Can anyone breathe right now? It’s a concern because the Tea Partiers and anti-Muslim bigots are using up all the air. The media can only collectively pay attention to so much apparently and the cost of these people’s fighting to get their lunacy on TV and into the mouths of pundits and politicians too scared to defy the mob has a real cost to us as a society. For example, in all the distraction going on with regard to Mosque this and Socialism that, we might miss an actual scandal (h/t Ed Brayton):
For at least a year, the Homeland Security Department detoured hundreds of requests for federal records to senior political advisers for highly unusual scrutiny, probing for information about the requesters and delaying disclosures deemed too politically sensitive, according to nearly 1,000 pages of internal e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.
The department abandoned the practice after AP investigated. Inspectors from the department’s Office of Inspector General quietly conducted interviews with employees last week to determine whether political advisers acted improperly.
OK, everyone, this is what an actual scandal looks like. This would have been a major scandal under Clinton, but I suspect slightly less so under BushII for various reasons (IOKIYAAR, political considerations in the Justice Department were let to slide, etc.).
That’s all I wanted to point out. Tenthers, Tea Partiers, Birthers, and otherwise distracted and distracting people can now return to their loud attention whoring inanity.
… a month later, and they haven’t made a stink about it. It really is sad. Then again,I’ve been wondering why my requests for Obama’s birth certificate and pictures of him praying in his mosque keep being denied… They’re being filtered through his political appointees!
Exasperation over how the right ignores a real scandal — a scandal that is detailed by a link to FOXNEWS.
… seen dedicated to this? First place I heard about it was Brayton. Should be a major story. That Fox covered it is trivial. The fact that it isn’t just indicates that they’re covering other stuff more. What other stuff?… the circus.
I’m either watching sportscenter or the history channel…at least until sci fi friday is back.
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p>Cable news bores me to tears.
religion, race, immigration, homosexuality and the flag are the usual interests of the conservative right. If you can tie your complaint to one of these, you are more likely to get their attention.
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p>Issues of government secrecy and civil rights are more often in the liberal sphere of outrage. The liberals who at this moment in the election cycle are busily at work pointing out the short comings of the Republicans, not Obama.
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p>It certainly helps that the Obama administration ended the practice instead of attempting to defend it. Kills the story.
The anchor babies, Ground Zero, and now Boehner blathering about firing Obama’s economic team are all planned distractions from the real issues in order to get the media to talk about something else and to rile people up (to the advantage of the GOP). There’s nothing in all of this that moves toward solving anything. It’s pure, cynical politics. The more we discuss it as if it were legitimate instead of calling it the red herring it is, the more we allow them to get away with it.
is that Boehner is right, though for the wrong reasons.
Obama has to stop BS’ing us and fix this mess. Americans have to start having more confidence to spend and the deluge of poor economic indicators over the last 10 days has been a disaster. Start watching that DJ average come down and then we’ll be in really deep do-do.
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p>Nobody is buying houses (except for some really smart bargain hunters). I’m sure college admission numbers will be way down with requests for financial aid being record setting. People don’t want more stimulus bills, don’t want more taxes, don’t like Democrats, don’t like Republicans… but rather than get people back to work we still get mired in muck… PLA contracts vs. getting people back to work at “affordable” wages, unions getting over-bloated teacher’s salaries increased during the worst economy in 50 years, politicians defending defense contractors for making things we don’t need anymore, Probation department scandal… goes on and on.
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p>We need some drastic measures. Suspend EPA rules and build a shitload of Hydro-plants to get cheap electricity and thousands of jobs (the hell with the fish being displaced, this is survival), implement 5-10% wage reductions in all levels of government, review every single job in government and remove waste, develop refi programs to get people into affordable loans who have a chance to pay them back (go to 40 or 50 year terms to lower monthly payments with the ability to refi in the future back to nominal terms lengths for no closing costs)… and yes fire the economic advisors who have convinced Obama to implement the plan which has done little to help our economy. These “saved or created” jobs are bullshit. It would have been cheaper to hand out $100K checks to the unemployed at this point.
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p>We need a new plan and it’s not “Tax the rich”.
Survival? You must be joking.
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p>Sure, some people are hurting. Unemployment at 10% means about 15-20% of the population is hurting. Others are underemployed or pushed to part time, they’re hurting too.
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p>They aren’t corpses piling up on the sidewalks. There aren’t lines for oil, nor are there regular brownouts nor blackouts.
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p>Survival? Nawp. It’s uncomfortable to be sure, but suspend EPA rules? You must be joking. We’ve got the lowest marginal tax rate on the rich in a long long time. We’re spending more money on war than any rational nation would spend. You rail against stimulus in almost the same sentence as you call for more hydro plants. I agree that we need to spend more on infrastructure, though there’s no reason to ignore the EPA. Expand the EPA, and expand the spending on bridges, railroads, power lines, subways, and other critical infrastructure — and a bigger EPA will allow the studies to get done more quickly.
I have been against the Stimulus becuase I think it’s been spent poorly and so many stupid wasteful “busy work” projects in the name of stimulus. I wish they had spent more on hydro plants and less on new mile-markers for our highways.
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p>How many people have to be hurting before we put people’s lives, possessions and futures in front of the needs of the a fish? 15%… 20%…
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p>Put the fish someplace else.
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p>As for this statement…
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p>Wouldn’t you agree that by the time these events are occurring, there is no hope of fixing things. So maybe 10% unemployment with a dismal chance of things getting better soon (and a very possible scenario of things getting worse soon) spells disaster for the people losing their house, their savings, their future… and we must act?
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p>I’m just sayin…