Republicans working hard to get Obama re-elected

All the hard work by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to sabotage the Obama administration — as well as the American public, American business and the American economy — may be undone by the buffoons running for president.

Amen to that.

For their part, congressional Republicans may be helping out by overplaying their hand. It remains to be seen how boneheaded Cantor and House Speaker John Boehner will be about deficit cutting as the super-committee deadline approaches. Whether they realize it or not, Obama has made a successful end run on the tax issue, and the Republicans can only lose ground with their insistence that there will be no new taxes. A new poll by Politico shows that Americans — we, the voters — support increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations 66% to 31%, with a majority, 52%, strongly supporting increases. That same poll shows that Americans — yes, the people for whom this government is supposed to be working — oppose cuts to Medicare 76% to 19%, again with 52% strongly opposing such cuts. If the congressional Republicans persist with their blinkered ideology, then the Democrats truly will have a chance to win back many of the House seats they lost in 2010 and retain control of the Senate. 

Maybe, maybe not. One can only hope.

Occupy Wall Street ?

Watching them every moment.

Does government do any good?

Over the High-Tech Rainbow
In this piece, Sue Halpern writes: Siri [embedded in Apple’s iPhone 4S] “was incubated at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), alongsidfe predator drones and driverless combat vehicles, and where the seeds of Apple’s original Macintosh computer were sowed.”

Perhaps government does do some good, no?

Killing Our Citizens Without Trial

In a New York Review of Books article, David Cole writes: Whatever one thinks about the merits of presidents ordering that citizens or noncitizens be killed by remote-controlled missiles, surely there is something fundamentally wrong with a democracy that allows its leader to do so in “secret,” without even demanding that he defend his actions in public.
 
    And he’s quite right. We abdicate our rights, and the obligations of our leaders, so we can debate whether Kim Kadashian should keep the ring, or not.

No brain needed

After explaining that he opposes Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax scheme, Grover Norquist lays it on the line.


Asked about the "intellectual heft" of Cain's plan in light of the candidate's refusal to name the members of his economic team, save Rich Lowrie, an accountant for Wells Fargo in Ohio, Norquist said that the next Republican president "doesn't need to come up with ideas."


"The good news is the next Republican president only needs a forefinger and then pen and the capacity to hold a pen, he doesn't need to come up with ideas," Norquist said. "We have a Republican House, we will have a Republican Senate, they will fix the tax code and send them stuff to sign. He can fly around in a cool big plane and hang around the White House and he can sign the legislation that [House Speaker John] Boehner and [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell send him, and we'll be fine."

Just like Reagan? That's wonderful: President wanted, no brain needed.

Go, Herm, go!

Cain names Jim DeMint, Paul Ryan as possible 2012 vice presidential picks. That'd be a balanced ticket, fair and balanced (get it?).

An offer; who could refuse?

Herman Cain appears to be the latest Tea Party sensation. A new poll from Public Policy Polling has the one-time Godfather's Pizza CEO leading Mitt Romney by eight percentage points, 30 percent to 22 percent. Those are the exact same percentages the very same polling outfit reported yesterday for Cain and Romney in Iowa where the first formal GOP presidential preference caucuses will occur in early January.

Aside from the startling fact that were Mr. Cain to actually get the Republican nomination both candidates for the Presidency of the United States would be black (Cain was quoted in a story I glanced at yesterday that Obama is not part of the African American experience, whatever that means), Barack Obama could nto possibly wish for a better opponent – except, perhaps, Michelle Bachmann, but her star has faded.

Before Cainiacs get too excited, this is still just one poll. And recall that both Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann rode the Tea Party wave for a while before it beached them. (Bachmann is now at five percent, the same as Rep. Ron Paul in the national poll.)

Too bad. Bachmann would have made some candidate.

... it's a striking and historic result even if it's transitory. It is the first time an African American who is a declared candidate for the Republican presidential nomination tops a national poll from a reputable public opinion organization. 

Too bad it won't last.