A WSJ ARTICLE THAT LIMBAUGH AND HANNITY WON'T TALK ABOUT

(h/t Barry Ritholtz)

They won't talk about it because it contradicts their economic propaganda:

Federal Spending Cutbacks Slow Recovery 

Sharp Drop in Military, Stimulus Spending Take a Toll on Economic Rebound

By BEN CASSELMAN and CONOR DOUGHERTY
Updated July 30, 2012, 9:24 a.m. ET
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Falling military spending and the end of federal stimulus programs are further slowing the already weak U.S. economic recovery.

Recent economic data show that long before the fiscal cliff hits, federal spending already is falling—and taking a toll on the recovery. Federal spending and investment fell at an annual rate of 0.4% in the second quarter and has fallen 3.3% in the past year. Federal employment has fallen by more than 52,000 jobs in the past year and for the first time is lower than when the recovery began.

Such figures understate the full effect of the cuts, as lower federal spending hits military and civilian contractors and cuts into federally backed infrastructure spending at the state and local level. Taken together, the cuts are partially offsetting private-sector growth that, while slow, has been consistent.

"It's unbelievable how much the economy is getting hurt already by the sharp drop in federal spending," said Joe LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank.

SO, WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE DAMN FEDERAL REGULATIONS?

Conservatives regularly allege that Federal regulations are strangling the U.S. economy but I've never heard of or read of any specific examples.   The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has produced a study of the costs and benefits of many Federal regulations and the results don't justify the conservatives' hysteria:

The study’s findings include (figures are in 2001 dollars):

- From 1999 to 2009, the annual benefits of regulations were estimated to be between $128 billion and $616 billion; compliance and associated costs were annually between $43 billion and $55 billion.

- Over that decade, the Department of Health and Human Service’s 20 major rules annually yielded $21.9 billion to $44.4 billion in benefits and produced $5 billion to $6 billion in costs; within those department rules, the 10 major Food and Drug Administration rules produced $2.2 billion to $22.5 billion in annual benefits and $900 million and $1.3 billion in costs.

- Eight rules from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services yielded annual benefits of $18 billion to $20.9 billion and cost $3.4 billion to $4.6 billion.

- The annual benefits of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 19 air quality rules were $77.3 billion to $518 billion, while the costs were $20.6 billion to $23.7 billion.

- The benefits of the Office of Water’s rules were $2 billion to $5.6 billion, while the costs were $2 billion to $2.3 billion.

- Three Occupational Safety and Health rules annually cost $342 million to $369 million and produced $242 million to $1.4 billion in benefits.

- In 2009 executive agencies established 66 major rules. Of those, only 16 rules were fully quantified and monetized in terms of costs and benefits by the issuing agencies.

You can find the full report as a PDF here.

WHY IS MITTEN$ SO SHY ABOUT HIS TAXES?

(h/t ql at Atrios)
Joshua Holland at The Smirking Chimp goes over 10 current guesses:

1. Mormon Tithes
2. Things That Might Infuriate the Base
3. Harry Reid, Lazy Blogger
4. It's the IRAs
5. The Mini-Mitts
6. Is It All About 2009?
7. CEO, President and Chairman of Bain
8. Is Mitt a Felon?
9. Are There Other Non-Disclosures?
10. There's Nothing – It's Just His Sense of Entitlement

Mitten$ is most likely NOT a felon but I do think most Americans would be shocked at the legal tax scams he used.

THE WACKOS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE GOP

Republicans in Congress are much more intolerant than Republicans in the general population.

Congress lags behind public in support for same-sex marriage
By Kim Geiger
August 3, 2012, 9:20 a.m.
LA Times

Just one Republican in Congress, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, openly supports same-sex marriage.

The Pew poll found that 24% of Republicans said they support same-sex marriage, although Republicans in Congress are almost unanimously opposed.

WINGNUTS & VOTER FRAUD

One of the main defenses I've heard for stricter voter ID laws is the presumed fact that when a stricter law was implemented in Georgia, minority voting increased. As usual, the wingnut argument leaves out some crucial contextual information, as David Weigel points out:

Georgia's voter ID law was phased in over several years, after being hit by injunctions in 2006. Compared to Pennsylvania, Georgia had four times as many locations where voters could obtain IDs. And the election Montcrief's talking about, with higher turnout, was 2008 -- the Obama race, when black turnout surged. As the Brennan Center has pointed out, it rose at only half the rate of black turnout in North Carolina, an ID-less state.

POLITICO GETS NASTY

Specifically, reporter Manu Raju crossed the line with this phrase: "The ruthless Senate majority leader".

EVEN REPUBLICANS WANT A FAIRER SOCIETY

Back in 2010, I wrote a post about a study of attitudes towards wealth inequality in America and I was pleased to learn that most Americans, even Republicans, would prefer a more equal distribution of wealth:

This graph is from this paper:

Building a better America-one wealth quintile at a time
Author: Norton M.I.; Ariely D.
Perspectives on Psychological Science, v6 n1 (2011 08 23): 9-12

I was a little concerned about the sample because Ariely does a lot of his research online so I went to the paper and found that it isn't problematic:

A nationally representative online sample of respondents (N = 5,522, 51% female, mean age = 44.1), randomly drawn from a panel of more than 1 million Americans, completed the survey in December, 2005.1 Respondents' household income (median = $45,000) was similar to that reported in the 2006 United States census (median = $48,000), and their voting pattern in the 2004 election (50.6% Bush, 46.0% Kerry) was also similar to the actual outcome (50.8% Bush, 48.3% Kerry). In addition, the sample contained respondents from 47 states.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER IS A WHORE

The title of his recent op-ed is enough to make a sane person nauseous: "Romney’s excellent trip".

This will be enough to make him vomit:

The Warsaw leg was a triumph. Romney’s speech warmly embraced Poland’s post-communist experiment as a stirring example of a nation committed to limited government at home and a close alliance with America abroad, even unto such godforsaken war zones as Afghanistan and Iraq, at great cost to itself and with little thanks.

As I noted below, Poland is a socialist country.

MITTEN$ IS HURTING

He's been caught lying about his tenure at Bain and he refuses to give the American people as much tax information as he gave the McCain campaign.

Hiring a professional hack is not only suspicious, the choice of someone connected to Fannie Mae is incredibly lame.

This may have been the motivation behind Mark Levin's attacks tonight on wealthy Democrats, from FDR to John Kerry.

GOOD FOR HARRY!

Sen. Harry Reid told the press that a Bain investor told him that Mitten$ didn't pay any income tax for 10 years.  Mitten$ is very upset BUT HE WON'T SHOW US HIS RETURNS!!!

I do hope that Reid isn't swiftboating Mitten$ but even if he is, I still like the fact that a Dem is willing to play hardball against these freakshows.

MORE ON MITTEN$ & CULTURE

Polymath Jared Diamond gives Mitten$ a smackdown in a NYT op-ed:

Romney Hasn’t Done His Homework
By JARED DIAMOND
Published: August 1, 2012
NY Times

It is not true that my book “Guns, Germs and Steel,” as Mr. Romney described it in a speech in Jerusalem, “basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth.”

That is so different from what my book actually says that I have to doubt whether Mr. Romney read it. My focus was mostly on biological features, like plant and animal species, and among physical characteristics, the ones I mentioned were continents’ sizes and shapes and relative isolation.

That’s not the worst part. Even scholars who emphasize social rather than geographic explanations — like the Harvard economist David S. Landes, whose book “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” was mentioned favorably by Mr. Romney — would find Mr. Romney’s statement that “culture makes all the difference” dangerously out of date. In fact, Mr. Landes analyzed multiple factors (including climate) in explaining why the industrial revolution first occurred in Europe and not elsewhere.

2010 ALSO HAD ANOTHER "BIDEN MOMENT"

(h/t Atrios)

In April 2010, VP Joe Biden said the economy would soon be generating 500K jobs a month and for that he deserved all the ridicule he received.

Worse, a few months later, we had this nonsense in the NY Times:

Op-Ed Contributor
Welcome to the Recovery
By TIMOTHY F. GEITHNER
Published: August 2, 2010

MITTEN$ IS OUT OF TOUCH, HEARING & SIGHT

Romney doesn't seem to understand that the wingnuts have been whining about Fannie Mae and the bank bailout (TARP) which is the only reason I can think of he would hire a woman, Michele Davis, who was deeply involved in both.  How can he expect her, essentially a fellow bankster, to sanitize Mitten$ Bain connection?

Romney Taps Former Paulson Aide, Fannie Mae Vet For Bain Rehab

Michele Davis will join the Romney campaign to defend his reputation in the private sector. She brings her own baggage from Fannie Mae, and has been sympathetic to the Obama Administration.

Ben Smith
Posted Aug 1, 2012 9:36pm EDT
BuzzFeed

As I have written several times before, Mitten$ just isn't ready for prime-time.

ANOTHER PUZZLING BAGGER CONCESSION

The House Baggers have given up on threatening to force a shut-down of the Federal government at the end of September and didn't even get a few billions knocked off the budget.  Have they realized that the last time they pulled this crap they lost badly and hurt the country?

House conservatives determined to slash spending relent on compromise deal
From Deirdre Walsh, CNN Senior Congressional Producer
updated 9:11 PM EDT, Wed August 1, 2012

The compromise denies conservative House Republicans -- including tea party-backed freshmen -- their strongest negotiating tool to enact the spending cuts they promised when running for Congress in 2010. But rather than opposing the deal, conservative legislators said Wednesday they were the ones pushing for it.

Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador, who participated in a series of meetings on legislative strategy over several weeks with House and Senate conservatives, told CNN that "there's a time to fight and there's a time to not fight."

Conservatives have lost every spending fight in Congress in the last year, Labrador said, so the feeling was that "the best option was to take the issue (the spending bill) off the table."

Current funding for federal agencies runs out at the end of September, and the agreement announced Tuesday by Boehner, R-Ohio, and Reid, D-Nevada, extends federal funding through March at the level that was set in last summer's debt deal -- $1.047 trillion.

THE FREE MARKET FAIRY IS FAILING...

The SEC has warned that the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market needs a lot more "sunshine":

The report devotes most of its attention to the relative lack of information that is available to investors about the municipal bonds they are buying. This has made it harder for investors to evaluate the prices, and easier for financial companies to overcharge municipalities when helping them issue bonds, according to the report.

I has assumed that this was already being done because I've internalized some of the massive amount of pro-market propaganda.

Also too, unaccountable program trading is still a threat to the stock markets:

Flood of Errant Trades Is a Black Eye for Wall Street
By NATHANIEL POPPER
Published: August 1, 2012
NY Times

An automated stock trading program suddenly flooded the market with millions of trades Wednesday morning, spreading turmoil across Wall Street and drawing renewed attention to the fragility and instability of the nation’s stock markets.

The errant trades began hitting exchanges almost as soon as the opening bell rang and came from a single New Jersey broker that specializes in computer-driven trading, the Knight Capital Group.

MITTEN$, CULTURE AND INNOVATION

To make up a little for my ignorance, I've been reading a 1-volume history of China and I've been impressed by the number of Chinese inventions and discoveries.  It seems clear that in many ways, the Chinese were centuries ahead of Western (Christian or Pagan) Europe.

Pascal's Triangle (1654 AD) was preceded by the Chinese version in 1303 AD.

Magnetic compasses were first used to determine direction between 850 AD and 1050 AD by the Chinese.

Paper and Printing were created first by the Chinese:

In the Han dynasty, 206B.C.-A.D.220, paper and ink were invented.

In the T'ang dynasty, 618-906, the first printer was invented. In 868 AD the earliest known book ever was printed.

The Wheelbarrow is also Chinese: "Chuko Liang (181-234 A.D.) of China is considered to be the inventor of the wheelbarrow."

Cast iron in the east: 513 BC

Thus far in the story iron has been heated and hammered, but never melted. Its melting point (1528°C) is too high for primitive furnaces, which can reach about 1300°C and are adequate for copper (melting at 1083°C). This limitation is overcome when the Chinese develop a furnace hot enough to melt iron, enabling them to produce the world's first cast iron - an event traditionally dated in the Chinese histories to 513 BC.

In this they are a thousand and more years ahead of the western world. The first iron foundry in England, for example, dates only from AD 1161. By that time the Chinese have already pioneered the structural use of cast iron, using it sometimes for the pillars of full-size pagodas.

Steel:

In the Second Century B.C., the Chinese developed what became known in the West as the Bessemer process. They developed a method for converting cast iron into steel, by blowing air on the molten metal, which reduced the carbon content.

Under the Song dynasty, the iron and steel industry reached a level that was spectacular, compared to that in Europe. Between 850 and 1050, iron production increased 12-fold. By 1078, North China was producing more than 114,000 tons of pig iron a year. In 1788, seven hundred years later, England's production of pig iron was around 50,000 tons.

REP. STEVE KING (R-IA) GETS TODAY'S DAILY DOUBLE

He's stupid AND cruel.

THE NRO GETS HALF-CREDIT

MITTEN$ was allowed to post on the National Review Online some bromides and lies about culture. I responded with the AP's fact check about Poland and a list of MOTU scandals, beginning with junk bond king Michael Milken and ending with the LIBOR outrage. The NRO published the first one but not the second.

SORT OF GOOD NEWS

In Arizona, the race for the US Senate relinquished by Jon Kyl is between a Blue Dog Democrat (Carmona) and a RINO (Flake). The good news is that right now PPP reports they are tied:

Poll: Carmona Tied With Flake in U.S. Senate Race
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:30 PM

Democrat Richard Carmona is tied with likely GOP nominee Jeff Flake in this year's U.S. Senate race, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey.

The PPP survey, commissioned by the League of Conservation Voters, shows that both candidates have the support of 38 percent of voters.

The survey also shows that Mitt Romney is leading Barack Obama, 52 percent to 41 percent, among Arizona voters.

You can check out the survey yourself here.

In statewide AZ elections, getting a Blue Dog is a step in the right direction.

"THE ART OF THE CALL SCREENER"

That's the title of a 3-part article on Radio-Info.com and the 1st part has this tidbit:

Remember, normal people don’t call talk shows. Mostly, it’s the weird ones, with the strange experiences and vision and stories to tell, who create those “magic moments” on air.

IS MITTEN$ A CLOSET SOCIALIST...

or is he just ignorant?  This is the second time he heaped praise on a socialist economy:

FACT CHECK: Romney on Polish economy, gov't role
By VANESSA GERA | Associated Press – 9 hrs ago

Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney hailed Poland's economy Tuesday as something akin to a Republican dream: a place of small government, individual empowerment and free enterprise.


Even 23 years after throwing off a communist command economy, the Polish government continues to have a strong presence in people's lives: it gives women $300 for each baby they have, doubling that sum for poor families; it fully funds state university educations; and it guarantees health care to all its 38 million citizen

THE MANUFACTURING OF COMPLACENCY

(h/t Atrios)

FAUX News is not the worst offender among TV news for keeping the outrageous LIBOR scandal below the radar screen. 

Media Matters has a nice graph that shows how lame our news media is when it comes to covering bankster shenanigans:

MITTEN$ IS A SOCIOPATH

Just like Sarah Palin, he can't stop lying.

Blue Texan at Crooks & Liars has the evidence:

Mitt Romney, who's currently in Israel holding secretive fundraisers out of the view of the press, loves to brag about his close friendship with with Bibi Netanyahu.

“We can almost speak in shorthand,” Mr. Romney said in an interview. “We share common experiences and have a perspective and underpinning which is similar.” [...] “Before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: ‘Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?’"

And,

“Israel’s current prime minister is not just a friend, he’s an old friend,” Mitt Romney, with whom Netanyahu worked at the Boston Consulting Group in the 1970s, told aipac in March.

Mitt and Bibi: BFFs!
Except no one told Bibi.

“I remember him for sure, but I don’t think we had any particular connections,” he tells me. “I knew him and he knew me, I suppose.”

Yes, Bibi Netanyahu just called Mitt Romney a liar.

MITTEN$ SHOOTS...AND MISSES (AGAIN)

Romney played culture warrior when he was in Israel and managed to further piss off the Palestinians by claiming their culture sucks. 24 hours later, another aide vainly attempts to walk back another Mitten$ gaffe.

MOVEMENT CONSERVATISM == FAIL

A little history: The Heritage Foundation was created in 1973; the modern version of the American Enterprise Institute began in 1954;  the Cato Institute was founded in 1977; Fats Limbaugh went nationwide in 1988 and FAUX News began in 1996.

A startling admission this morning:  Bill "Slots" Bennett and Byron "Goodhair" York agreed that Americans didn't understand and appreciate their version of Capitalism. 

I'd say that this is a huge FAIL for the movement and the same applies to the Fundies efforts to take our morality back to the Bronze Age.

WHY NOT HERE?

I've noted before that Israel, the conservatives favorite country, has a national health care system and now Mitten$ himself has praised the Israeli system, perhaps unintentionally.

If government intervention is good enough for Israel, Britain, Singapore and Germany, to name just a few countries, why isn't it good enough for America?

STRESS AND THE WINGNUTS

I just read Roy Edroso's survey column about wingnut reaction to the Olympics and it brought to mind a thought I had a few years ago: the stress the wingnuts are under daily must take a toll on their health.   All that outrage must have some ill effects on their bodies.

I COULDN'T RESIST

H/T Go-Cowboys on POLITICO

MORE BECK BULLSHIT

Over a month ago, I heard Beck say that his latest farce at Dallas Cowboy Stadium was sold out.  Depending on the configuration, the stadium can seat between 80,000 and 100,000 but according to the UPI, only 40,000 people attended.  The Dallas-Forth Worth StarTelegram reported that "Organizers said more than 40,000 tickets were sold."

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/07/29/4134511/tens-of-thousands-turn-out-to.html#storylink=cpy"

FACTS? TRY GETTING THE SPELLING RIGHT FIRST

Richard Muller, a scientific skeptic on global warming, pens an op-ed in the NYT that admits his scientific qualms are unjustified.  Super-genius AJ Strata can't even get the name of Muller's university right:

DARTH VS. CARIBOU BARBIE

This is what liberals have been saying about Palin since Cranky McWar picked her:

Dick Cheney: Picking Sarah Palin for VP Was 'A Mistake'
By Jonathan Karl | ABC News – 10 hrs ago

In his first interview since receiving a heart transplant in March, Cheney told ABC News, that John McCain's decision to pick Palin as his running mate in 2008 was "a mistake" - one that it is important from Romney not to repeat.

"That one," Cheney said, "I don't think was well handled."

"The test to get on that small list has to be, 'Is this person capable of being president of the United States?'"

Cheney believes Sarah Palin failed that test.

"I like Governor Palin. I've met her. I know her. She - attractive candidate. But based on her background, she'd only been governor for, what, two years. I don't think she passed that test…of being ready to take over. And I think that was a mistake."

FATS LIMBAUGH == MARKET FAILURE

You may recall that the Supreme Court greatly curtailed the Federal governments ability to force states to increase their Medicaid rolls.  Fats Limbaugh couldn't tell the difference between Medicaid and Medicare despite making over $40 Million a year:

The Unfolding Obamacare Disaster
July 25, 2012

RUSH: Now, they do note that this is largely due to the Supreme Court allowing states to opt out of expanding Medicare, as was required under Obamacare. The states can opt out. But what does that mean? The states opt out of Medicare, it means that this savings is only due to fewer people getting free health insurance from the government, quote, unquote.