Tea Nut Rep Andy Harris (R-MD) Complained About Not Getting His Government Health Fast Enough Punished by GOP Overlords

Tea Nut Rep Andy Harris (R-MD) Complained About Not Getting His Government Health are Fast Enough Punished by GOP Overlords

Remember Rep.-elect Andy Harris (R-MD)? The anti-health care reform physician who got a heap of bad publicity when he made a fuss about having to wait a few weeks until his employer- (a.k.a. government-) provided health care kicked in? And who asked whether the government had a... public option, of sorts, from which he could buy insurance in the interim?

Turns out hubris has consequences.

According to The Daily Times, "The Maryland Republican didn't get his top choice for a committee assignment, the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over public health issues."

Now, these two incidents could be unrelated. A top Harris aide, Kevin Reigrut, said he doubts the gaffe doomed his boss, and pointed to the fact that a ton of Republicans were elected in November, many of whom want seats on that particular, prestigious committee.

But as David Waldman points out, Republicans are pretty fond of putting their physician members center stage as arbiters of health policy wisdom. See, for instance, this joint -- the GOP's doctors had their own internet TV show!

And with Democrats now relegated to the minority in the House, they can't do much more than go on offense -- a skill Dems like incoming ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA), and committee member Anthony Weiner (D-NY) are well practiced in. The GOP made a wise decision keeping Harris at arm's length.

First rule of conservatism is to become a zombie that follows the party line - they continue to have so much in common with Stalin and Hitler.

Sarah Palin’s Transparency Problem

Sarah Palin has a problem with the truth. Despite repeated requests — and even more delays — the former Alaska Governor has yet to release emails sent and received while she was in office. Meanwhile, the origin story for “refudiate” took on shades of untruth this week.

Those would be the e-mails which showed Todd Palin was the un-elected co-governor, among other revelations about Sarah's lack of ethics and her vindictive attitude toward anyone who crossed her.

How Right-Wing Republicans and the South Rationalizes Secession, State's Rights Gone Crazy

How the South rationalizes secession
150 years later, a campaign to deny that the South's exodus from the union was a revolution is in full force - By Glenn W. LaFantasie

Secession is making a comeback. Tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s secession from the Union, a political act that set in motion the events that led to the Civil War, but one needn’t look very far into the past to hear the rumblings of disunion and the rhetoric of states’ rights. In April 2009, Rick Perry, the Republican governor of Texas, suggested that his state might ponder secession if "Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people." In response, the audience began to chant, "Secede, secede," hoping, one assumes, that everyone there would soon begin to party like it was 1860. The Texas House of Representatives quickly passed a resolution that seemed to threaten secession, and Gov. Perry just as quickly endorsed the resolution.

Yet if you think that all this secession bluster is only a symptom of some peculiar Texas Tea Party madness, you need only Google the word "secession" to find that the radical right believes, apparently in growing numbers, that the Constitution does not prohibit secession and that states can leave the federal union whenever they want. Worse, a Middlebury Institute/Zogby Poll taken in 2008 found that 22 percent of Americans believe that "any state or region has the right to peaceably secede and become an independent republic." That’s an astounding statistic, one that means that nearly a quarter of Americans don’t know about the Civil War and its outcome. Sadly, it also means that for 1 out of every 4 Americans, the 620,000 of their countrymen who died during the Civil War gave their lives in vain.

If by defeating the Confederacy during the Civil War, the Union did not prove conclusively that secession could not be legally sustained, the point was made emphatically clear in the 1869 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Texas v. White. In the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase (a Republican appointed by Lincoln), the court ruled that under the Articles of Confederation, adopted by the states during the American Revolution, "the Union was solemnly declared to ‘be perpetual.’ And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained ‘to form a more perfect Union.’ It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?" Chase, of course, was an activist judge, like his modern Republican successor John G. Roberts, but Lincoln had earlier made the same point about secession in his distinctively simple and disarmingly coherent style: "It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination." In his mind, secession was nothing short of anarchy. It was also treason. "No State, upon its own mere motion" he said in his first inaugural address, "can lawfully get out of the Union, -- that [secession] resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary."

Surprisingly enough, secessionist extremists (called fire-eaters in the parlance of the times) in the South agreed -- at least at first. In 1858, William Lowndes Yancey of Alabama proclaimed that the time had come to "fire the Southern heart -- instruct the Southern mind -- give courage to each other, and at the proper moment, by one organized, concerted action we can precipitate the cotton States into a revolution." After Lincoln’s election in November 1860, Sen. Judah Benjamin of Louisiana told a political ally that "a revolution of the most intense character" was moving forward and that it could not be "checked by human effort" any more than a prairie fire could be extinguished "by a gardener’s watering pot." When South Carolinians decided unanimously in their secession convention to leave the Union, the Charleston Mercury declared: "The tea has been thrown overboard. The revolution of 1860 has been initiated." One of the delegates admitted that the convention worked "to pull down our government and erect another." In Louisiana, a broadside declared: "We can never submit to Lincoln’s inauguration; the shades of Revolutionary sires will rise up to shame us if we shall do that." Many Southerners saw themselves as carrying the banner of their ancestors who had fought a revolutionary war against a tyrannical king; by rebelling against the United States, secessionists believed they were engaged in a revolution to restore the principles of 1776. When Texas left the Union on Feb. 1, 1861, the secessionists there proudly announced that "for less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England."

But talk of revolution was dangerous. Alexander Stephens, who would become the Confederacy’s only vice president, warned that "revolutions are much easier started than controlled, and the men who begin them, seldom end them." In many of the Southern states, Unionist sentiment remained strong, and several secession conventions were divided among those who wanted to leave the United States immediately, those who wished to wait for the Southern states to cooperate together by jointly seceding, and those who sought to prevent disunion entirely. Eventually the fire-eaters prevailed by whipping up passion -- that prairie fire mentioned by Benjamin -- and using fear tactics (e.g., Lincoln was an abolitionist bent on destroying the Southern way of life, meaning slavery) to convince moderates and conditional Unionists that secession was their only political option. By the time the Confederate government was formed in Montgomery, Ala., in February 1861, many Southerners -- like Jefferson Davis, the new Confederate president -- jettisoned the extremist rhetoric and espoused moderation, denying at the same time that secession constituted revolution. "Ours is not a revolution," Davis maintained. "We are not engaged in a quixotic fight for the rights of man; our struggle is for inherited rights." He claimed, in fact, that the Southern states had seceded "to save ourselves from a revolution."

His statement has led some historians to conclude that Southern secession was less a revolution than a counterrevolution -- a dubious interpretation that relies solely on taking Davis and some other Southerners at their word, when, in fact, what these Confederates were really attempting to do was justify secession by relying on the right of revolution articulated in the Declaration of Independence (or on the Lockean theory of "natural rights") rather than on anything found in the Constitution. In other words, Davis and his brethren did not want to be called traitors, even though they were leading a blatant political (and later an armed) rebellion against the existing government. To call secession a counterrevolution amounts to saying that Lincoln’s election to the presidency, which was accomplished legitimately under the law, was in itself a revolution. That proposition is, of course, preposterous.

More to the point, Confederate Vice President Stephens plainly asserted in March 1861 that the "present revolution," which had brought about the creation of the Confederate States of America, "is founded ... on the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." Other Confederates cringed at the persistent description of their revolution as a revolution (but not at the admission that the preservation of slavery was their primary motive for seceding) and turned instead to defending their actions by arguing that secession was, in fact, legal and not revolutionary at all. Harking back to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in response to the Federalist Party’s enactment of the draconian Alien and Sedition Acts, Southerners advanced the idea that the Union under the Constitution consisted of simply a compact among the states and that any state, by means of its retained sovereignty, could divorce itself from the Union if it ever desired to do so. Confederates also based their rationalization of secession on John C. Calhoun’s notion of nullification, which held that a state could declare a federal law null and void. But Calhoun -- a South Carolinian who had served in Congress, as secretary of war under Monroe, as vice president under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and later as the South’s most famous (or infamous) senator -- went further in his states’ rights arguments than Jefferson or Madison had ever done. In his view, states were not only sovereign, they were virtually independent; thus states were simultaneously in the Union and out of it. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson, a fellow Southerner, forced South Carolina to nullify its nullification of a federal tariff. Instead of reinforcing the idea of a perpetual Union, the nullification crisis simply laid the groundwork for the South’s later secession.

For many Southerners, the Union created under the Constitution was never meant to be a nation in perpetuity; they regarded it, instead, as a voluntary federation of autonomous states. To reach such a conclusion, of course, required tortured logic, since there was nothing in the Constitution that hinted at the possibility of a state seceding from the Union, just as there was nothing in the newly established Confederate Constitution that enabled any of its member states to secede.

The other half of this essay is at the link. It is a remarkable act of sczophrenia that today's right-wing Republicans - who really have ties at all to Lincoln - claim to be the party of Lincoln and also have the right to secede or that states have the right to nullify federal law.

Sarah Palin uses Wikileaks to justify her bed wetting over Iran.

Thanks to conservatives we officially live in a country where justice is rationed - Nearly One In Nine Federal Judgeships Are Now Vacant

The Senate’s failure to even hold a vote on these nominees leaves the federal judiciary with record vacancies — approximately one in nine federal judgeships are now vacant.

Republicans are once again twisting the Constitution to suit their political agenda. No where in the Constitution does it give a senator the right to place a hold on a nominee in order to stop their appointment. The Senate's only role is that of advise and consent. Conservatives will not even let nominees come to a democratic vote.

Newt Gingrich Might be a Direct Mail Scam Artist

Newt Gingrich Might be a Direct Mail Scam Artist

Speaking to a live audience at the 92nd Street Y Wednesday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow blasted former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for his opposition to federal unemployment benefits.

"I'm opposed to giving people money for doing nothing," Gingrich insisted during a recent speech to GOP activists in South Carolina.

"Let us review for just a second how Newt Gingrich makes his money," Maddow began. "For starters, he hands out fake awards in exchange for cash."

"Newt Gingrich makes money right now running a fake awards for small businesses scam," she continued. "Last year he tried to give one of his fake awards to a small business called The Lodge in Dallas, Texas."

In exchange for a $5,000 donation, Gingrich offered The Lodge, a strip club, a certificate, a novelty gavel and a dinner with him.

"When Mr. Gingrich realized he was giving one of his fake awards -- for a $5,000 donation -- to a strip club he decided to rescind the award and the dinner invitation," Maddow noted.

In mid-December, Gingrich sent another letter to The Lodge and asked them for a $2,000 donation to his American Solutions organization.

"This is how Newt Gingrich makes his money but he doesn't think that you earned yours," Maddow observed.

"Newt Gingrich is a direct mail scam artist. He hires the analog equivalent of spammers to troll the Yellow Pages, looking for businesses he can fool into thinking they are winning a 'Newt award,' and then he cons money out of them for accepting it," she said.

This video(at link) is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 22, 2010. Newt has been scamming people for years with the modern version of a miracle cure all called conservatism.

Does the Supreme Court Represent the Interests of the People or the Chamber of Commerce

Studies Show SCOTUS Becoming Chamber of Commerce Tool

Two studies, one commissioned by the New York Times conducted by Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, and a second by the Constitutional Accountability Center show the Roberts Court spends more time in bed with American Business than individual Americans.

According to the Universities, it has

sided with business interests in 61 percent of relevant cases, compared to 46 percent in the last five years of Chief Justice William Rehnquist's

court. According to the Center,

the Roberts Supreme Court has sided with the Chamber 68 percent of the time, up from 56 percent under the Rehnquist court, and noticeably higher than the 43 percent during the relevant part of Chief Justice Warren Burger's court.

Hard to believe the Chamber and its lawyers started to make arguments that were 25% better.

PolitiFact recently named "a government takeover of health care" as its 2010 "Lie of the Year" -- a lie that Fox News hosts and contributors have repeatedly promoted.

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) spokesman: He's not a racist! He just walks and talks like one.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) Will Block 9/11 First Responders Bill, Potentially Killing Its Chance Of Passage

Judith Miller is Still Lying About Valerie Plame

Judith Miller Got it Wrong... Again by Doug Liman

Judith Miller demonstrated in her recent WSJ story about my film, Fair Game, the same cavalier attitude towards the facts that led to her departure from the New York Times in disgrace. And we should never forget that Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame to Miller in June 2003 -- more than two weeks before Richard Armitage outed Plame to Novak. Somehow Miller neglected to mention that in her op-ed piece. But she also forgot about that before -- in her early grand jury testimony -- until she was forced to come clean about it in a subsequent grand jury appearance and under oath at Libby's trial. Miller's belated testimony helped convict her "source" Libby, but not until she did everything she could, as a forceful proponent of the war in Iraq, to avoid telling the truth to the American public.

And so here we go again.

Judith Miller writes that her supposed anonymous sources told her that Valerie Plame did not play a "key role" in the CIA's effort to penetrate Iraq's presumed WMD program. In truth, Valerie Plame was head of operations for the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI). My sources: former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and U.S. attorney Pat Fitzgerald.

Valerie's specific actions as head of operations for the JTFI were and still are classified. Valerie Plame, a loyal intelligence officer from a military family, has always honored and continues to honor the secrecy agreement she signed when she joined the Agency more than twenty-five years ago. As filmmakers, we did the best job we could to piece together her activities in covert CIA operations specializing in nuclear counter-proliferation. This is not easy, especially since Valerie was a NOC, a form of deep cover operative with no official ties to the U.S. government. To be drawn into debating what this deep cover operative may or may not have done is to miss the big picture--this was no "glorified secretary" who was outed by the White House. Far from it.

Special Counsel Fitzgerald submitted a memorandum to the district court in the Libby trial spelling out in detail Valerie's undercover role overseas, covert status, and senior positions at the CIA leading counter-proliferation teams and searching for WMD in Iraq. It is disgraceful that Miller and others like her continue to demean Valerie and the dedicated women and men who serve our country as operations officers and risk their lives to keep armchair warriors like Miller safe from harm.

Regarding the Iraqi scientists that are the focus of a sub-plot in Fair Game, Judith Miller seems to blur the line between opinions and indisputable fact. This much we know to be fact: the CIA made a criminal referral because of Plame's outing. I doubt that the CIA and its director George Tenet--someone who bent over backwards to protect the Bush Administration--would have allowed that to occur if the consequences to national security weren't serious and the damage to intelligence operations severe.

Obviously WMDs remain a sore subject for Miller, who wrote many erroneous stories that badly misled the American public about their existence in Iraq in 2003. Fair Game doesn't much focus on the WMDs, except to recount an episode showing the dangers of politicized intelligence, which is now common wisdom on both sides of the political aisle. Indeed, Fair Game doesn't even state an opinion about the war itself, however disastrous its consequences are in hindsight. Rather, Fair Game is about the president of the United States lying to the American people, and what happened to the people who challenged him. The wagons were circled around the president of the United States on the trust issue.

And while Judith Miller seems to downplay whether there was a conspiracy in the White House to out Valerie Plame, the published explanation for her hasty and forced exit from the New York Times refers to the unfortunate role she played as "one of the reporters on the receiving end of the anti-Wilson whisper campaign." As a key witness, Miller didn't attend every day of the Scooter Libby trial the way my screenwriters did. Remember that this was not some witch-hunt: the special prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald is universally respected and was a Republican U.S. Attorney appointed by President Bush. And the jury was unanimous in its conviction of Scooter Libby on all five counts with which he was charged.

As for Miller's rehash of old arguments about Armitage, here again she's got it wrong. Armitage was not an innocent Boy Scout, as wrongly portrayed by Miller and the Washington Post editors in their recent editorial. Armitage twice attempted to out Plame as a CIA officer, first to Bob Woodward (just about the most famous reporter in Washington), then, when unsuccessful with that, to Bob Novak, the syndicated self-proclaimed "Prince of Darkness." Armitage famously confessed his "foolishness," but that isn't an explanation. Once may be careless, but twice is not careless, it's either intentionally foolish, on purpose, or worse.

The truth is that Armitage is no peacenik and probably never was, no matter what Miller wishes were true to cover her tracks. Anyone looking at a timeline of who did what and when can see that Armitage tried to be an "army of one" by blurting out about Plame to two different high profile inside-the-Beltway reporters. But the trail of how Armitage came to know about Joe Wilson and his wife--a covert CIA NOC--appears to lead straight back to Libby.

Libby met with Armitage in June 2003, shortly after confirming that Joe Wilson was the unnamed ambassador sent to Niger by the CIA to find out about the now infamous "yellowcake" uranium claim. A few days later, Armitage first told Bob Woodward about Wilson and his wife, but Woodward kept silent. So Armitage's first effort to out Plame failed. But weeks before Armitage got his second chance to out Plame, Libby had already outed Plame to Miller at the end of June 2003. Then Libby outed Plame to Miller again in early July 2003, right before Armitage blabbed to Novak about Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson.

In case Armitage's second attempt failed, Libby knew that Miller was standing by. With Miller as a backup and Karl Rove standing by to confirm Armitage, Novak outed Plame as a CIA operative wife of Joe Wilson. Miller says nothing about her role in this affair in her op-ed piece. The Republican controlled Justice Department in fact found that Libby and Rove personally outed Valerie Plame to multiple members of the news media, including Robert Novak, Judith Miller, Matt Cooper, Walter Pincus, and Bob Woodward. Plame was going to be outed even if Armitage didn't succeed with Novak.

So although neither Miller nor Armitage are in the film Fair Game, both of them were involved in the whole sorry episode up to their eyeballs. Actually, I would have loved to have included Richard Armitage, Cheney, and others in Fair Game, had Scooter Libby not obstructed the investigation, for which a unanimous jury convicted him on five serious counts with jail sentences.

So was there a conspiracy in the White House to punish Joe Wilson for speaking out? The film leaves that up to the viewer to decide. Pat Fitzgerald did say "there's a cloud over the Vice-President, a cloud over the White House." People can go see Fair Game this holiday and decide for themselves who was naughty and who was nice.

In my family they told me one of the downsides to lying and being a liar is you have to keep up the lie forever. The first lie begets more lies. Judith Miller and Rupert Mudoch's Wall Street Journal don't seem to mind retlling the same brazen lies over and over. In order to stop they would have to have a conscience.

We're Very Sorry to Inform Republicans That The Private Sector Caused The Financial Crisis

Greenspan: Fed policy not to blame for crisis -Greenspan, others getting questioned about roots of financial crisis

Greenspan said demand from the government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac inflated the housing bubble. He said the government policy of encouraging homeownership pushed Fannie and Freddie to create demand for risky loans. Those firms play a vital role in the mortgage market by buying up mortgage loans and packaging them into bonds that are resold to global investors.

But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said the Greenspan Fed's decision not to set national mortgage lending standards was a key factor in the housing bubble — far more so than Fannie and Freddie.

Zandi noted that countries like Canada and Germany with tighter regulations largely avoided the bust, while countries that followed the U.S. model of light regulation fell into crisis.

"The Federal Reserve had that authority," Zandi said in an interview. "They just never acted on it. That was a clear policy decision."

Zandi also rebutted Greenspan's argument that his Fed's low-interest-rate policy played no role.

"The aggressive monetary policy in the wake of the tech bubble contributed to the inflating of the housing bubble," Zandi said. "There's strong evidence that the Federal Reserve kept interest rates too low for too long."

Regarding his own missteps over his two decades as Fed chair, Greenspan said, "I was wrong 30 percent of the time, and there were an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years."

He would not cite any specific failures, except banks' and regulators' collective failure to anticipate that so many challenges would hit the financial system at once.

Greenspan said future credit crises will be prevented only if banks:

* Are required to hold more capital as a buffer against future loan losses
* Are forced to keep more cash-like assets instead of investments that can be hard to sell
* Are required to hold more collateral to protect against default by other financial companies.

The 10 bipartisan commissioners later will grill former and current executives of Citigroup Inc. about that bank's role in financing and reselling mortgage investments.

Greenspan's appearance opened three days of hearings by the FCIC. The hearings are focused on high-risk mortgage lending and the way trillions of dollars in risky mortgage debt was spread through the financial system. They are designed to provide a firsthand accounting of decisions that inflated a mortgage bubble and triggered the financial crisis.

The panel is using Citigroup as a case study because the bank was heavily involved in every stage of that process. The megabank was a major subprime lender through its subsidiary CitiFinancial. Other divisions of Citigroup pooled those loans and loans purchased from other mortgage companies and sold the income streams to investors.

As borrowers defaulted, Citigroup took losses on mortgage-related investments it held on and off its books. Mortgage troubles at Citi, defunct investment bank Bear Stearns and elsewhere exposed cracks in the financial system. In late 2007 and throughout 2008, those fissures grew into a full-fledged credit crisis that crippled the global economy.

The FCIC aims to dissect the bank's structure and show how its functions interacted. Wednesday's witness list includes current and former executives from CitiMortgage, parent company Citigroup Inc., and the division of Citi Markets & Banking that created the most notorious mortgage-backed investments.

The Myth of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Barney Frank, the Housing Bubble and the Recession


Global Housing Boom

Pray tell what caused the same boom and bust in these other nations?

And how could Fannie/Freddie or the CRA be responsible — that only applies to the US — when you have the same, global, coordinated rise in prices? (And you can add Korea and New Zealand to the chart above).

For those of you who still believe the political talking point that it was FNM/FRE/CRA’s fault, the question remains: What caused these other nations to boom the same time the USA did?

And if you can’t answer that, then what hope do we have that you will offer up empirical evidence that Fannie/Freddie/CRA caused this in light of the above?

Chart of world wide housing bubble at link.

Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis

Viewers of Fox News Shown to be the Smartest and Best Informed

Viewers of Fox News Shown to be the Smartest and Best Informed

Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.

So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false. This study corroborates a previous PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care. The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day.

In eight of the nine questions below, Fox News placed first in the percentage of those who were misinformed (they placed second in the question on TARP). That’s a pretty high batting average for journalistic fraud. Here is a list of what Fox News viewers believe that just aint so:

* 91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
* 72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
* 72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
* 60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
* 49 percent believe income taxes have gone up
* 63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts
* 56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout
* 38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP
* 63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear)

The conclusion is inescapable. Fox News is deliberately misinforming its viewers and it is doing so for a reason. Every issue above is one in which the Republican Party had a vested interest. The GOP benefited from the ignorance that Fox News helped to proliferate. The results were apparent in the election last month as voters based their decisions on demonstrably false information fed to them by Fox News.

By the way, the rest of the media was not blameless. CNN and the broadcast network news operations fared only slightly better in many cases. Even MSNBC, which had the best record of accurately informing viewers, has a ways to go before it can brag about it.

The conclusions in this study need to be disseminated as broadly as possible. Fox’s competitors need to report these results and produce ad campaigns featuring them. Newspapers and magazines need to publish the study across the country. This is big news and it is critical that the nation be advised that a major news enterprise is poisoning their minds.

This is not an isolated review of Fox’s performance. It has been corroborated time and time again. The fact that Fox News is so blatantly dishonest, and the effects of that dishonesty have become ingrained in an electorate that has been been purposefully deceived, needs to be made known to every American. Our democracy cannot function if voters are making choices based on lies. We have the evidence that Fox is tilting the scales and we must now make certain its corporate owners do not get away with it.

OK, maybe Fox zombies are not the smartest and best informed. They do seem to be well trained, begging and rolling over on command.

Newly Elected Tea Party Conservatives Kill Jobs and Stop Progress

Newly Elected Tea Party Conservatives Kill Jobs and Stop Progress

Even before taking office, Republican Govs.-elect John Kasich (OH) and Scott Walker (WI) swiftly delivered on their “promises to kill America’s future” by rebuking a total of $1.2 billion in stimulus funding for high-speed rail projects in their states. Shunning the $810 million for the long-planned Wisconsin rail project, Walker promised to kill the Milwaukee-Madison link if President Obama tried “to force this down the throats of the taxpayers.”

But campaign rhetoric has very real consequences. Last Thursday — on the same day the World Congress for High Speed Rail announced the next HSR Congress will be held in America for the first time — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pulled the funding from Ohio and Wisconsin, offering it instead to states more eager to spur economic development. What’s more, because of Walker’s narrow-minded politics, the Spanish train manufacturing company Talgo, which moved into Wisconsin for this project, is closing its Milwaukee plant and taking the much-needed jobs with it:

Talgo Inc., the Spanish manufacturer of high-speed train cars, will abandon its plant in Milwaukee in 2012, according to Nora Friend, a spokeswoman for the company.[...]

“We can’t stay and manufacture in Milwaukee without the high-speed rail to Madison,” Friend said. “This is terrible news.”

Friend said the state’s decision to back away from the high-speed rail project sends a terrible message to businesses considering locating in the state.

“We were encouraged by the business community,” Friend said. “We are really discouraged by what has happened.”

State residents should also be discouraged, she said. Talgo and the construction of the rail line would have created jobs badly needed in the construction industry.

“For anybody to think that there is another $800 million to invest in another project is foolish,” she said. “There is no other pool of money.”

Talgo currently employs 40 people in Milwaukee, WI and “was hoping to grow their staff to as many as 125 to fulfill the orders” that current Gov. Jim Doyle (D) and his administration had made in preparation for the project. Those orders would’ve spurred some 13,000 badly-needed jobs in a state facing a 7.8 percent unemployment rate. (Ohio will lose 16,000 jobs.) Instead, Talgo plans to take that business to three of the states that will share in the federal money taken away from Wisconsin and Ohio, most notably Florida.

One assumes the Republican prejudice against upgrading the nation's rail system is in line with their crusade to return America to the glory days of whale bones corsets, slavery and when women weren't so uppity.

John McCain Talks a Lot About Honor for Man Who Has None

McCain Flashback: ‘I Would Clearly Support Not Extending [Bush] Tax Cuts In Order To Help Address The Deficit’

This afternoon on Fox News, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Congress should vote to pass the tax cuts deal negotiated between President Obama and congressional Republicans. “We have sent the message that we will not increase people’s taxes,” McCain said.

During the interview, McCain took a moment to mock Obama for backtracking on the Bush tax cuts for the rich:

McCAIN: I guess it was my old beloved friend Morris Udall who said the politician’s prayer is: may the words I utter today be tender and sweet because tomorrow I may have to eat them. We’re seeing clips all over the place — “We can’t extend these tax cuts for the rich,” “it’s the rich people” — you know, all of the clips of the President.

He got a good laugh out of Obama’s predicament of dealing with the GOP “hostage takers.” Watch it:

While it is certainly true that Obama has acquiesced on his principled stand against doling out unnecessary tax cuts to the rich, he’s not the only one. In fact, John McCain was once a crusader against the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

In 2008, of course, McCain ran on an agenda of rewarding the wealthiest Americans with a huge tax cut. But, the “maverick” McCain of early 2000s was an articulate and eloquent messenger against handing out more taxes for the rich:

“There’s one big difference between me and the others – I won’t take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy.” [McCain campaign commercial, January 2000]

“I am disappointed that the Senate Finance Committee preferred instead to cut the top tax rate of 39.6% to 36%, thereby granting generous tax relief to the wealthiest individuals of our country at the expense of lower- and middle-income American taxpayers.” [McCain Senate floor statement, May 21, 01]

“I voted against the tax cuts because of the disproportional amount that went to the wealthiest Americans. I would clearly support not extending those tax cuts in order to help address the deficit.” [Meet the Press, 4/11/04]

Well McCain is a gigolo and their values , by definition, are for sale. The right and men who live off their second wives' inherited wealth

What's most notable about John McCain's confusion over the number of homes he owns isn't merely that it demonstrates that, after running his campaign based on depicting Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist and himself as the all-American Everyman, McCain lives a life that is about as far removed from the Average American as one can get, and has done so for decades. What's notable is how McCain was able to live that way. McCain himself isn't actually rich. He just lives off the inherited wealth of his much younger former mistress and now-second-wife -- for whom he dumped his older and disfigured first wife -- and who then used her family's money to fund McCain's political career and keep him living in extreme luxury (after insisting that he sign a prenuptial agreement, which would make McCain the first U.S. President to have one).

Meritocracy is a word Republicans like to use even though they never actually live by its meaning.

As Republicans Hold America Hostage Democrats Recoup More TARP Funds

U.S. turns a $12-billion profit on Citigroup bailout

Taxpayers earned a $12-billion profit on the U.S. Treasury's $45-billion bailout of Citigroup Inc., the government reported as it sold the last of its stock in the banking giant.

The Treasury said late Monday that it sold 2.4 billion Citigroup shares to private investors at $4.35 apiece, raising $10.5 billion.

That brought to $57 billion the government's total proceeds from the bank, including previous sales of Citigroup stock as well as dividend and interest income that the bank paid the government.

"By selling all the remaining Citigroup shares today, we had an opportunity to lock in substantial profits for the taxpayer and avoid all future risk," Tim Massad, acting assistant secretary for financial stability, said in a statement. "With this transaction, we have advanced our goals of recovering TARP funds, protecting the taxpayer and getting the government out of the business of owning stakes in private companies."

Citigroup and Bank of America Corp. were the two biggest bank recipients of government aid under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Each bank got $45 billion.

The government injected an initial $25 billion into Citigroup in late 2008 as the financial system crashed and an additional $20 billion two months later as the bank's condition worsened amid massive losses on mortgages and other loans.

A lot of the outrage over TARP - much of it purely manufactured from tea-tard conservatives - helped conservatives take over the House.

New Conservative Republican Appropriations Chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) Was 'Porker Of The Month' In August

On Tax and Unemployment Insurance Deal, Obama Chose Jobs and Working Families

On Tax and Unemployment Insurance Deal, Obama Chose Jobs and Working Families

Progressives need to be clear and honest about what just happened on taxes and the economy. Since the midterm election, it has been clear that the Congressional Republican Leadership was perfectly prepared to see middle and working class tax cuts expire and extended unemployment insurance end unless millionaire tax cuts were extended. All the talk about decoupling and extending middle class tax cuts from the cuts for millionaires was wishful thinking at best and just political talk at worst and no strategy could have produced it during the lame duck.

So President Obama was faced with a choice: he could trade a few more years of unnecessary and wasteful tax breaks for the rich in exchange for assistance to the unemployed, additional targeted tax relief for working families through the refundable earned income tax credit and child credit, and keeping tax rates low for 98 percent of Americans; alternatively he could allow taxes to rise on everyone starting in January. At the end of the day, President Obama decided he couldn’t abandon the millions of Americans who are struggling to keep their families afloat, who are diligently searching for work, and who simply cannot afford higher taxes right now, even though the Congressional Republican Leadership was more than happy to do so if we wouldn't pay their ransom.

It was a steep price, but this deal will mean about 2 million jobs saved or created over the next two years. On balance, I think the President was right to choose helping working Americans over a December conflagration. But the question hanging over Washington and the country today is how will he avoid repeating the same scenario being played out again and again for the next two years? That’s a question that is keeping me awake at night.

John D. Podesta is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American

Compromises are just that. The part of this compromise which is difficult to impossible to accept is the backdoor attack on Social Security.

Glenn Beck's Ingenious Take on the History of the Roman Empire

Glenn Beck's Ingenious Take on the History of the Roman Empire and perverse comparisons to the United States

On both his radio and Fox News programs this week, Glenn Beck sought to show how the U.S. is " repeating the exact mistakes" that led to the fall of the Roman Republic. But according to Roman history experts consulted by Media Matters, Beck's history lesson distorted or fabricated key facts.
beck screengrab
Beck Points To Beginning of Roman Empire As Example Of "What's Happening To Us"

Beck: "We Are Repeating The Exact Mistakes of Ancient Rome." Beck said on the December 1 edition of his Fox News show, "Tonight, I will show how we are repeating the exact mistakes of ancient Rome and we are on the fast track to writing the next chapter of history titled "The Rise and Fall of American Empire and Man's Freedom." [Glenn Beck, 12/01/10, accessed via Nexis]

Beck: "This Is Where We're At. The Empire Begins." Beck said, "The fall of the Roman Republic and into an empire, because I think this is where we're at. The empire begins. We are not looking at the decline and fall of the American empire, because we're still a republic, but we're teetering." Beck added that "what they're trying to do right now is to convince you that communism and socialism is better than capitalism. They are doing everything they can to achieve their goal without you knowing it." [Glenn Beck, 12/01/10, accessed via Nexis]

Beck: "Obama Is Octavian." On the December 2 edition of his radio show, Beck said, "Barack Obama is Octavian. The first Roman, real, god. But he was the first citizen. He was the last guy of the Republic before it went into an empire. And he changed everything. He left the illusion of a republic but became a dictator. But he always claimed that he wasn't. This is what's happening to us." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 11/2/10]

Beck: Like Rome, We Are Doing "Land Grabs And Food Rations And Free Food." Beck said:

I showed you, as the Roman Empire begins decline, what do they do? They start land grabs and food rations and free food. And then, they change the republic and they don't let people know.

They just change it. They leave all the Senate in and everything, but it's all a scam so people can feel good. That is where we left it. Now, that is what we are doing here. And they are saying to us that state capitalism is where we are headed.

Well, I just showed you that is not state capitalism; it's national socialism. Soon, it will be global socialism. And they can't say "national socialism" now because everybody will freak out. They know what is. That's Mussolini and that's Hitler. [Glenn Beck, 12/01/10, accessed via Nexis]

Beck Ignores Years Of Slaughter To Claim Octavian Rose To Emperor "Without Violence"

Beck: Roman Citizens Became "Subjects Of An Emperor And It All Happened Without Violence, Without Votes Or Without Fanfare." From the December 1 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: The people of Rome had gone from being citizens of a republic to subjects of an emperor and it all happened without violence, without votes or without fanfare. Didn't really even know and they were actually happy about it. Because they were bought off. Now, where are we seeing this today? [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 12/1/10, via LexisNexis]

Classics Professor Brennan: Transition Period From Republic To Empire "Was One Of The Bloodiest And Most Deeply Traumatizing In Rome's History." T. Corey Brennan, a classics professor at Rutgers University and current visiting faculty member at the American Academy in Rome, told Media Matters, "The triumviral period (from 15 March 44 BC down to Octavian's victory over Marc Antony at the battle of Actium in 31 BC) was one of the bloodiest and most deeply traumatizing in Rome's history." Roman history professor Ray Laurence, of the University of Kent, similarly stated by email: "This is way off. From 44 BC to 31 BC, entailed the most violent series of civil wars Rome had seen."

* Classics Professor Peachin: "Augustus [Octavian] Began His Career As A Mass Murderer." New York University classics professor and Roman history expert Michael Peachin wrote to Media Matters:

Again, since this distorts so utterly so much, and in itself means absolutely nothing whatsoever, it is very hard to comment on. But just for example: "without violence" is absolutely incredible nonsense. Augustus began his career as a mass murderer - just think of Cicero, murdered, his hands cut off and tongue cut out, and these nailed up on the speaker's platform in the Forum. He was only one of thousands proscribed: i.e., their names published in lists hung up daily, announcing that these people were sought, and that anyone who brought the person, or the person's head, would receive a reward. And then, a series of horrific civil wars.

* Historian Goldsworthy: "Octavian/Augustus Was The Last Man Standing At The End Of This Period Of Conflict." Adrian Goldsworthy, historian and author of several books about the Roman Empire, stated in an email:

From 44-30 BC there was almost constant civil war. When Antony, Octavian and Lepidus occupied Rome in 43 BC they introduced the proscriptions - effectively death lists to give legal justification to the murder of their enemies. Octavian/Augustus was the last man standing at the end of this period of conflict. People were grateful for a return to some form of peace. This made them a lot readier to accept the stability of the new regime. So he was fairly popular - having said that, nobody chose him - he just won the civil wars and then was a skilful enough politician to win the peace.

Beck Misleadingly Claims Roman Republic Was Characterized By "Freedom"

Beck: "It Was A Republic At First. There Was Freedom. Things Went Well." From the December 1 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: It was a republic at first. There was freedom. Things went well. That's why they expanded. And, then, when freedom started to fall apart, that's when they became an empire. They went from freedom to feeding people to lions for sport.

Now, how do you go from a decent people that are expanding to taking people and feeding them to lions? I mean, logically, if we progress, if we are all so progressive, shouldn't it go the other way, you start feeding people to lions and then you don't? [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 12/1/10, via LexisNexis]

Peachin: Aside From The "Elite," Most Had Limited Freedom. According to Peachin, the "senatorial/equestrian elite" of the Roman Republic had "very nearly unlimited freedom," but "most everyone else" had "freedom only in a mildly to severely circumscribed fashion." As evidence, he pointed to Rome's "vast" slave population. By email, he told Media Matters:

The interpretation of Roman history here can hardly be discussed, since it is so preposterously nonsensical. But: Yes, Rome was a form of republic between (supposedly) 509 BC and the mid to late first century BC. Freedom: for whom, what kind, how much? For the senatorial/equestrian elite, yes: very nearly unlimited freedom (in various ways). For most everyone else: freedom only in a mildly to severely circumscribed fashion, or not at all (the slave population was, e.g., vast - and as the Roman lawyers put it, a slave was an "instrumentum vocale" - i.e., a "talking tool"). Things went well? What things? How well? This means nothing. I can't really comment on nothing.

Goldsworthy: "The Majority Of People Were Probably No Less Free Under The Empire." Goldsworthy told Media Matters: "It is also worth saying that the Liberty of the Roman Republic was mainly the freedom of the aristocracy to monopolize power, dominate public life, and enjoy the largest share of the profits of empire. The majority of people were probably no less free under the empire -- at least during the first and second centuries AD. In fact many of them were better protected by law which was harder to bend - at least if the emperor was a reasonably good one."

The Practice Of Feeding Slaves And Prisoners To Animals Existed Before The Establishment Of The Empire. According to Brennan, bestiarii (Roman gladiators who fought animals) "certainly existed by the latter days of the Republic. [The famous Roman senator] Cicero takes the practice for granted as early as 56 BC, i.e., some decades before the establishment of the Empire."

* Ephraim Chambers: "Cicero Mentions A Lion Which Alone Dispatch'd 200 Bestiarii." A pre-Empire reference to bestiarii can be found in Ephraim Chambers' 17th-century Cyclopedia.[Cyclopedia, accessed 12/3/10]
* Goldsworthy: "It Was Already Established Under The Republic." Goldsworthy told Media Matters:

The origins of throwing people to the wild beasts was to punish in a way that was especially demeaning. It was already established under the Republic - just like gladiatorial shows and beast fights (trained or semi-trained animal fighters taking on animals). Roman citizens would not be subject to such punishments, unless they were considered to have violated their standing as citizens by extreme behaviour, such as deserting and fighting for an enemy army. Punishments like this and crucifixion were normally reserved for slaves and foreigners. The scale of such punishments increased under the Empire, but did not start then.

Beck Incorrectly Claims That First Emperor Of Rome "Refused To Be Called Caesar"

Beck: "He Refused To Be Called Caesar. Remember, He Was The Adopted Son Of Caesar." From the December 1 edition of Glenn Beck:

BECK: Octavian's control over the armed forces made resistance futile. You couldn't resist. In keeping with his policy of maintaining the appearance of traditional republican government, republican as in "the republic," it was all still there.

He went a step further. He refused to be called Caesar. Remember, he was the adopted son of Caesar. No, he didn't want to be a dictator. No. Instead, he disguised himself, he was an autocratic ruler, he took the title of Princeps, which is "first citizen." [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 12/1/10, via Nexis]

In Fact, Octavian Embraced The Name Caesar. According to Erich Gruen, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley*:

Octavian, in fact, took the name Caesar immediately upon word of his adoption, and kept it throughout. He had very right to do so. Caesar was a family name and devolved automatically upon the son (or adopted son). It was not at this point a title. Octavian did shun the office of dictator to distinguish himself from Caesar. Princeps means "leading citizen" not "first citizen." Several leading figures received that designation in the Republic, but it was an informal one, never a title. Nor did Octavian ever use it a a title.

A Glenn Beck acolyte at one news site said that Beck is a genius and liberals do not like him because they have no facts on their side. The poor guy lives in a bubble. Beck rarely gets any facts right and a modest amount of time and research would show that. Which also says something about how lazy many conservatives are.

Republicans Against Making America Stronger, Hold DREAM ACT Hostage

Departments of Education, Homeland Security, and Defense All Support DREAM Act

"The DREAM Act will strengthen the U.S. economy and its military..."

Secretary Napolitano went on to say that the DREAM Act would actually make enforcement operations more streamlined by taking away a whole group of individuals who pose no threat to our country -- and have gone through the rigorous background checks to prove it:

Saying the nation's immigration system "does not work the way it ought to," Napolitano said passing the DREAM Act would not be a substitute for much-needed comprehensive immigration reform, but it would allow young people who were not responsible for immigrating illegally to this country and who want to go to college or join the military to adjust their immigration status and provide a path to citizenship without fear of deportation. This would be possible only after a vigorous background check.

"The laws themselves need to be updated," she said. "They need to be updated and reformed. One of the reforms that can take place is the Dream Act which takes out of the universe of those, as it were, who would be subject to enforcement action, it takes out of that group those who are the least culpable."

Secretary Napolitano is hardly alone in her support. Secretary of Education, Arte Duncan, recently sent a letter of DREAM Act support to Majority Leader Reid. So did Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, to key sponsor of the DREAM Act, Senator Richard Durbin, stating:

Setting aside the question of the process by which Congress should consider this legislation, there is a rich precedent supporting the service of non-citizens in the US military. Since the Revolutionary War, non-citizens have enlisted in the armed forces for service during periods of national emergency. Today, about 35, 000 non-citizens serve, and about 8,000 permanent resident aliens enlist every year. The DREAM Act represents an opportunity to expand this pool, to the advantage of military recruiting and readiness.

Just yesterday, that urgency was reiterated by Clifford Stanley, a Defense Department official:

"The department supports those elements of the DREAM Act that provide children of nonresident immigrants a clear path to U.S. citizenship through service in the military," said Clifford Stanley, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness…"Throughout past and current conflicts, those who are not yet citizens have answered the call to defend their adopted nation," Stanley said. "Allowing DREAM Act-eligible youth the opportunity to serve this nation would continue this tradition of service, while expanding the market of high-quality patriotic youth, to the advantage of military recruitment and readiness.

Republicans are holding the Dream Act among other legislation hostage in order that the poor pitiful billionaires of America do not return to paying the same tax rates they paid during the Reagan administration.
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Beck invents facts to attack food safety bill

Arizona ‘death panel’? State Medicaid cuts poised to let some poor patients die

A law in Arizona that cuts Medicaid funding for certain transplant operations is likely to bring about the deaths of poor residents in need of such procedures.

Starting in October, a measure passed by the Republican-led state legislature began denying Medicaid funds for organ transplants such as bone-marrow, lung, heart and liver transplants, which can be very expensive and are often performed in life-threatening cases.

One of Sarah Palin's more bizarre lies was that health care reform had death panels - now it seems it is Republicans and their death cult policies which are the real death panels.

Michael J. Boskin at The Wall St Journal is Lying About Tax Cuts and Multiplier Effect

Boskin writes -

President Obama and congressional leaders meeting yesterday confronted calls for four key fiscal decisions: short-run fiscal stimulus, medium-term fiscal consolidation, and long-run tax and entitlement reform. Mr. Obama wants more spending, especially on infrastructure, and higher tax rates on income, capital gains and dividends (by allowing the lower Bush rates to expire). The intellectual and political left argues that the failed $814 billion stimulus in 2009 wasn't big enough, and that spending control any time soon will derail the economy.

But economic theory, history and statistical studies reveal that more taxes and spending are more likely to harm than help the economy. Those who demand spending control and oppose tax hikes hold the intellectual high ground.

....Writing during the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes argued that "sticky" wages and prices would not fall to clear the market when demand declines, so high unemployment would persist. Government spending produced a "multiplier" to output and income; as each dollar is spent, the recipient spends most of it, and so on. Ditto tax cuts and transfers, but the multiplier is assumed smaller.

By contrast, the last two major tax cuts—President Reagan's in 1981-83 and President George W. Bush's in 2003—boosted growth. They lowered marginal tax rates and were longer lasting, both keys to success. In a survey of fiscal policy changes in the OECD over the past four decades, Harvard's Albert Alesina and Silvia Ardagna conclude that tax cuts have been far more likely to increase growth than has more spending.

Former Obama adviser Christina Romer and David Romer of the University of California, Berkeley, estimate a tax-cut multiplier of 3.0, meaning $1 of lower taxes raises short-run output by $3. Messrs. Mountford and Uhlig show that substantial tax cuts had a far larger impact on output and employment than spending increases, with a multiplier up to 5.0.

In short, tax cuts produce growth and spending during the worse recession in 75 years is bad and a failure. Bull hockey - No Correlation Between Bush Tax Cuts and Job Creation, Report Shows

As President Bush and his senior advisors traveled across the country this past weekend touting 2005 job growth numbers and demanding that Congress make the administration's tax cuts permanent, a study examines the administration's claim that tax cuts create jobs–and finds it without merit.

While two million jobs were created in 2005, this is 3.5 million jobs short of expectations by the President's Council of Economic Advisors, who estimate job growth at 3.1% in a normal year. Jobs grew by only 1.5% in 2005.

"The president's tax-cutting policy is a failure in regard to job creation, and we need to recognize it as such, " said Anisha Desai, program director at UFE and one of the report's co-authors. "While there is no evidence that massive tax cuts create jobs, there is considerable evidence that they contribute to economy-choking deficits."

The report reviewed administration claims that "tax cuts create jobs" and found the following:

* Tax cuts have no predictable effect on employment, either in job creation or job destruction.
* Since 2003, job creation has fallen millions of jobs short of the administration's promises.
* The current weakness in job creation during an economic recovery is unprecedented since World War II.

The report highlighted other concerns about jobs and the economy as well. For example, the number of good quality jobs (defined as those paying at least $16 an hour, providing employer-paid health insurance, and providing a pension) has remained flat at 25% of all workers. Significant racial disparities exist: black employment is at 89.6%, compared to 95.2% for whites. And Latino workers average more than $10,000 per year less in earnings than whites, and this gap is increasing.

While the Recovery act ( stimulus) has not been as successful as we'd like it has not been a failure - Economists agree: Stimulus created nearly 3 million jobs

Amid mounting signs that the economic recovery is faltering, one potential remedy seems out of the question: a booster shot of government spending.

The White House says the multiyear $814 billion stimulus program passed by Congress in 2009 boosted employment by 2.5 million to 3.6 million jobs and raised the nation's annual economic output by almost $400 billion. A recent study by two prominent economists generally agrees, crediting the pump-priming with averting "what could have been called Great Depression 2.0."

If President Obama expected anyone to say, "Thank you," however, he's been disappointed. In a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 59% of respondents disapproved of the president's handling of the economy. In the partisan war over the economy's performance, the word "stimulus" has became synonymous with "boondoggle,"

....Politically, the "Recovery Act" — which is divided among tax cuts, financial aid for cash-strapped state governments, emergency unemployment assistance and spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure — has taken fire from the left and the right.

Liberal economists such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman complained that the massive program should have been larger and was marred by the inclusion of excessive tax cuts that would have a less-immediate impact on job creation. Republicans derided the legislation as wasteful spending that would add to ballooning government debt.

Eighteen months later, the consensus among economists is that the stimulus worked in staving off a rerun of the 1930s. But the spending's impact was dwarfed by other crisis-fighting tools deployed by the Bush and Obama administrations, including costly efforts to stabilize crippled banks and the Fed's unconventional monetary policy.

"I think it was important for confidence. ... But fiscal stimulus was the least important of the three planks of the government's strategy," said Harvard University's Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

Counting jobs

Christina Romer, the outgoing head of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, never really recovered politically from her January 2009 forecast that the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8%. In fact, by the time Obama signed the Recovery Act into law on Feb. 17, 2009, it already had breached that level. (The original administration forecast was prepared using data from late 2008 before the already-wounded economy deteriorated even more dramatically.) The unemployment rate hit 10.1% in October 2009 and stands at 9.5% today.

Republican leaders such as Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia say that proves the stimulus a failure. But Romer last month told the Joint Economic Committee that the stimulus "helped to turn the economy from free fall to recovery."

It's no surprise that the administration would proclaim its own policies a success. But its verdict is backed by economists at Goldman Sachs, IHS Global Insight, JPMorgan Chase and Macroeconomic Advisers, who say the stimulus boosted gross domestic product by 2.1% to 2.7%.

It's impossible to determine precisely how many jobs or how much growth the stimulus program caused. In a nearly $14 trillion economy, economists can't go employer to employer counting new hires. And there are too many moving parts to confidently link any single factor with individual hiring decisions. Roughly one-third of the stimulus, for example, came in the form of tax cuts, which are designed to boost demand for a wide array of products and eventually result in related hiring.

But to estimate the answers to such questions, economists rely on models based on historical relationships between various policies and real-world results. Earlier this month, Zandi and co-author Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, released the most detailed assessment of the government's efforts to combat the so-called Great Recession. Neither economist is regarded as a partisan firebrand. Zandi, for example, backed John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign and has advised members of both parties.

Their conclusion: The fiscal stimulus created 2.7 million jobs and added $460 billion to gross domestic product. Unemployment would be 11% today if the stimulus hadn't been passed and 16.5% if neither the fiscal stimulus nor the banks' rescue had been enacted, according to Zandi and Blinder. "It's pretty hard to deny that it had a measurable impact," Zandi said.

Do not be fooled by Boskin's use of the multiplier effect doublespeak. He was a Bush economic advisory and made the same claims about the link between growth and tax cuts years ago. Bush had the worse economic growth record of any president since Hoover. Funny that Boskin belongs to the Hoover Institute.