As I mentioned here, enough about President Obama’s “controversial comments” on Kamala Harris. He and she are friends, he made a quip in that context, and started out by saying how brilliant, dedicated and tough she is. Yes, it was bound to raise many an eyebrow, but it also didn’t deserve all the attention and air time it’s been getting.
Here is Paul Krugman on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” There’s a 4-second lag at the beginning of the video due to my continued ineptitude at grabbing segments.
George Will:
We’ve always from time immemorial had that guy at the end of the bar nursing his third beer and venting his opinions. Now they do it, thanks to progress, on the Internet. And it creates this echo chamber.
George Stephanopoulos:
You were the victim of a lot of free speech on the internet.
Paul Krugman:
… It was dumb. And it’s right to slap him for it. But you know, there’s a little bit of pig in all of us. I speak from personal experience. So there we are.
So there we are. Oink.
Did I mention how glad I was that Paul Krugman appears on these shows?
In what seems like another lifetime ago, our old pal and brilliant colleague Cliff Schecter used to write a Friday “Cliff’s Corner” post at AMERICAblog that always started out with, “Another week. More preposterousness to report.”
I am tempted to take it from there on a weekly basis: Another Sunday. More outrage to report. I can’t and won’t watch all the Sunday talk shows, and sometimes I refuse to watch any of them. However, today I caught some of “This Week” and a little of Alex Witt’s MSNBC show.
Witt was discussing gun safety measures with two commentators (I didn’t catch their names). One wondered why President Obama was taking his message to different cities, traveling around trying to rally the American people. The guest’s point was, hey, the crowds clearly agree with him, so why waste his time? He should be in DC meeting with Congress members, getting personal, appealing to them one-on-one, because that’s what they’d prefer and that might work.
Did Obama’s goal really escape this guy? He’s not trying to convince America of anything. They are convinced. They’re 91% and 88% and 59% convinced. He’s trying to get them to pressure their representatives, because that’s what works. In fact, I believe the commentator even said that very thing. Congress won’t pass laws, because constituents aren’t pushing them enough, not because Obama’s not in their faces. When the hell have Republicans ever cared about what the president tells them? When have they not blocked him, despite his reaching out or meeting with them or wining and dining them or golfing with them? Good lord.
Next: The panel on “This Week”. George Will and Greta Van Susteren. Really? When will Sunday talkers have the balls to include an equal number of true Progressives on their panels, let alone their guest lineups (scroll)?
Next: All Hillary all the time. Enough already. Here’s an idea: STFU about Hillary. It’s 2013, and we have the 2014 elections to worry about. 2016 can wait. Just. Stop.
Next: North Korea. The news media’s familiar crescendoing drumbeat. Have we learned nothing? Reporting news objectively is one thing, stoking fear is another.
And finally, enough about President Obama’s “controversial comments” complimenting Kamala Harris. Obama had called Harris “the best-looking Attorney General” after saying she was brilliant, dedicated and tough. Whether or not his remarks were offensive, it simply doesn’t warrant this much time and attention:
“Everybody should relax, lighten up. Mock outrage. I wish there was more outrage about the jobs numbers than we had about Kamala Harris.“
How about more outrage about GOP obstruction, their phony “reinvention,” their terrible policies, their unconstitutional efforts to outlaw legal abortion, and their ongoing campaigns and legislation to disenfranchise voters? How about that, “This Week” panel?
In the clip above, Krugman zinged the easily-zinged Jeb Bush, who said this:
“I haven’t seen the seriousness of the president’s– efforts. I’d love to see a specific plan that really did reform– bend the cost curve for Medicare and the entitlement system. I haven’t seen it, so– if there is– through these talks, some kind of consensus that emerged, I don’t think you should say, “No, no, no–” about anything.
“Frankly, there was already been one of the largest tax increases in American history a month ago. And frankly, we ought to be focused on sustained economic growth, which grows more revenue for people and for government than any tax increase– that’s been suggested, so there are a lot of things that could be done to create a real grand bargain. And– let the process work. I’m hopeful that the president’s sincere about this.”
Paul Krugman didn’t waste an opportunity:
“So, I just learned something really important from this interview about Jeb Bush which is he’s one of those people who says ‘frankly’ just before he delivers a big whopper. So that ‘frankly’ we’re going to deal with the deficit by economic growth. Come on. He has no plan. Anyway, that was impressive. It’s an object lesson. I mean, he’s just shown us the perils of political pandering. He wrote a book for the immigration debate the way it was a few months ago and got caught flat-footed by the way it shifted.”
The unemployment rate was effectively unchanged at 7.9%, and as is often the case, austerity measures undermined the employment landscape
— while America’s private sector added 166,000 jobs in December, the public sector lost 9,000 jobs. Indeed, over the last three months, the nation’s private sector added 624,000 jobs, while 24,000 government jobs were lost.
It’d be easy for Washington to improve the latter number and lower the unemployment rate, but congressional Republicans won’t allow it.
As I’ve previously written, check out public sector job numbers under both Bush and Obama. Somehow under W, rising public sector employment was okay with the GOP, but if the Dems want to hang on to those jobs, it’s some kind of Kenyan Marxist commie union thug plot to destroy America:
The GOP wants government to shrink, aka firing government workers. Which of course means firing employed people who bring home paychecks that are used to pay for things, which, in turn, boost the economy.
That would make President Obama look good, and Republicans can’t have that.
If all those public sector workers had not lost their jobs, there would be over a million more people employed, which of course would bring the unemployment rate down substantially.
That said, check out this video and transcript, courtesy of Think Progress:
CARLY FIORINA: I think it’s important to remember, when we talk about the economy, that a private sector job and a public sector job are not the same things. They’re not equivalent. I’m not saying public sector jobs aren’t important. But a private sector job pays for itself. A private sector job creates other jobs. A public sector job is paid for by taxpayers. [...]
PAUL KRUGMAN: But when we say public sector jobs, it is not a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.
FIORINA: Oh, it is, actually.
KRUGMAN: When we talk about public sector jobs — when we look at the ones that have been lost in large numbers in this — it’s basically school teachers. Don’t think about bureaucrats. It’s school teachers. What we’ve laid off hundreds of thousands of school teachers.
And when we talk about the cuts in public spending that have happened, they are not, you know, some god awful who knows what. It’s actually public investment. It’s largely fixing potholes and repairing bridges.
So, you know, you have this image of these wasteful bureaucrats doing god knows what. What we’ve seen is an incredible drought of basic infrastructure, and laying off hundreds of thousands of school teachers.
FIORINA: It is a fact that virtually every department in every organization in Washington, D.C. has seen its budget increase for the last 40 years. That money is being paid to hire people. The number of people who are — of course there are some teachers…
KRUGMAN: The vast bulk of public sector employees are at the state and local level. They are largely school teachers plus police officers plus firefighters. And your notion that it’s all these bureaucrats — that’s a myth that’s used…
FIORINA: It’s not a myth, it’s a fact. It’s not a myth, it’s a fact. We don’t have enough private escort job creation.
Regulations? We don’t need no stinkin’ regulations! Public safety? Pffft! At least that what failed GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum thinks. Did I say thinks? My bad. It’s not clear he’s capable of any kind of mental activity, let alone the kind that takes real effort, intelligence, or skill.
When I saw this “This Week” segment this morning, I mistakenly thought he said, “avenge” instead of “defend.” Thing is, sadly, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had said “avenge.” But he did say he prioritizes restricting violent Hollywood movies and video games over regulating actual instruments of death, the ones that are sold with the sole intent of killing people.
Despite being on a panel that, like others on Sunday talkers that feature far right extremists without balancing them with those on the far left, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm took care of business:
Police departments and prosecutors across the country supporting restricting access to such ammunition. As Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta asked troops at the U.S. Army Garrison Vicenza in Italy this week, “I mean who the hell needs armor-piercing bullets except you guys in battle?”
Apparently Rick Santorum does:
GRANHOLM: Why do you need armor-piercing bullets, why do you need that?
SANTORUM: Because we’re talking about a particular type of bullet that is and can be available –
GRANHOLM: Deer don’t wear armor. Why do you need an armor piercing bullet?
SANTORUM: Criminals could and having, having…
GRANHOLM: And police officers certainly do…
SANTORUM: And having the ability to defend yourself is a right in our country.
Lt. Col Barry Wingard is the lawyer for Gitmo detainee Fayiz Al-Kandari. For their ongoing story + related topics, please click on the link below: Kuwaiti Citizen Detained at Guantanamo since 2002
You can read the complete story here or on Wikipedia.
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