The Hill's headline about President Obama's expected veto of the Keystone XL pipeline calls the putative veto "divisive", and even has the nerve to speculate that Republicans could successfully paint Mr. Obama as "obstructionist" if he vetoes too many bills. Strange how the "liberal" media didn't call Republicans "obstructionist" when they won all those Senate votes 41-59, or when individual Senators put holds on countless bills and judicial nominees that actually had broad bipartisan support. Republicans essentially nullified the 2008 election, but apparently, for the "liberal" media, the 2014 election is the only one that really counts.
David Dayen chronicles the failure of the Obama Administration's infamous Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP. HAMP gave banksters "financial inducements to modify loans for at-risk borrowers," but let the banksters determine how to disburse aid and to whom. And this is a program Mr. Obama didn't even need Congressional approval to do right! Naturally Obamanoids would counter that reducing principals for underwater homeowners would have put trillions in derivatives at risk. You recognize that, right, from your Debt Ceiling Studies class? That's right, it's a hostage situation -- it's as if they're saying, don't help homeowners, or I'll blow this economy's brains out!
"Don't Listen to Anyone Who Says the Unemployment Rate is a Big Lie," advises Matt O'Brien in the Washington Post. I wouldn't go that far -- like Mr. O'Brien, I've been cataloguing the U6 unemployment rate (still nearly twice the official U3 rate, in case you were wondering) with the appropriate regularity. Here's what I would say instead: "Don"t listen to anyone who says the unemployment rate is a 'big lie' if that person was completely silent about the matter during the Clinton and Bush years."
In a related note, Democrats still aren't prepared to handle our ongoing problem with the income gap between the very rich and the very poor. The very notion that Democrats would still listen to Larry Summers about anything tells me the Democrats don't listen to the American people -- or would like to convince the American people they're listening without actually listening. And that is why Scott Walker will be America's next President.
Nick Hanauer tells us we should prevent corporate executives from spending so much money on stock buybacks. Stock buybacks do little for the economy except drive up stock prices -- they don't, you know, result in higher wages for workers or more money lent out to enterprising businesses with good ideas -- and it turns out stock buybacks (which account for nearly $7 trillion in GDP since 2004) were almost nonexistent until 1982, so it's not like this is some radical idea. You know, the way that building a massive, leak-prone pipeline over heartland drinking water is a radical idea, or claiming a corporate "right to privacy" justifies not telling consumers about your products' dangers is a radical idea.
Finally, Fox News (sic) blowhard Eric Bolling instructs us that only Muslims have ever killed in the name of religion. Setting aside the half-dozen examples the author, David Perry (whose blog is a great read) lists at the bottom of the post: one couldn't even win that argument by saying BUT TEH CHRIZTIANZ NEVER SED THEY KILLED INFIDELZ IN TEH NAMEZ OF TEH JESUS HAHAHAHAHA!!!! But Eric Bolling may be the biggest asshole on television, and that's saying something. I can't remember if we've decided to never speak of him again, but let's resolve to do that now.
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