THE FUNDIES LOSE THIS ROUND

The religious barbarians who backed Ken Blackwell to be the new chair of the RNC didn't get their way. Michael Steele, a "moderate" Republican, won and the social conservatives aren't happy:

GOP picks its first black chairman, but will change follow?
By James Rosen and Halimah Abdullah | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday, January 30, 2009

Steve Scheffler, head of the Iowa Christian Alliance, said Steele had ties to Republicans for Choice, Log Cabin Republicans — a gay-rights group — and others at odds with party conservatives.

"It's a whole group that is as far left as you can get," Scheffler said. "I'll support Steele because I'm a good party solider, but certainly he's my last choice."

GOING AGAINST POPULISM

Today, Hannity criticized Obama because he spoke out against the obscene Wall Street bonuses - Obama Calls Wall Street Bonuses ‘Shameful’ - because he thinks that's a move against the free market. The Deal Journal, a WSJ blog, came out in support of Obama and had this advice:

Lloyd Blankfein, John Mack, Jamie Dimon and Ken Lewis should get on the Acela to Washington. They should head immediately to their most important shareholder at the White House. There they can explain what they are going to do to show that Wall Street does indeed “get it” while taxpayers pay for their sins.

This captures the majority opinion in the comments section:

Let’s make it very simple:

TARP= No Bonuses.

No TARP= Bankruptcy.

Choose.
Comment by answer to ??? - January 30, 2009 at 5:52 pm

HANNITY GETS AN INFORMED CALLER

You may have heard that the House conservatives objected to spending money on contraception and the talk radio gasbags think that this is wasteful spending. A woman called Hannity and asked him about Ann Coulter's diatribe against single mothers and wondered if she would approve of more contraception. This is another example of a wingnut narrative collapsing and all Hannity could do was say that was a good point and he'd ask Ann the next time he spoke with her.

WHY ARIZONA NEEDS THE STIMULUS BILL

Leaving aside humanitarian concerns, Arizona needs the extra Medicaid money from the Federal government to avoid major cuts in health care funding. Because of the collapse of the housing market, the state is short of revenue and the hospitals will have to cut staff unless they get offsetting funding from the Feds.

Hospitals brace for loss of funds to care for poor
By Stephanie Innes
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 01.30.2009

Legislative proposals call for pulling $8.9 million in "disproportionate share" money, which refers to money the state gives to hospitals with a higher-than-average number of patients who are either uninsured or enrolled in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's form of Medicaid.

Since that money comes with matching funds from the federal government, the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association says the proposed cuts would amount to a loss of $26 million to the state's so-called "safety net" hospitals, which provide a significant level of care to low-income, uninsured and vulnerable populations.

The chief financial officer at University Medical Center in Tucson says the cumulative effect of existing and proposed cuts to hospital health care in Arizona would be "devastating" to the city's only Level One Trauma Center, which has one of the largest loads of AHCCCS patients in the state.

About 35 percent of UMC's patient volume are AHCCCS patients, and another 5 percent have no insurance at all. Last year the hospital received $1.5 million in disproportionate share funding.

"We're fighting very hard. We don't want to cut staff," said Kevin Burns, UMC's chief financial officer.

The hospital projects a 10 to 15 percent increase in AHCCCS patients over the next year or so.

THIS is what the bill would do:

Relief Seen for Jobless and States in Health Care Plan
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 27, 2009
NY Times

Of the $127 billion cost, the Congressional Budget Office said, $87 billion would be used to increase the federal share of Medicaid, $29 billion would subsidize private insurance and $11 billion would finance Medicaid for unemployed workers who could not otherwise qualify.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BLOWS

I mean the editorial and opinion sections of an otherwise great newspaper. A war criminal (Yoo), a political criminal (Rove) and a lying gasbag (Limbaugh) can get printed almost any time they want to and you can bet that the radio gasbags will repeat their agit-prop.

VOTER FRAUD IN OHIO?

Not so much, really. The wingnuts scream and whine about voter fraud before and right after most elections and in Ohio, the claims were shown to be vastly over blown. Of 600 claimed cases, only 1 was fraud.

Only one voter fraud case found
By Kimball Perry • kperry@enquirer.com • January 27, 2009
Cincinnati Enquirer

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said he had allegations last fall of widespread voter fraud – allegations a special prosecutor reported Tuesday were wrong, noting the only voter fraud found was from a Connecticut man who told on himself.

“Ultimately,” Special Prosecutor Michael O’Neill wrote in a report, “the investigators discovered ‘get-out-the-vote’ practices, sponsored by community organizations, which took full advantage of this unique absentee-voting period, but no evidence these practices violated Ohio law.”

Deters was Southwest Ohio regional chairman of Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign, when he complained in October that some people were violating the so-called “golden week” that allowed anyone to register to vote and then vote at the same time.

Deters claimed his office had concrete allegations that people were offered booze and cigarettes to vote specific ways, suggesting they were voting for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Deters specifically asked at that time that more than 600 votes cast between Sep. 30 and Oct. 6 – the “golden week” – be investigated because of the allegations of widespread voter fraud.

FATS LIMBAUGH IS STILL PLAYING DEFENSE

Today, Fats made a rare appearance on another wingnut's show to try to defend himself from the results of Obama's remark about him. Mark Levin let him on and Fats repeated his claim that the Left was using one of Saul Alinsky's tactics against him. According to these two freaks, MoveOn and one or more labor unions are preparing to run ads attacking Pigboy and they welcome them because that will help solidify and energize the conservative base. I suspect that's true but it will also make more people aware of how far outside the mainstream Fats really is.

The Politico has a little more information about this and does us liberals a service by playing up the conflict:

Are you with Obama or Rush?
By JONATHAN MARTIN 1/29/09 8:00 PM EST Updated: 1/29/09 9:58 PM EST

Politico has learned that tomorrow Americans United for Change, a liberal group, will begin airing radio ads in three states Obama won — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada — with a tough question aimed at the GOP senators there: Will you side with Obama or Rush Limbaugh?

“Every Republican member of the House chose to take Rush Limbaugh’s advice,” says the narrator after playing the conservative talk radio giant’s declaration that he hopes Obama “fails.”

“Every Republican voted with Limbaugh — and against creating 4 million new American jobs. We can understand why a extreme partisan like Rush Limbaugh wants President Obama’s Jobs program to fail — but the members of Congress elected to represent the citizens in their districts? That’s another matter. Now the Obama plan goes to the Senate, and the question is: Will our Senator"—here the ad is tailored by state to name George Voinovich in Ohio, Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, and John Ensign in Nevada—"side with Rush Limbaugh too?”

FATS LIMBAUGH IS ON THE DEFENSIVE

That's how he sounds today. In the 3rd hour of his show, he's going on and on about what he meant by saying he hopes Obama fails and by using the rule of thumb "if you're playing defense, you're losing," I think Fats knows he's losing this one.

AN INTERESTING PHRASE

Fats Limbaugh is still in the news for his extremely partisan desire to have Obama fail. You mae recall that Fats tried to prevent McCain from winning the GOP nomination so the remark by this fellow may be something of a payback BUT I love it when Republicans call one of their own "extreme."

Is Rush Limbaugh the New Face of the GOP?
The Fix by Chris Cillizza
Washington Post Politics Blog

John Weaver, a former senior aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said that Republicans must be careful not to allow their Democratic rivals to paint them all with the brush of Limbaugh.

"The Democrats and the far left will do all they can to grab electoral turf," said Weaver. "And one sure way to do it is take some of the most controversial voices on the extreme right -- like Limbaugh and [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin -- and try to insist they speak for all members of the center/right movement."

Perhaps Fats can take Bill Kristol's place at the New York Times?

IS TRUST RATIONAL?

Robert J. Schiller¹ writes that we need to restore the "animal spirits" of capitalism by retoring trust in the system but I am skeptical. In the Dot-Com bubble, we learned that stock analysts can't be trusted. In the Enron scandal, we learned that the accountants can't be trusted. The Big ShitPile has shown us that the ratings companies can't be trusted.

Isn't time we overhauled the entire system?

¹JANUARY 27, 2009
Animal Spirits Depend on Trust
The proposed stimulus isn't big enough to restore confidence.
Wall Street Journal

THE FOOD FIGHT CONTINIUES

Yesterday, Lou Dobbs spoke out against those who are hoping that Obama fails and that makes 2 wingers who openly disagree with Fats Limbaugh. Fats and Hannity even took a hit from a Republican Congressman:

Limbaugh takes a hit from Gingrey
By JONATHAN MARTIN 1/28/09 4:15 AM EST
The Politico

Responding to President Barack Obama’s recommendation to Republican congressional leaders last week that they not follow Limbaugh’s lead, the conservative talkmeister said on his show that Obama is “obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He’s more frightened of me than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn’t say much about our party.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), who heads the conservative Republican Study Committee, did not take kindly to this assessment in an interview with Politico Tuesday.

“I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach,” Gingrey said.

“I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party.You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn’t be or wouldn’t be good leaders, they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell.”

Mark "Foamer" Levin was upset with Gingrey for pointing out that Fats and Hannity are really just gasbags and promised that he and others would strongly defend Fats. He even had one of his flunkies place a call to Gingrey to try to get him to do an interview.

OBAMA DIDN'T GET MUCH OF A HONEYMOON

The wingnuts have continued their attacks on him and several - Fats Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Joseph Farah and Mark Thiessen, to name a few - have openly hoped that Obama fails.
Pres. Obama gave a promising interview to the Arab satellite network al-Arabiya and seems to do a good job:

President Obama has launched a determined effort to change the tone, if not yet the substance, of U.S. relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds, saying he is eager to listen to their concerns and acknowledging that Americans "have not been perfect" in their dealings with them. (WaPo)

Al-Arabiya provided a transcript that fleshes this out a bit:

My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.

That was too much for Sean Hannity, who blasted Pres. Obama on his radio show yesterday by asserting that this statement reflects a "blame America first" mentality.

REMEMBER THE FUSS ABOUT HILLARY & CATTLE FUTURES?

Hillary Clinton invested $1000 in cattle futures and it turned into $100,000. The wingnuts went nuts about this during their prolonged Whitewater witch hunt. Now we learn that the wife of a MOTU has done much, much better:

Deal of the Decade? Lehman's Fuld Gave $13.75 Mil Estate to Wife for $100
Transfer Could Be Effort to Avoid Potential Creditors, Attorneys Say
By MEGAN CHUCHMACH
January 26, 2009
The Blotter
ABC News

Less than two months after the investment banking firm he led collapsed in the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, Lehman Brothers CEO and Chairman Richard Fuld transferred his $13.75 million ocean front estate in Jupiter Island, FL to his wife for just one Benjamin Franklin bill, Florida real estate records reveal.

Fuld certainly knows how to look out for #1:

Nell Minow, the editor of the research firm, The Corporate Library, highlighted Fuld's compensation, which exceeded $70 million last year.

"I think it is fair to say by any standard of measurement that this pay plan is as uncorrelated to performance as it is possible to be," she said.

FATS VERSUS SLOTS VERSUS AMERICA

I love gasbag food fights! Bill "Slots" Bennett chastised Fats Limbaugh for openly hoping that Obama fails. Bennett could've criticized Fats many times during the last few years so I'm a little puzzled why he chose to speak out now. Radio industry observer Tom Taylor thinks that Rush "probably can't lose" this fight and that's probably true from a strictly economic perspective but not from a political one. Fats has hitched his wagon to a fading ideology and he recent attempts to influence the political process were failures. Taking on Obama only tells most Americans that Fats is out of step with the mood and needs of the country.

THE PARTY OF STUPID

I was amazed when one wingnut described "mark to market" as Marxist and even more amazed that Limbaugh thinks access to information is unAmerican. (h/t Pam Spaulding) Pres. Obama overturned Bush's executive order that kept many important documents unnecessarily secret, including his father's White House records. Ryan Powers at Think Progress reports that Pigboy really didn't like this:

LIMBAUGH: What I’m afraid of is that what Obama did with this executive order is actually make it easier for the media to go get Bush documents. Because you know Pelosi and some of the guys over in congress are talking about war crimes trials and charges and so forth. […]

What I’m afraid of is what Obama’s done here is made the gathering of the information for this kind of stuff– This is not American. This is not America. This is not what America does. We don’t– This is Banana Republic kind of stuff.

PETTY PEOPLE

I don't claim that pettiness is confined to conservatives but they are often so absorbed in themselves and their ideologies that it might as well be. Justice Alito STILL hasn't gotten over his confirmation hearings (LAT):

The absence of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was at the court Wednesday morning for arguments in two cases, was a mystery. He has, however, voiced lingering anger over Senate Democrats, including Obama and Biden, who voted against his confirmation three years ago. When walking on Capitol Hill, Alito has said, he crosses to the far side of the street whenever he nears the Senate Office Building.

Secretary Rice also has an ego problem (Scott Horton at Harper's via Atrios):

I met last week with a number of career State Department employees and was surprised when one said she was looking forward to the “Glinda Party” next week. I asked her: if Hillary was Glinda, the Good Witch of the South from the Wizard of Oz, did that make Condoleezza Rice the Wicked Witch of the West?

“You’re on to it,” she said. Another person pointed out to me that after Rice’s arrival in 2005 the tone of official State Department publications changed; they began to praise and glorify Rice. “No prior secretary,” said the twenty-year veteran, “did anything like this.”

PROMISES KEPT

I was listening to one of the radio wingnuts, maybe Jerry Doyle, and he claimed that Obama hasn't kept most of his relevant campaign promises. He said there were 510 total promises and I thought that someone must've been busy keeping track. Atrios noted that CNN said the same thing a few days ago, so this is probably a new wingnut meme.

It seems that a newspaper is behind the 510 number, according to Jamison Foser of Media Matters:

...PolitiFact.com, the St. Petersburg Times' political fact-checking operation, that it plans to closely track Barack Obama's progress in keeping his campaign promises is an encouraging sign that the news media will apply to Obama the kind of substantive scrutiny Bush too often escaped.

Unfortunately, PolitiFact's effort seems to lack a much-needed sense of perspective. PolitiFact has compiled a list of what it describes as 510 promises Obama made during his presidential campaign and plans to rate each a "Promise Kept," a "Promise Broken," or a "Compromise."

Let's take a look at some of what Obama has done so far:

- Plan to tighten up the idiotically loose financial system (NYT)

...many major companies and financial instruments now mostly unsupervised must be swept back under a larger regulatory umbrella, has been embraced as a guiding principle by the administration, officials said.

- End the ban on giving Federal money to international groups that provide true choice on reproduction to women (AP)

President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information—

- Announces plan to close Guantanmo within a year AND a halt to torture (Reuters)

President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered the closure of the Guantanamo military prison within a year and a halt to harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects, moving quickly to restore the U.S. image abroad.

- Met with his national security team to begin planning for withdrawing from Iraq (NYT)

On his first full day in office, Mr. Obama summoned senior civilian and uniformed officials to the White House to begin fulfilling his campaign promise to pull combat forces out of Iraq in 16 months. ... “I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement after the meeting.

- Allow the states to set their own emissions standards (NYT)

President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday. ... Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.

ANOTHER AMERICAN MORALITY MULLAH

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson was on Billy Cunningham's radio show tonight and continued his vicious attacks. Tonight he made this ugly claim:

"Black people don't vote for people who are good."

By "good" he meant decent and honest, like Michael Steele(!). Here he was implying that Obama isn't "good" and that was exactly what Cunningham wanted to hear.