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Do Democrats really want to play this game of chicken?

Presidents are usually blamed more than others for other the economy is going. In this case, I think that it is more than fair. But what impact will the big expected tax increases and spending changes have on the economy? There are two effects from the taxes. Higher marginal tax rates on labor next year will actually increase work effort now and decrease it in the future. But the higher taxes on individual owned businesses will reduce their investments now. They will try to get more out of their employees now, but they will not make as much new capital investments as they otherwise would have. My guess is that firms will be less likely hire new workers at this point because that will be viewed as an investment. The changes in government spending may also create chaos in the economy, though I am not sure how much defense contractors, for example, will believe that those cuts will actually occur. From the Washington Post:

Democrats are making increasingly explicit threats about their willingness to let nearly $600 billion worth of tax hikes and spending cuts take effect in January unless Republicans drop their opposition to higher taxes for the nation’s wealthiest households.
Emboldened by signs that GOP resistance to new taxes may be weakening, senior Democrats say they are prepared to weather a fiscal event that could plunge the nation back into recession if the new year arrives without an acceptable compromise.
In a speech Monday, Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the Senate’s No. 4 Democrat and the leader of the caucus’s campaign arm, plans to make the clearest case yet for going over what some have called the “fiscal cliff.”
“If we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013,” Murray plans to say, according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. . . .

When does campaigning become stalking?: Democrats putting videos of Republican Congressional candidates' homes online

2012election Democrats

From Politico:

. . . While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see. . . .Wisconsin GOP Rep. Reid Ribble, who said he’s also been followed by a cameraman when shopping for groceries, said the home videos cross a line. . . .Republicans whose homes have been videotaped say they understand that politics is a contact sport and that every public utterance they make is fair game. But, they argue, filming a home — and posting actual addresses— ought to be off-limits, if only out of respect for their families and neighbors. . . .Trackers assigned to California GOP candidate Ricky Gill, a highly touted challenger to Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, pushed the edge of the envelope even further. In May, a clip of Gill’s parents’ Lodi, Calif., mansion appeared online. . . .Democrats, on the other hand, insist the videos are fair game — and are unapologetic about the hardball tactics. . . .

The lack of reality by the "Occupy Wall Street" movement

Democrats Unions

Here is a question: if this is an accurate view of the world, why is it that the US has the highest corporate income tax rate in the world? Why do we have a rate that is about 5 percentage points higher than the next highest country?

Obama's out reach to faith based supporters "ad hoc," no "clear sense of what the mission"

Democrats DemocratsturningonObama Obama2012 religion

What strikes me when I read the Washington Post article was that Obama's religious supporters are academics. I have meet a number of academics in religion programs and what has always stood out when I talked to them was that they were atheists. I have no evidence that these academics are atheists, but I wouldn't be surprised that Obama had a lot of atheist academics in religion programs talking to him about what he needed to do to reach out to religious people. I won't quote it hear, but the piece has numerous discussions about religious Democrats who were uncomfortable with Obama's support for homosexual marriage. From the Washington Post:

. . . “I think there is a viable religious left who can be persuaded by a carefully articulated religious argument, but no one is making it,” said Valerie Cooper, a religious studies professor at the University of Virginia and Obama supporter. “I’m concerned that the administration has not followed through on the promise of 2008.” . . .
“I get frustrated when I talk to evangelical friends or students and they ask, ‘How can you be a Christian and a Democrat?’” Cooper said.
David Kim, a Connecticut College religious studies professor, helped advise the 2008 campaign when videos of incendiary sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former Chicago pastor, threatened to derail the nominee. Kim, who attended the briefing with Cooper, described the administration’s faith-based work as “ad hoc” and “with no long-term strategy.”
“I didn’t really get a clear sense of what the mission is,” Kim said. . . .
According to exit polls, the effort paid off. Obama made gains over the 2004 nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, with voters who attend religious services more than once a week, 43 percent to 35 percent. Obama also won 26 percent of the evangelical vote, compared with 21 percent for Kerry.
“It wasn’t huge, but it was statistically significant,” said John Green, director of the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute for Applied Politics . . .
But from 2008 to 2010, when control of Congress was at stake, the DNC cut its faith outreach staffing from more than six people to one part-timer, according to The Washington Post. . . .

BTW, here is an add that the Obama campaign has in the NY Times on Sunday morning. What struck me as strange about the add was that the add looks like it was done by some LGBT group, not by the Obama administration. At least having the add in the NY Times would minimize any collateral damage among religiously orientated individuals who are relatively unlikely to be reading that newspaper.

Senate Democrats get burned in pay for workers debate

Democrats discrimination

This whole issue of underpaying female workers is nuts. The very fact that Democratic politicians are paying their female staff less than their male staff makes it hard to believe that there is anything other than supply and demand going on here. I don't believe that female Democratic Senators don't appreciate women workers. From the Free Beacon (it is a long article):

A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.
Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.
Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent. . . .
A significant “gender gap” exists in Feinstein’s office, where women also made about $21,000 less than men in 2011, but the percentage difference—41 percent—was even higher than Murray’s. . . .
The employee gender pay gap among Senate Democrats was not limited to Murray, Boxer, and Feinstein. Of the 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus examined in the analysis, 37 senators paid their female staffers less than male staffers. . . .

15% more Republicans than Democrats know that FDR was a Democrat?

Democrats Politics

How is it possible that only 58 percent of Democrats know that FDR was a Democrat? Only 59 percent of Democrats know that Pelosi is a Democrat? Only 56 percent of Democrats (compared to 77 percent of Republicans) know that Republicans and not Democrats support oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge?

This is from the Pew Research Center:

This is also depressing. Only 43% of those between 18 and 29 realize that Pelosi and FDR are Democrats and only 48 percent know that Abraham Lincoln is a Republican.

On a general note, only 55 percent of all Americans realize that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and only 58 percent realized that FDR was a Democrat.

Obama's "reelection campaign doesn’t want to share financial resources with congressional Democrats"

2012election Democrats DemocratsturningonObama ObamaCampaign

From the National Journal:

In fact, Obama’s reelection campaign has a split personality when it comes to the general election. One side is confident and growing more so about the turbulent GOP primary, an improving U.S. economy, and better numbers for Obama in swing states. The other side harbors fears bordering on paranoia about massive spending by the GOP and outside super PACs for the party’s nominee.
“There is already unprecedented super-PAC spending going on,” Messina said. “There will be super-PAC spending in key states against us. We have to be prepared for that.”
To prepare for it, Obama’s campaign has put the rest of the Democratic Party on a starvation diet. Messina and senior White House adviser David Plouffe (Obama’s 2008 campaign manager) have told top Democrats that they won’t receive any cash transfers from Obama’s campaign or the Democratic National Committee. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sought commitments for $30 million, the amount distributed to them in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles. Not this time.
Messina said that the campaign fears outside groups will devote upward of $500 million to anti-Obama super-PAC TV ads as soon as the GOP nominee (likely to be Romney) is decided. By comparison, GOP nominee John McCain spent $333 million on his campaign, and outside groups spent $26 million supporting him. Obama spent $730 million in that campaign, and outside groups spent $88 million attacking him. . . .
Reid and Pelosi, according to Democrats aware of the sit-down with Plouffe and Messina, took their medicine without complaint. Democrats close to the situation said that the leaders emerged feeling that Team Obama was in full-blown panic mode about the need for campaign cash this fall. “They are just freaked out about super-PAC spending,” said one of Pelosi’s top allies. . . .

Dems want to let federal workers engage in politics

CampaignFinanceRegulation Democrats

If you wanted evidence that government workers are overwhelmingly Democratic, this should make it pretty obvious. From The Hill newspaper:

Democrats in the House and Senate on Wednesday proposed legislation that would ease penalties that federal workers face for engaging in partisan political activities such as campaigns or other overt actions.

Federal workers are restricted from engaging in partisan political activity under the Hatch Act of 1939, a law that grew out of complaints that federal workers were helping collect votes for the Democratic Party.

Under current law, employees who violate the Hatch Act are required to either be removed or suspended for at least 30 days without pay. Suspensions can only take place if the Merit Systems Protection Board votes unanimously to take this step.

But under legislation introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) in the Senate and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in the House, the Board would have flexibility to choose from a menu of penalties. These include not just removal, but "reduction in grade, debarment from federal employment for a period not to exceed five years, suspension, reprimand or an assessment of a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000." . . .

Obama does poorly in Oklahoma Democratic Primary

2012DemocratPrimary 2012election Democrats Obama

This is pretty amazing. At about 11:30 PM on Tuesday, March 6th, the WSJ reports that in the Democratic primary, Obama has lost 15 out of the 77 counties in Oklahoma.

. . . But with 93% of the Democratic vote counted – and President Barack Obama ahead with 56.4% of the vote – AP hasn’t called it. Randall Terry, who has pushed an antiabortion message, has 18.2% of the vote, followed by Jim Rogers, who has run for other offices in Oklahoma, with 14.2% and a couple others in the single digits.

AP did report that it appears Mr. Obama will lose a delegate in Oklahoma to Mr. Terry, founder of Operation Rescue. It also noted that the president was bested in 15 counties.

"Democrats in the United States more likely to believe in Bigfoot (33%) than Republicans or Independents."

Canada Democrats poll

Apparently Americans are more likely than Canadians to believe in Big Foot, and Democrats are responsible for pulling up this average. The results are from a new Angus Reid survey. The difference between Republicans and Democrats is outside the margin of error.

Daily Kos is trying to get Left wing Democrats to vote in Republican Primary for Santorum

2012election 2012RepublicanPrimary DailyKos Democrats

Would this get attention if Republicans were doing this to Democrats? From the Daily Kos:

It's time for us to take an active role in the GOP nomination process. That's right, it's time for those of us who live in open primary and caucus states—Michigan, North Dakota, Vermont and Tennessee in the next three weeks—to head out and cast a vote for Rick Santorum.
Why would we do such a crazy thing? Lots of great reasons! . . .

Several of the contests have produced razor-thin margins of victory. Rick Santorum won Iowa by 34 votes, Mitt Romney "won" Maine by 194 votes. It won't take many of us to swing contests the way we want them to swing. . . . .

It's a no-brainer! The following states have completely open contests coming up:
2/28: Michigan (Primary)
3/6: North Dakota (caucus)
3/6: Tennessee (primary)
3/6: Vermont (primary)
If you live in one of those states, pledge to participate in Operation Hilarity by voting or caucusing for Rick Santorum. . . .

Apparently, the media is doing its best also.

Chris Matthews: "Steve Schmidt, my friend, you talk to a lot of Republicans out there. Are they aware that the media is basically rooting for Santorum out of sheer fear of the ennui, the boredom that will set in if it looks like Romney locks this thing up? At the moment he locks this thing up we face a long, dull summer of Mitt Romney."

Some dumb political quotes from 2011

Democrats harryreid HillaryClinton JoeBiden Pelosi

Here are some of the dumber quotes:

1) "Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable." Hillary Clinton, 18 days before Mubarak stepped down. January 25, 2011
2) "They have acted like terrorists." Joe Biden on Tea Party Republicans. August 1, 2011.
3) "What we're trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget . . . . We're trying to save life on this planet as we know it today." Nancy Pelosi discussing John Boehner's Debt Ceiling bill. July 28, 2011
4) "Millionaire job creators are like unicorns. They're impossible to find and don't exist." Harry Reid asserting that there aren't any jobs created by millionaires. December 12, 2011
5) "Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy." Joe Biden, December 19, 2011

The Democrats' reaction to firms fleeing California

Democrats

The question is how much more profits a company could make some place else. A nice editorial in the Orange County Register:

Democratic reaction to the news that Waste Connections, a $3.6-billion company and major Sacramento-area employer, is headed to Houston to seek a friendlier business climate tells other businesses all they need to know about the attitudes of those who run California's government.
State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, gave these clueless and snarky remarks in response to the news: "In this instance you have a company that is, in fact, profitable, making significant revenue gains in 2011 and 2010. That doesn't speak to a bad business climate here in California when a good company is able to thrive in that way. So whatever Mr. Middelstaedt's (company CEO) reasons are to leave the great state of California, I know I'm pushing back." . . . .
Is it really the Senate president's role to determine the proper profit margin for a privately owned company? Talk about arrogance. . . .

Ann Coulter's piece does what the news media should be doing on the accusations about Herman Cain

2012election Democrats demonizingrepublicans HermanCain ObamaDishonest

Will anyone in the media be apologizing for what they have put Herman Cain through? Ann Coulter's latest piece.

Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago.

So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.

Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).

The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator.

After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.)

And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek. . . . .

Wacky Democrat Laws: Banning youtube videos of karaoke singing?

Democrats Government

I thought that this was a joke the first time that I read this.

Justin Bieber says Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar should be "locked up" and led away in "handcuffs!"

And, we agree with him on this issue.

The senator (pictured, right) is trying to pass the "Bieber Bill," which would ban people from singing other people's songs -- specifically online, in places like YouTube.

"Whomever she is she needs to know that I'm saying she needs to be locked up," he told Clear Channel's Kane of The Kane Show today. "I just think that's ridiculous." . . .

One Wisconsin Democrat State Senator Faces Recall Vote Today

Democrats WisconsinRecalls

Today's vote could go a long ways towards determining whether Republicans are able to keep control of the Wisconsin state Senate. Democrats who controlled the state Government Accountability Board were able to delay the vote on the three Democrats facing recalls. See this article here:

The fate of one of the Wisconsin lawmakers who fled the state this year in an effort to block cuts to collective bargaining rights for public workers will be decided by voters on Tuesday.

This summer, Wisconsin is overflowing with recall elections involving nine state senators from both parties, but the balloting in the Green Bay area on Tuesday will be a first definitive outcome in the series of elections that many see as a gauge of public sentiment about the agenda of Republicans who took control of the state this year. At stake in a dizzying, unprecedented series of recall elections is dominance in the Senate, where the 19-14 Republican majority could shift if Democrats gain three seats.

Still, the outcome of the recall election on Tuesday of Dave Hansen, a Senate Democrat, may offer few larger signs of what is ahead for either party in this sharply divided state. Some observers say the particulars of this race make Mr. Hansen's removal less likely than it might otherwise be. Mr. Hansen's opponent, David VanderLeest, a businessman who led the political movement to recall him in the first place, has raised less money, has faced legal problems and has drawn only tepid support from some Republican leaders who tried to get a different candidate on the ballot.

In most of the races, the essential fight is simple.

Three Democrats, including Mr. Hansen, are the subjects of recalls because all of the Senate's Democrats slipped away from Madison earlier this year and fled to Illinois to prevent a vote from taking place on collective bargaining cuts Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, was pushing. (Ultimately, the maneuver failed; Republicans managed to call a vote without the Democrats, and passed the law, but some voters said the Democrats had failed to stay in town and do their jobs.)

Six Republicans are the subjects of recalls for the opposite reason. They voted for the cuts to collective bargaining -- along with a series of budget cuts and other measures that Mr. Walker has called for.

On Tuesday, voters will also cast ballots in primary elections for the Senate seats of the other two Democrats who face recall, but the final elections will not be held until Aug. 16. Final elections will decide the Republican senators' futures on Aug. 9. . . .

Movie stars put up big bucks for Obama's re-election effort

CampaignFinanceRegulation Democrats Movies

This is a bit of a dilemma since I had liked some of these stars. There has been some speculation that Tom Hanks outspoken and nutty support for Obama has actually hurt his star drawing power for his movies.

big-name movie stars including actors George Clooney, Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, Michael Keaton, Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, also gave to the 2012 campaign, according to the latest Federal Election Commission report. Jennifer Garner and Gwyneth Paltrow both contributed under their married names —Affleck and Martin, respectively.
“30 Rock” actor Alec Baldwin, who has often toyed with a potential political run, also shelled out cash for Obama’s second-quarter fundraising haul. And several other TV actors — such as “Monk”’s Tony Shalhoub, “Glee”’s Jane Lynch, “24”’s president Dennis Haysbert and sci-fi stars Scott Bakula and Richard Dean Anderson — joined Baldwin in contributing to the president’s reelection bid.
Comedians Will Ferrell, Carl Reiner and “The Simpsons”’s Yeardley Smith also doled out money for Obama, whose campaign attracted a record-breaking $86 million in donations. . . .

Senator Schumer tells pundit to say things that the pundit knows are not true

CharlesSchumer Democrats

Douglas Schoen calls this exchange he had with Schumer "bone chilling." Is it surprising that Schumer would demand that Schoen say things that he knows are not true when he appears on national television? Will the rest of the media discuss this story? If a pundit says false claims that viewers know are not true, they have much less credibility when they then say things that they believe are true.

Specifically, Senator Schumer said that since Fox News, in his opinion, has as one of its principle objectives, building support for the Republican Party, anyone who appears on the air as a Democrat, particularly in the political debates Fox News organizes, has an obligation (in his mind) to articulate Democratic talking points. It was his considered opinion that Democrats who do not do this, who speak their minds, as I try to do, were not only not "Democrats" anymore, per se but should also not be identified as such by Fox News Channel.
When I personally suggested to Senator Schumer that I had an affirmative obligation to offer my own personal view point, whether it be consistent with or not consistent with Democratic orthodoxy, the senator said given what Fox News does and given what their mission is, it is absolutely essential that any so called "Democratic" contributor take the party line as articulated by himself and leading Democrats.
And his point, personally, was that myself and my colleague and friend [Democratic strategist and former Jimmy Carter pollster] Pat Caddell, who have criticized the Democrats where we felt it reasonable and necessary, and criticized the Republicans where we felt it was reasonable and appropriate, were no longer "Democrats" because we did not repeat Democratic talking points.
I also made the point to Mr. Schumer that I felt that saying things you did not believe was not appropriate and not right.
He said that under the circumstances, (ie: appearing as a Democrat on Fox News) there was no choice if one wanted to be a Democrat--either mouth the party line or cease and desist from identifying yourself as a Democrat. -- And at the very least, make sure that Fox News does not characterize you as a Democrat. . . .
I found his argument at the very least, disturbing, and as I thought it through, ultimately bone chilling, both for me and for the Democratic party. . . .

Democrats ask Koch Brothers for money