Welcome to The Now

My feelings about the debt ceiling deal is pretty much like this : It's bad but the 2010 election results made this inevitable. I worked through my anger and despair last November; now I'm just looking forward to 2012. There will be no progress until the GOP is completely out of power and that is still a goal worth fighting for. I know the White House is pushing to make this seem like everyone gained something from it . That's OK; that's their job. The GOP, Grover Norquist and various Congressional Democrats are doing the same thing. 11th Hour legislation makes for strange bedfellows. But we need to remember how we got here. Financially-speaking, much of this mess occurred during the housing crisis and the sloppy way it was addressed. Politically -and I can't stress this enough- this ordeal was written in stone the minute the Tea Party-infused GOP won back the House of Representatives . If Barack Obama should be blamed politically for anything from th...

C'mon; you know the answer .

From The Boston Globe : Cities and towns across the state are diverting large sums of money to “rainy day’’ accounts even as they lay off employees and make deep cuts to schools and services, girding for what many believe will be a long period of austerity. Municipal leaders give a variety of reasons — cuts in state aid, anticipated increases in health care costs, dwindling federal stimulus funds — but the financial stockpiling is also a signal they fear the funding enjoyed before the financial collapse will not return anytime soon. “This is the new normal,’’ said Mayor Dean J. Mazzarella of Leominster, which set aside $3 million this year while it also made sharp cuts that included layoffs. “And we need to adjust.’’ The increase in savings is significant — even surprising. Municipalities saved, on average, more than 6 percent of their fiscal 2009 budgets, the highest rate since at least 1994. Meanwhile, over in The New York Times ... Republicans who have taken over state ...

Goes to show that even MD politics can get dirty .

I've heard the GOP say pretty much the same thing : they plan on extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone (including rich people), repealing the (water-down) health care reform, sealing the border and cutting spending on things that make up less than 10% of the budget. I noticed a trend here: these are all (for Republicans, anyway) domestic agendas . As in, "they haven't really talked about foreign policy." Nothing about Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Iran. Or North Korea. Nothing about Al-Qaida. Or the Taliban. Or Osama bin Laden. That's probably because talking about "fighting them over there" has run its course. Fear of things outside America has been trumped by fear of things inside America (we can thank the Housing Crisis for getting that ball rolling). Nevertheless, it's certainly shocking to see a political party who was all about military-based patriotism (read: they supported the wars but they'd be damned if they had to actually fight them,...

"I think the analogy that the economy was a car in a ditch when he took office that he uses is just a little too static. Here's my analogy, which in my opinion is both more kinetic and, frankly, far more accurate. When the president took office not only had the car gone into a ditch but the car had flipped over and was rolling down a steep embankment. We, the American people, were in the back seat and the Bush administration had removed all the seat belts. So we were all flying around the interior of this car, as it was rolling and flipping and careening down this steep embankment heading to ...a 2,000-foot cliff. And at the bottom of that cliff were jagged rocks and alligators. Now at noon on January 20th, 2009 as the car was careening toward the cliff, George W. Bush jumped out of the car. President Bush jumped out of the car and President Obama somehow managed to dive in through the window, take the wheel, get control of the vehicle, just inches before it went over the prec...

Something tells me that they may not be so grassroots after all . /sarcasm

Quite the contrary.

Because odds are if any Tea Party candidates win as Republicans, they won't have the "power" they'll claim they'll have to "clean up government."

They decide to remind the American People of the things they have accomplished . Congress passed an $814 billion economic-stimulus package soon after President Obama took office, tapping a staggering sum of money to avoid a full-blown depression. Democrats have trumpeted the gains from that effort but know it's not enough for restive voters. "Americans still see themselves in a ditch," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D., Md.). The two other landmark acts of this session were the health-care overhaul, a giant step toward universal coverage that had eluded presidents back to Franklin Roosevelt if not Teddy Roosevelt, and the Wall Street accountability act. Obama has also signed into law at least a dozen other pieces of legislation of significance. They include: Making college loans more affordable. The Cash for Clunkers program to help the auto industry. New consumer protections for credit-card users. Making it easier for women to challenge pay dis...

They haven't mastered the art of touting their accomplishments, believing that the average American has time to figure out/remember what's been done with them . What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed? It is not a rhetorical question. At Pig Pickin’ and Politickin’, a barbecue-fed rally organized here last week by a Republican women’s club, a half-dozen guests were asked by a reporter what had happened to their taxes since President Obama took office. “Federal and state have both gone up,” said Bob Paratore, 59, from nearby Charlotte, echoing the comments of others. After further prodding — including a reminder that a provision of the stimulus bill had cut taxes for 95 percent of working families by changing withholding rates — Mr. Paratore’s memory was jogged. “You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you: it was so subtle that personally, I didn’t notice it.” Few people ...

Which could be overlooked had she not all but admitted it to a group of Latino college students .

This passage from the TPM post says it all : It does seem odd that a demographic known for doing menial labor at below the legal minimum wage would get a ride in a limo. Also, it should be noted that among the crowds of Americans being taken advantage of by the illegal immigrants in the ad -- taxpayers, police, that old-fashioned Louisiana marching band -- all but one of them are white.

Here's one theory that's worth a look .

Christine O'Donnell uses her relationship with Sean Hannity to hold the RNC hostage .

In other words: as long as the crazies can spend cash to make them look sane, they can continue being crazy.

(See here for details)

TPM story here . Soooo...the message seems to be: evil immigrants (even money says they're coming from a "brown" country) are going to shot up your stop signs and kidnap your little blond-haired, blue-eyed baby, just like in Man on Fire ! Except this is real life, and the black guy is not a hero . Did I miss anything?

"I don't know that I would put that label on them. They were doing what they thought was right for their country. And they were going out and fighting what they thought was a bigger, you know, a bigger evil." -- Ohio Congressional candidate ( and Nazi sympathizer ) Rich Iott.

Better late than never, I guess.