PhotOh! Snorkel envy

By GottaLaff

Snorkel envy?

I read about this, but hadn't seen the actual image.

You know what they: Political parties with small minds have small ....

Video- Vice President Biden Reports Over a Million Jobs Created

Video- VP Biden on the Recovery Act

Analysts: Stimulus Is Contributing to Recovery

By GottaLaff

The good news and the ....

Half a year after Congress enacted the largest economic stimulus plan in the nation's history, the measure is contributing to what increasingly looks like a budding recovery, analysts say...

...but significant concern remains about rising unemployment and the initiative's contribution to the federal budget deficit.

While some congressional Republicans and others remain dubious about the success of the stimulus plan, economists generally agree that the package has played a significant part in stabilizing the economy.

They are less certain about how big the impact has been.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, said, "I don't think it's any accident that the economy has gone out of recession and into recovery at the same time stimulus is providing its maximum economic impact."

Yet even as the economy shows signs of improving, labor markets remain as weak as they have been in a generation, with unemployment standing at 9.4 percent.

"It's very reasonable to say that the reason we're in recovery is because of the unprecedented policy response, and that includes all of the above."

Huckabee compares his obesity to Obama's spending

By GottaLaff

Does Mike HuckaFail have any credibility whatsoever? Heck no:

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee compares his past weight problem to President Obama's economic policies in a pitch Wednesday for a financial newsletter.

Huckabee [...] charges that the president "is devouring the entire free-enterprise system" and lists Obama's decision to bail out the auto and banking industries as mistakes.

Do bad analogies scare HuckaFear? Heck no:

President "Obama the Hungry" makes King Henry VIII look like a compulsive dieter!

I know something about overeating. It can kill you. Back when I was governor of Arkansas, I was so overweight I developed Type II diabetes. Doctors told me to lay down the knife and fork — or else. That scared me. I cut the calories and lost 110 pounds. Only then did I regain my health.

Does bloat scare Obama? Heck no. He's hungry for more! Fresh from gulping down $800 billion of our money to load up his Washington smorgasbord, he's planning yet another massive banquet. Obama wants to belly up to the table and swallow the best health care system in the world. And you and I will pay the tab for this gargantuan pig-out!

Do all those fear mongery words scare us? Heck no.

Is HuckaBloat full of it? Heck yes.

Liveblog: Chuck Todd interviews President Obama in Indiana

By GottaLaff

Liveblog:

President Obama is discussing the high rate of unemployment in Elkhart, Indiana. He says it has improved a little, but obviously needs improvement.

Clinton/N. Korea: Thanks Pres. Clinton for resolving what was a humanitarian ordeal. Families hugely relieved. Clinton showed that his service to his country continues. I suspect Clinton will have interesting observations from trip... We were clear that this was a humanitarian mission, on behalf of families to get journalists out. We wish N. Koreans well, but want gov't. to operate on basic rules of international community.

Todd: Why are big businesses getting stim money?
A: People's frustrations are legit. The early actions were to do with a bank bailout, not stim package. It's a problem because TARP fund started by previous administration, and was needed. Then auto bailout.. all those merge in people's mind. It's important to say, stim bill is about tax cuts, unemployment insurance, keeping health care, making sure states don't lay off people. But when you think about how $ is spent, you think about auto/banks. Now what we're doing is stabilizing economy, and helping people.

Q: How can family handle heating costs? Will you extend unemployment insurance?
A: Talking to Congress... We'll have to i.d. what's happening. Economy is stabilizing, businesses making some investments, but not hiring. We need a safety net for folks. We'll reevaluate when unemployment #s come out.

Q: Raising taxes helpful?
A: Normally you DON'T raise taxes in a recession, and we haven't. We've cut them. The tax hike on the wealthy wouldn't kick in till after the recession is over.

Q: Another idea to redirect stim money?
A: It's legislative, needs Congressional approval. Cash for Clunkers worked better than imagined. Improved sales, trade-ins improved fuel efficiency about 10% per vehicle... environmentally better than expected. 1/3 tax cuts, 1/3 help for families, 1/3 investments is good, but if something doesn't work we'll stop.

Q: Push health care through. Forget about bipartisan approach.
A: A couple of Repubs who have negotiated with us, but at some point, in Sept., we have to make assessment. [Lists benefits of his reform plan] I'd prefer R's working with us, but bottom line, the Amer. people, economy and budget need reforms. Failure is not an option

Q: The new normal: 58 year old looking for job. Job retraining not on his mind.

OOOPS.... Just got cut off...tech issues. End of interview, more aired tonight, MSNBC just said.

Quote-O'-The-Day: President Obama's recovery plan edition

By GottaLaff

President Obama just now on MSNBC (somewhat paraphrased, but awfully close), regarding his recovery plan:

"Here are words many thought we would never say: The government effort is coming in on schedule and under budget.... It is now clear, we are heading in the right direction... making progress."

Obama adviser Romer certain of economic rebound in 1 year

By GottaLaff

This is what confidence looks like

She's not just confident, she's incredibly confident:

One of President Barack Obama's top economic advisers said on Sunday that she was "incredibly confident" the president's efforts will turn the U.S. economy around within one year.

Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said because of the programs Obama was implementing, "We will be seeing signs the economy is turning around ... (it) is growing again." [...]

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" show, Romer said that she had "every expectation, as do private forecasters, that we will bottom out this year and actually be growing again by the end of the year."

I am incredibly confident that she will be blasted by the right for being incredibly confident.

15 Things You've Gotta Know About Obama's Plan

By GottaLaff

I just got an e-mail from MoveOn.org, and this is what it said:

Want to see what change looks like? Real change?

Well, here it is. Last week, President Obama unveiled his budget—his blueprint for America—and it's ambitious, amazing, and unapologetically progressive. [...]

The plan:

1. Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.³
2. Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.⁴
3. Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.⁵
4. Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.⁶
5. Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.⁷
6. Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies.
7. Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.⁹
8. Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.¹⁰
9. Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.¹¹
10. Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.¹²
11. Stops unnecessary government subsidies to big banks, health insurance companies and big agribusinesses.^13,14,15
12. Expands access to early childhood education and improves schools by investing in programs that make sure every child has a qualified, strong teacher.¹⁶
13. Negotiates for better prescription drug prices using Medicaid's tremendous bargaining power.¹⁷
14. Expands access to family planning for low-income women.¹⁸
15. Caps the pollution that causes global warming, and makes polluters pay to support clean energy innovation.¹⁹

This is the change we voted for. President Obama has done his part, now we need to do ours.

Sources:

1. "Climate of Change," The New York Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?em

2. "Obama Calls His Budget Sweeping, Needed Change," The New York Times, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51201&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=2

3. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=3

4. "Obama Expects Fight Over $3.55 Trillion Budget Plan," Bloomberg News, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51203&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=4

5. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=5

6. "The Economic Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan," The New York Times, March 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html

7. "Tax Cuts," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-tax.html

8. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=6

9. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

10. "Obama unveils budget blueprint," CNN, February 26, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/26/budget/

11. "Obama budget would boost SEC, CFTC, FBI," Reuters, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51205&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=7

12. "Obama's budget," Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51206&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=8

13. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

14. "Health Insurance Stocks Dive on Medicare Advantage Cuts," The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51207&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=9

15. "Agriculture," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-agri.html

16. "Investing Wisely in Our Children," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51208&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=10

17. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=11

18. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=12

19. "Setting 'Green' Goals," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51209&id=15687-5387478-9IBP5xx&t=13

Frank Rich: Obama, savor the moment while you can

By GottaLaff

Frank Rich:

Barack Obama must savor the moment while he can. It may never get better than this. [...]

After his speech, the numbers hit the stratosphere: CBS News found that support for his economic plans spiked from 63 percent to 80. Had more viewers hung on for the Republican response from Bobby Jindal, the unintentionally farcical governor of Louisiana, Obama might have aced a near-perfect score. [...]

There is good news for Obama in these findings, but there’s also a stark indication of the unchecked populist rage that could still overrun his ambitious plans.

The first group in national disfavor is the G.O.P. [...] The second group of national villains is corporate recipients of taxpayer money: only 39 percent approve of a further bailout for banks, and only 22 percent want more money going to Detroit’s Big Three.

The good news for Obama is that he needn’t worry about the Republicans. They’re committing suicide. [...]

But like all zealots, Jindal is oblivious to how nonzealots see him. Pleading “principle,” he has actually turned down some $100 million in stimulus money for Louisiana. And, as he proudly explained on “Meet the Press” last weekend, he can’t wait to be judged on “the results” of his heroic frugality.

Good luck with that. [...]

If you’re baffled why the G.O.P. would thrust Jindal into prime time, the answer is desperation. Eager to update its image without changing its antediluvian (or antebellum) substance, the party is trying to lock down its white country-club blowhards. [...]

What such G.O.P. “stars” as Sanford and Jindal have in common, besides their callous neo-Hoover ideology, are their phony efforts to portray themselves as populist heroes. Their role model is W., that brush-clearing “rancher” by way of Andover, Yale and Harvard. Listening to Jindal talk Tuesday night about his immigrant father’s inability to pay for an obstetrician, you’d never guess that at the time his father was an engineer and his mother an L.S.U. doctoral candidate in nuclear physics. Sanford’s first political ad in 2002 told of how growing up on his “family’s farm” taught him “about hard work and responsibility.” That “farm,” the Charlotte Observer reported, was a historic plantation appraised at $1.5 million in the early 1980s. From that hardscrabble background, he struggled on to an internship at Goldman Sachs. [...]

The Santelli revolution’s flameout was just another confirmation that hard-core Republican radicals are now the G.O.P.’s problem, not the president’s. Rahm Emanuel has it right when he says the administration must try bipartisanship, but it doesn’t have to succeed. [...]

But that good news for Obama is countered by the bad. The genuine populist rage in the country — aimed at greedy C.E.O.’s, not at the busted homeowners mocked as “losers” by Santelli — cannot be ignored or finessed. [...]

Among the highlights of Obama’s triumphant speech was his own populist jeremiad about the “fancy drapes” and private jets of Wall Street. But talk is not action. Two days later, as ABC News reported, the president of taxpayer- supported Bank of America took a private jet to New York to stonewall Andrew Cuomo’s inquest into $3.6 billion of suspect bonuses.

Handing more public money to the reckless banks that invented this culture and stuck us with the wreckage is the new third rail of American politics. If Obama doesn’t forge a better plan, neither his immense popularity nor even political foes as laughable as Jindal can insulate him from getting burned.

Quickie: Redistribution of wealth

By GottaLaff

Via a Tweet from Marc Ambinder:

ABC and CBS lead with the "redistribution of wealth" angle.

It's good to see that they haven't changed since the election.

Transparency: Stimulus site gets 3,000 hits per second

By GottaLaff

Any physician who peered into Georgie's big ear canals could confirm that the only thing transparent about Bush was his skull:

The website President Obama said will allow Americans to monitor the spending of the $787 billion recovery plan is generating intense traffic, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Peter Orszag, Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget, said recovery.gov received 3,000 hits a second upon its launch last week. [...]

"We have to go beyond normal procedures to a higher level of transparency," Orszag said.

Biden, who called the effort to track the money "unprecedented," also said he would be "a pain in the neck" and "intrusive" in making sure the money is spent wisely.

But that's cool, V.P. Joe, because it hurts so good.

VIDEO: President Obama addresses America's governors

By GottaLaff

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here is the video of President Obama addressing America's governors. Check out his remarks starting at about 8:10. Once again, he is a step ahead of the Party of No, informing the American people about the pettiness of the Republican obstructionists who are focusing on all the wrong things, politicizing instead of cooperating... again.

White House fast tracks some stimulus cash

By GottaLaff

Getting things accomplished-- What a concept:

The White House will release $15 billion on Wednesday to the states to help with Medicaid costs, essentially fast-tracking a portion of the stimulus money to help states defer cuts in essential services.

Live from the White House! It's "Morning Joe"!

By GottaLaff

I always feel guilty lifting entire posts from other sites, but I'm breaking my own rule. Besides, it's from Think Progress, and I think of them as a news aggregate of sorts. There. I've lessened my guilt:

At the end of Meet the Press this morning, David Gregory announced that MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” would be taping live from the White House on Tuesday, in the lead-up to President Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress. Senior Adviser to the President David Axelrod and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will be guests on the show.

I have no doubt Paddy will provide us all with relevant and/or entertaining clips. It should be fascinating to see Joe stuff yet another foot into his oversized, overused mouth. He'll have to borrow another one from somewhere though, since both of his are already snuggled up next to his uvula. Or maybe, just maybe, his mutant-itude has turned him into a quadruped.

Now for Part Dos. Lap it up. It comes on the heels of this.

The Morning Joe crew led a brainless and misleading campaign against Obama’s recovery and reinvestment plan; host Joe Scarborough even suggested the president was trying to “buy people off” with “pure, straight socialism.” Eventually, Scarborough was forced to admit, “Perhaps we don’t know what we’re talking about.”

Perhaps he shouldn't have said "perhaps".

Quickie: Obama’s Prepared Remarks on the Mortgage Crisis

By GottaLaff

You can read President Obama's prepared remarks on the foreclosure crisis plan here. I'm sure we'll have the video up as soon as it becomes available.

He's speaking right now.

VIDEO: "Recovery"

By GottaLaff

Americans United for Change is already up with a national cable ad celebrating the stimulus, suggesting that the first job it created was for a video editor.

Recovery dot gov.

By GottaLaff

Transparency:

The administration's Web site showing how stimulus money is spent, state-by-state, is up and running today, per the White House.

"Today, the White House launched www.recovery.gov -- an unprecedented step to increase transparency in government," the White House said in a press release. "The website features a searchable database, allowing Americans to see how and where their tax dollars are being spent. Following the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the website will include a state-by-state report on the impact of law as well a breakdown of spending in the bill by sector.

A searchable database? What a concept! It must not be in that super-secret, evil unsearchable pdf format then, huh?

G.O.P. signature move

By GottaLaff

White House photographer Peter Souza noticed something that you won't see on the Tee Vee Machine:

The sharpest message of the bunch, however, comes with a photo of Obama being approached by Republican lawmakers after a meeting where he pitched the economic recovery package.

"House Republicans surround the President after the meeting," the caption read. "Many of them were seeking his autograph. Every House Republican eventually voted against the bill."

(In other words: there was one piece of paper they were happy to see him sign.)

They admire him enough to ask for his autograph, but not enough to show him any support whatsoever.

H/t: Ellen

Next up: Foreclosure aid

By GottaLaff

Yesterday, one Commenter asked what was next on President Obama's agenda. Here's the answer:

With the stimulus victory in hand, Obama planned to shift to the housing crisis with an announcement Wednesday in Phoenix about reversing that sector's collapse.

Late last summer, Americans began feeling the pinch of the recession and left the housing market in huge numbers. That coincided with a sharp increase defaults on home mortgages, a devastating combination that triggered the financial crisis. Lending froze as banks and investment houses realized they were holding trillions of dollars in bad assets.

Under an emergency $700 billion bailout program passed late last year, the Bush administration used half to forestall a financial collapse. But the flow of credit did not ease and use of the money was criticized because it was poorly administered and overseen.

Obama is now working to leverage the second portion of the bailout money into a program that could result in $2 trillion in government and private sector cash infusions to help banks and investment houses clear away "toxic" holdings and thereby spur lending.

As part of the next steps on the bailout, Obama was expected to offer help homeowners on the brink of foreclosure. Details have not been disclosed, but the nature of the crisis suggested mortgage loans would have to be revalued downward along with interest rates.

"We obviously have a major problem: problems with foreclosure, problems with people living on the edge and problems with home values around the country just plummeting, which is affecting family, family finances everywhere," Axelrod said. "We want to do something that will address all of those things."