Good News From The Fed

This, if combined with the modest stimulus the Obama Administration is proposing with its "fiscal cliff" deal, will significantly boost the economy:

"The Federal Reserve took a genuinely unexpected step Wednesday afternoon when it announced it would significantly enhance its current monetary easing program. The Fed, for the first time, committed to keeping monetary policy loose until the economy crosses precise thresholds — specifically, an unemployment rate below 6.5 percent or a inflation above 2.5 percent."

Underwater Mid-Week Song

Metric is a Canadian indie music group with a nice tune, "Breathing Underwater", that has worked its way up U.S. and Canadian music charts. Here's a live version of the song, performed at New York's WFUV radio. Enjoy.

Chart of the Day

This chart has popped up on a couple of cable programs, and it illustrates what the attempts by Rethugs to undermine unions mean for the middle class at large. The blue and red lines represent the middle class share of the national income and union membership, respectively, since 1967, and they track downward closely together. That's what is so significant about the recent events in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan by corporate interests to turn back gains made by organized labor: the fight to maintain a middle class coincides with the fight to preserve union rights and membership.

(chart: K. Waters & D. Madland, Center for American Progress)

Rethug Fold 'Em Cartoon of the Day

(click to enlarge)

If President Obama can hold firm and not start negotiating with himself, the Rethugs are going to cave on raising the tax rate for the top 2% without a major concession in return. If a bill is passed and signed in the next couple of weeks holding the middle class tax rate where it is, while allowing top rate to return to 39.6% as it was under President Clinton, then a discussion on further revenue sources and adjustments to spending can be started in January, with a more Democratic Congress. It's that simple.

Showdown in Michigan

Today is the day that the reactionary, Koch-backed anti-labor legislation will go to Michigan's Rethuglican Gov. Rick "On the Schneid" Snyder for signature. Thousands are now demonstrating against the legislation at the state capital in Lansing.

Passed by a lame-duck Michigan legislature containing several defeated Rethugs, the so-called "right-to-work" legislation would undermine generations of gains made by Michigan families. The attempt by the coin-operated Rethugs, doing the bidding of greedy corporate tycoons, is to not only upset whatever balance there is left in the workplace between employees and their employer, but to undermine a major source of financial and organizing power for the Democrats. As we noted Sunday, this is a pattern for Rethug Governors from Wisconsin's Scott "Koch Machine" Walker and Ohio's John "Johnny On The Spot" Kasich that is backed by the Koch front organization "Americans for (Plutocrat) Prosperity" and the shadowy right wing American Legislative Exchange Council, which provides State legislatures with cookie-cutter legislation friendly to large corporate interests and the one percenters.

In truth, "right-to-work" is a race to the bottom for middle class working families, where corporations bid down labor costs without fearing unionized resistance. It's true name should be "right-to-work-for-less," because that's exactly what will happen.

Willard's Magic Touch

From a news story:

"Defeated presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a guest ringside Saturday night at the fourth fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Romney also visited with Pacquiao in his dressing room before the fight, wishing him well in the bout.

"Hello Manny. I ran for president. I lost," Romney told the fighter, according to Pacquiao publicist Fred Sternburg."

Pacquaio proceeded to get knocked out in the 6th round. We're hoping Willard campaigns for Rethugs in coming years.

BONUS: Here's a picture of Willard at the precise moment Pacquaio went lights-out (same face Willard had when Ohio was called for Obama, BTW):

Media: Still Looking For A Clue And A Spine

Dan Froomkin at HuffPo discusses how your elite political media have yet to report on The Big Political Story of 2012 (actually, we think it's The Big Political Story of the Past 20 Years):

"Post-mortems of contemporary election coverage typically include regrets about horserace journalism, he-said-she-said stenography, and the lack of enlightening stories about the issues.

"But according to longtime political observers Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, campaign coverage in 2012 was a particularly calamitous failure, almost entirely missing the single biggest story of the race: Namely, the radical right-wing, off-the-rails lurch of the Republican Party, both in terms of its agenda and its relationship to the truth."

In addition to the insights of Mann and Ornstein, readers of Charles P. Pierce's sublime blog see an example of media craven cluelessness every Monday. As he often does, Pierce focuses a light on serial obfuscator of truth, "Press the Meat" host "Dancin' Dave" Gregory who, week in and week out, aids and abets the continuing decline of political discourse in America:

"But, of course, the topic of the weekend, the topic of all our weekends these days, was pain. Who would bring it? How much would there have to be? And, of course, how to explain to the country that granny-starving is a patriotic act that will keep us from becoming Greece. There's no better place for that kind of talk that Dancin' Dave's Disco Dance Party. Surprisingly, some actual Democrats wandered into the studio this week — OK, Dick Durbin, but any old port etc., and god, did I need some old port by the end of this. — and there was some tepid push-back against starving all the grannies all together. The Dancin' Master never got rolling because his show turned quickly into Camp Runamuck. First, though, there was some prevaricatin' to be done from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, noted for taking his marching orders from mediocre Ben Affleck movies, although Allen West, his partner in comedy gold, will not be returning to Congress, which is why people have been seen removing padding from the walls."

Favorite line? "Let us begin with the Dancin' Master, who hosted Rick Santorum on the overtime part of the program, and sat there like a pile of leaves while Santorum... accused the president of being soft on Sharia law." (our emphasis) As long as the Dancin' Daves of the media are more concerned with staying on the Georgetown cocktail circuit than staying on The Big Political Story of the Past 20 Years, we're in for more of the same.

BONUS: Here's more, on the "winning the morning" Internet side.

Colbert For Senate!

A new poll in South Carolina by PPP shows that Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert leads all other potential candidates to replace tea bagger hero Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint (R-Klanland), who's retiring in January. Colbert has the support of 20% of South Carolina voters, while tea bagger favorite Rep. Tim "Not Great" Scott gets 15%. Jenny Sanford, former SC first lady and ex-wife of Rethug Gov. Mark "'Hiking' in Argentina" Sanford, draws a respectable 11%.

So we suggest a new campaign slogan: "Colbert for South Carolina -- We're used to electing funny people!"

Cartoon of the Day -- Fiscal Cliff Edition

Starsky and Hutch Simpson and Bowles to the rescue!

(click to enlarge)

(Tom Tomorrow, via Daily Kos)

Grover Norquist: Racketeer

Bill Moyers lays the wood to "It's Over" Grover Norquist:



A nice lead-in for Moyers' piece, "Capitol Crimes," which can be viewed at billmoyers.com.

Quote of the Day

"How is the president supposed to negotiate with people who say, 'Here's my demands. By the way, I can't give you any specifics. Just make me happy'"? -- Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman on ABC's This Week.

Rethuglican War on Workers: Michigan Edition

Think Progress has a good summary of the Rethuglican push in Michigan to follow in Wisconsin's union-busting Gov. Scott "@%#&*@!" Walker's footsteps. Rethugs in the Michigan state legislature are using the lame-duck session there to press so-called "right-to-work" legislation that would cripple the ability of unions to support pro-worker policies. Thus continues a pattern of anti-union activity undertaken by Rethuglicans in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio directed at undercutting workers' rights and standard of living, as well as attacking a foundational support of the Democratic Party and progressive causes.

This is why it's increasingly important that progressives now focus their energies on recapturing statehouses and legislatures in the coming two years, a task made more challenging by the gerrymandering of many state legislative districts to ensure Rethuglican majorities in otherwise majority-Democratic states.

Sunday Cartoon and Read

Frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank has a piece on retiring teatard hero Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint (New Confederate Party- Secessionland) and his move to the Heritage Foundation. After ticking off some of DeMint's more deranged views, Milbank offers this:

"But it’s difficult to see how these views, and DeMint’s crude expression of them, fit with Heritage’s mission as 'a research and educational institution' dedicated to finding 'solutions to contemporary problems from the ideas, principles and traditions that make America great.'

"Such as: keeping gay men and unmarried women from being teachers; throwing around words such as "tyranny' and 'socialism'; attempting to 'break' an American president and accusing the other party of a Nazi-style 'power grab.'

"If DeMint is the right man to be running this prestigious policy shop, perhaps the resident scholars at Heritage should be researching this question: Is thought dead?"

Then there's this more direct commentary (click to enlarge):

(Cartoon: Jim Morin, via GoComics.com)

Is We Larnin' Frum Fux?

A study by the Intelligence Institute, a conservative organization, has found that viewers of Fux News have average IQs of 80 (AVERAGE!), some 20 points below the U.S. average IQ of 100. Of course, we're shocked, shocked! at this news.

Fux is not only dividing and damaging the nation, as the quote below notes, they're rotting what's left of the wing nut mind.

BONUS QUOTE: Here's what the lead researcher had to say:

"Less intelligent animals rely on instinct when confronted by something which they do not understand. This is an ancient survival reaction all animals, including humans, exhibit. It's a very simple phenomenon, really; think about a dog being afraid of a vacuum cleaner. He doesn't know what a vacuum is or if it may harm him, so he becomes agitated and barks at it. Less intelligent humans do the same thing. Concepts that are too complex for them to understand, may frighten or anger them."

Yep. That's the Fox "News" viewer (a.k.a., Rethuglican base) in a =cough= nut shell.

FAIR AND BALANCED EDITOR'S NOTE: Our source, Rising Hegemon (who picked this up from Under the Mountain Bunker) is...um...hedging a bit on whether this is a bona fide study. We must admit there are some possible "tells" that this is a spoof. But, interestingly enough, it conforms closely enough to other studies of the Fox "News" viewership that one could easily take it at face value. Caveat emptor.

Quote of the Day

"Twenty-two percent of Americans say their primary news source is Fox News. It's divided our country in a way that we haven't been divided probably since the Civil War, and its empowered large corporations to get certain kinds of politicians and ideologues who are in the United State Congress elected -- the Tea Party ideologues who control the Republican Party." -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to HuffPost Live. Fox "News" is not a "sister organization" to mainstream media (contrary to ABC's Jake "Tippy" Tapper's naive/ cynical pronouncement). It's an arm of the Rethuglican Party, or more specifically, the billionaires that fund the right-wing propaganda machine in this country. The scabrous head of Fox, Rupert "Aargh" Murdoch needs to have his amoral operations in the U.S. looked into just as has been done in Great Britain, where they found him to be "not fit" to run a major corporation. Not fit, indeed.