Day: March 6, 2009

He Cannot Steele Respect

The head of the RNC is not doing what he was elected to do…..as reported in the Politico.

A month after Michael Steele became the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee, key party leaders are worried that the GOP has made a costly mistake — one that will make it even harder for them to take back power from the dominant Democratic Party.

Steadily becoming a dependable punch line, Steele has brushed back Rush Limbaugh, threatened moderate Republican senators, offered the “friggin’ awesome” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal some “slum love,” called civil unions “crazy” and promised more outreach to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” via an “off the hook” public relations campaign.

On the organizational side, Steele does not have a chief of staff, a political director, a finance director or a communications director. Last week, one of the two men sharing the job of interim finance director was forced to resign.

Steele, who has been traveling aggressively since taking the job, says the vacancies at the top of his organization are by design. He said he’s re-examining the whole structure with an eye to streamlining it and will have most of his team in place by the end of March, after he begins implementing reports from transition teams that are planning the party’s own first 100 days.

Jim Dyke, a communications consultant to Steele, said: “The public process has raised some eyebrows, and that has some people concerned. But the internal process is actually unprecedented and right on schedule. And when people find out about it, they are going to be very pleased.”

But so far the GOP has got to be worried to the point of going bald with the antics of their new chairman.  So far the only thing that this man has accomplished is to piss off workers, midgets, Rush and RNC members…he, Steele, might want to hire some people to help him in his interviews…so far he has done a horrible job of representing the RNC.

The Recovery Package Needs A Logo

Oh wait!  There is already one….everything in government needs its own logo…..

I found it in the WSJ…..

The government is taking major steps to make the stimulus package as transparent as possible with a new recovery.gov Web site, but it also appears to be branching out in another area: branding.

The new stimulus logo, alongside a New Deal counterpart

New projects undertaken under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will come with a logo, similar to posters that were used for New Deal projects. The design incorporates stated priorities of environmentalism and manufacturing, both under the American flag.

The logo is likely aimed at giving Americans evidence that stimulus program is working. That is as long as it’s not associated with the Depression, but with recovery.

However, the 21st century allows the administration many more tools than posters to show how the stimulus is working. Recovery.gov has an excellent map that shows how much money is going to each state for spending, how much should go to urban and rural areas, and how much is slated for transportation initiatives.

This administration has shown it knows how to harness the power of the Web, but a little old media advertising can’t hurt.

The Hooker Express

First it was some damn silly notion that a high speed rail line from Las Vegas to Disneyland….no such proposal exists…but that does not deter the Repubs from lying…the newest BS comment on the stim package is a hoot.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) took the lies to a new level today when he — with the help of an enthusiastic Fox News’s Megyn Kelly — declared that the 2009 omnibus bill included funding for a train traveling straight from “Disney” to Nevada’s most famous brothel, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch:

KELLY: It’s a super railroad, of sorts — a line that will deliver customers straight from Disney, we kid you not, to the doorstep of the moonlight bunny ranch brothel in Nevada. I say, to the moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada. So should your tax dollars be paying for these kinds of projects? […]

FRANKS: The majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid has fought for this publicly and is committed to this project, even in the face of criticism. … If this is something that is truly the priority of the majority leader of the US senate, it’s pretty late in the day, Megyn.

Reid’s office confirmed that Franks is referring to a proposal to refurbish a historic railroad line between Gold Hill, NV, and Carson City — hardly a direct line from L.A. to the “doorstep” of a brothel. Considering there’s no funding for high-speed rail between L.A. and Las Vegas — despite Republicans’ frenetic assertions to the contrary — the idea of a Disneyland-Bunny Ranch supertrain is far-fetched, to say the least.

Ironically, at the end of the pathetically ill-informed segment, Kelly asked how politicians can be held accountable for these mythical boondoggles; Franks replied with praise for Fox News: “Fortunately, people like yourself and Fox News are a tremendous help in that regard because they tell the people — you know, sunlight has a way of being an accountability all by itself.”

And yet there are those that think FOX News is a reliable source for news….but there motto should be….”we do not let the facts stand in the way of our reporting”.

Dems Oppose Obama Tax Plan

I was wondering hoiw they would justify opposing the tax thing on the wealthiest people…and now I have my answer…at least in part.

President Barack Obama‘s proposal to limit itemized tax deductions for high earners is running into opposition from key Democrats in Congress who worry that charities and the housing market would be hurt. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus questioned Wednesday whether the proposal was viable, a day after his House counterpart also expressed reservations.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said tax increases on families making more than $250,000 a year are necessary to make a down payment on health care reform and to limit future budget deficits. But, he said, he was willing to work with lawmakers on proposals they objected to.

Obama’s budget calls for setting aside $634 billion over the next 10 years as a down payment on health care reform. Half the money would come from tax increases on upper-income earners; the other half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Obama’s budget calls for two tax increases on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. He wants to increase the top tax rates from 35 percent to 39.6 percent by allowing a tax cut enacted under President George W. Bush to expire in 2011.

He also wants to limit the deductions those families can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes.

Without the new limits, a taxpayer in the proposed 39.6 percent tax bracket could save $396 in taxes from a $1,000 reduction in taxable income. Obama wants to limit deductions to the 28 percent bracket, starting in 2011, meaning the same taxpayer would save only $280.

The higher tax rates are a good bet to become law because Obama campaigned on the change and Congress would not have to do anything to enact them. Once the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, the higher rates would take effect.

But some key Democrats are wary of limiting deductions.

They are concerned that charities will suffer from the proposal……yeah right!  They found away to oppose the president in favor of their wealthy contributors…sorry guys..it is just that simple.

Do You Remember The “War On Poverty”?

It was the ambitious program started by LBJ in 1964.  From his speech before the joint session of Congress:

Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it. No single piece of legislation, however, is going to suffice.

We will launch a special effort in the chronically distressed areas of Appalachia.

We must expand our small but our successful area redevelopment program.

We must enact youth employment legislation to put jobless, aimless, hopeless youngsters to work on useful projects.

We must distribute more food to the needy through a broader food stamp program.

We must create a National Service Corps to help the economically handicapped of our own country as the Peace Corps now helps those abroad.

We must modernize our unemployment insurance and establish a high-level commission on automation. If we have the brain power to invent these machines, we have the brain power to make certain that they are a boon and not a bane to humanity.

We must extend the coverage of our minimum wage laws to more than 2 million workers now lacking this basic protection of purchasing power.

We must, by including special school aid funds as part of our education program, improve the quality of teaching, training, and counseling in our hardest hit areas.

We must build more libraries in every area and more hospitals and nursing homes under the Hill-Burton Act, and train more nurses to staff them.

We must provide hospital insurance for our older citizens financed by every worker and his employer under Social Security, contributing no more than $1 a month during the employee’s working career to protect him in his old age in a dignified manner without cost to the Treasury, against the devastating hardship of prolonged or reapeated illness.

We must, as a part of a revised housing and urban renewal program, give more help to those displaced by slum clearance, provide more housing for our poor and our elderly, and seek as our ultimate goal in our free enterprise system a decent home for every American family.

We must help obtain more modern mass transit within our communities as well as low-cost transportation between them.

Above all, we must relase $11 billion of tax reduction into the private spending stream to create new jobs and new markets in every area of this land. . . .

As I have said, an ambitious program indeed, but over the years many have called it a failure…….well it was!  Not because of the program itself, but rather because before it had a chance to show signs of success it was systematically dismmantle by every incoming president from 1964 to the present.

You see the American voter bought into the con job of a smaller government was a better government.  How has that worked out so far?  The country can spend billions on foreign aid but the mere mention of helping Americans is taboo.  And the only answer that Washington can give is…Tax Cuts.  And we see just how well that piece of crap has worked out, haven’t we?

The War On Poverty can NEVER be successful…as long as we ignore the existence of poverty and its causes.  (Read page entitled, “Why Poverty”)