belt-tighteners

Washington Post: Members of the firebrand class of Republican freshmen on Capitol Hill – elected on a pledge to attack the U.S. debt problem – have, in some cases, accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in personal debt, according to financial documents released Wednesday.

Among the 87 new GOP members of Congressmat at least 30 had liabilities totaling $50,000 or more in 2010 …. at least seven had credit card debt exceeding $15,000.

The newcomers have helped press a simple GOP message about the public debt: The country has too much and must reduce its burden immediately. These documents seem to show that, in their private lives, some freshmen took a more nuanced view: Debt could be useful, when put toward furthering ventures in real estate, farming or other businesses.

….Among those with credit card debt was Rep. Blake Farenthold (Tex.), who has pressed for major action to control the national debt. Earlier this year, Farenthold issued a statement rejecting any increase in the debt limit without major spending cuts. “Like the rest of America,” the statement said, ‘the government needs to tighten its belt and work within its means.”

Farenthold’s 2010 disclosure forms show credit card debt of $45,000 to $150,000…

…..Among those with significant debt was Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher (R-Tenn.), who had been accused of playing down his debt during the campaign. The disclosure documents show that he is carrying $1.6 million to $6.4 million in loans relating to his family’s 2,500-acre farm in Frog Jump, Tenn.

Full article here

beyond belief…..

ThinkProgress: The Washington Post’s blogger Jennifer Rubin reports that the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel has a new ad accusing President Obama of “siding with the Palestinians” in his May 19 speech….

….Yet here’s what ECI’s own executive director Noah Pollak tweeted about the speech as it was happening:

So, first Pollak thought the line about the ’67 borders was no big deal ….. but then, when there was an opportunity to attack President Obama, the line about the ’67 borders magically became a dangerous betrayal of Israel. You really couldn’t ask for a better demonstration of bad faith.

One shouldn’t, of course, expect Jennifer Rubin herself to report any of this. In addition to being Pollak’s former colleague at Commentary, back in February Rubin took a trip to Israel, courtesy of the Emergency Committee for Israel.

Full post and video here

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Rubin’s email address is rubinj@washpost.com – in case you’d like to question her about her less than honest reporting.

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Comment of the Day – StR: “Maybe he’ll say his twitter was hacked.”

😆

begich, landrieu, nelson

Greg Sargent: Moments ago, the Dem bid in the Senate to end tax breaks for Big Oil fell short of the 60 need votes, 52-48. The only two Republicans who voted Yes: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

The Dems who opposed it: Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, and Ben Nelson.

Meanwhile, Senate Dems are circulating video of all the Senate Republicans who once supported ending them:

broken dreams

Steve Benen: Less than two months ago, Sen. Dick Lugar (R) of Indiana was still touting his support for the DREAM Act … one of the strongest Republican supporters of the bill not only boasted about being a co-sponsor of the measure, but said he hoped it will actually pass this year.

And then he got a primary challenger.

“As the politics of the 2012 election heat up, GOP Sen. Richard Lugar declined today to join Democrats in reintroducing an immigration measure he’s long supported. Lugar has for years co-sponsored with Sen. Dick Durbin a bill to let illegal immigrants who grew up in the United States earn legal status through college or the military.”

….The senator wants to do the right thing, and understands how worthwhile the legislation would be, but suddenly can’t be responsible because right-wing activists in his home state will kick him out of work unless he panders to them shamelessly.

We’re starting to see the same thing with Olympia Snowe (R) in Maine, who’s moving to the right, and Orrin Hatch (R) in Utah, who’s already dropped his strong support for the DREAM Act and is quickly becoming one of the institution’s most buffoonish hacks. Both are facing credible primaries, and so both have given up their decency. Now, we see Lugar starting to do the same thing. It’s quite sad.

Full post here

‘a single-minded vendetta’

Link

Steve Benen: There was a tidbit on Planned Parenthood’s wiki page that jumped out at me: “Planned Parenthood has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act….”

Wait, “since 1970”? If this is accurate – and I’ve seen this date referenced elsewhere – this means that every federal budget for more than four decades has provided public funds to Planned Parenthood and the preventative health care services they provide.

That would include, by the way, budgets approved under five Republican presidents – Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush – none of whom saw the need to scrap funding for the health organization.

Indeed, every Republican lawmaker who supported budgets under GOP administrations – a large group of long-time members, including Speaker John Boehner – voted to fund Planned Parenthood, over and over again.

More here

teabaggers & professional left unite

Oh boy, I just watched a BBC Panorama program on Libya tonight and there really are no words for how horrific it was. I knew Gaddafi was brutal towards his own people, but I actually had no idea just how brutal he is. There was footage of his thugs slaughtering protestors and of a detention block where the secret police tortured dissenters. And photos of the thousands of ‘disappeared’.

If this is a war, then it’s the most ‘just’ war in my lifetime.

And instead of expressing relief that there is now a united international effort to save these people, all a bitter Dennis Kucinich has to offer is a suggestion that the President be impeached? A suggestion that left the Teabaggers and Professional Left fainting with ecstasy. Not for the first time, those two hate-filled extremes are united.

They put their detestation of President Obama above the lives of those brutalised by Gaddafi?

Truly, it says it all.

And we all know what Kucinich and his Professional Left groupies would have said if the President chose to stay out of this international effort: “You’re abandoning the tortured!”

Pathetic. **** them.

champion of the working class! (except when they work for her)

AFP: The Huffington Post rebuffed a union boycott call over its practice of using unpaid bloggers, saying most of them are “thrilled to contribute” despite not being paid.

The Newspaper Guild, a union of US media workers with 26,000 members, urged contributors to The Huffington Post earlier this week to stop providing free content to the news and opinion website.

“Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line,” the guild said in a statement. “We feel it is unethical to expect trained and qualified professionals to contribute quality content for nothing”…

The guild urged founder, Arianna Huffington, who sold The Huffington Post to Web company AOL this month for $315 million, “to demonstrate her commitment to the working class she so ardently champions” by paying bloggers.

Mario Ruiz, a Huffington Post spokesman: “…..we make a distinction between our newsroom staffers and our group bloggers – most of whom are not professional writers but come from all walks of life. The vast majority of our bloggers are thrilled to contribute and we’re thrilled to have them.”

Full article here