MannyGoldstein
MannyGoldstein's JournalHa-ha! A plague of Massachusetts Liberals unleashed upon our country!
First Elizabeth Warren, now Ed Markey!
Time for the rest of you to do *your* jobs!
(Sorry about Romney and Brown. We were drunk. Never vote drunk. Hopefully all is forgiven.)
I was wrong about FDR holding 600 press conferences.
I don't know what I was thinking.
It was actually 998.
http://100days.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/obama-fdr-and-taming-the-press/
I'll try to do better next time.
Liberals Only: Rate President Obama's Job Performance
The DNC, DCCC, DSCC, and OFA have teamed up, at great expense (paid for by that patriotic American, Pete Peterson) to bring you this poll to prove we want to hear from our Liberal friends, too.
So how's the president doing?
MIHOP or LIHOP?
So we're in the process of restoring funds to the sequestered stuff that the rich and the crazy want restored. Air Traffic Controllers today, perhaps the military tomorrow, etc.
Meals on wheels? "Make no mistake, in these difficult times we all must make sacrifices blah blah blah..."
So the 99% get #%^*ed again.
My question: was this the intended outcome of the sequester, or are Democrats folding like cheap lawn chairs? Frankly, I can't tell on this one, although I'm leaning towards the former.
Can we stop with the Paul Krugman posts already?
Look, I get it. Many members of our very-very-big-tent Democratic party are unhappy. While the economy has been excellent for the past four years, it could be even excellent-er. While most bankers are doing way better than ever, we've all heard that a few have only had small pay increases. Yes, we must do better.
But turning to a Firebagger like Krugman is not the way to go. It's not who we are.
Sure, to people less intelligent than me, it seems that Krugman has been accurately predicting everything correctly all along. But now, finally we have PROOF POSITIVE that our little hero of the EmoProgs has been totally wrong all along:
The REALITY is that NOBODY can possibly know what's going on!
"It's as if a cat has climbed this huge tree - the cat of course is this huge crisis. My view is 'oh my God the cat's going to fall and I don't know what to do'."
...
The trouble for the economics profession is, according to the last of the conference hosts and another Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz: "There is no good economic theory that explains why the cat is still up the tree".
...
There were plenty of ideas for sure. But this is how the IMF's chief economist Olivier Blanchard put it at the end of the conference:
"We don't have a sense of our final destination… Where we end I really don't have much of a clue."
So these are the BIG BOYS of economics, people with Nobel prizes who teach at colleges, get paid huge fees for consulting to banks, and that kind of thing. Like it says in the headline, the BIG THINKERS. If they have no idea, than how could Krugman?
Some may ask: "In all cases in the past, depressions were ended by torrential government spending, and never by austerity. All Krugman is saying is that we should do what's always worked in the past, and don't do what's always failed in the past." And that might seem straightforward to simple people who don't have a grasp of really, really complicated things like I do. So I'll answer the question, using simple language that can be understood by these types of people.
You know how God created dinosaur bones and carbon dating to test our faith? To see who believes in Him, vs. who believes that the Earth is millions of years old? That's the reason why Krugman's policies will FAIL. God made all of those previous depressions and their solutions to test our faith in the greatness and soundness of sensible Third Way economic policies.
So... are you with Krugman? Or are you with God? It's time to choose.
Spiritually yours,
Third-Way Manny
Are you more Conservative than George Will?
- Patrick Henry, 1778
Last night, I was floored to see serious support for endless solitary confinement in a DU post and responses.
The way we treat prisoners in our country is appalling. Sure there are people who need to be off the streets, sometimes permanently, but savaging them is not what healthy societies do. It doesn't work, and it's sick. Civilized societies seek rehabilitation, not retribution.
I was surprised to come upon a recent column by George Will on the subject - Will seems to be positively Left Wing compared to some on DU with regards to solitary confinement:
“Zero Dark Thirty,” a nominee for Sunday’s Oscar for Best Picture, reignited debate about whether the waterboarding of terrorism suspects was torture. This practice, which ended in 2003, was used on only three suspects. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of American prison inmates are kept in protracted solitary confinement that arguably constitutes torture and probably violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.”
Noting that half of all prison suicides are committed by prisoners held in isolation, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) has prompted an independent assessment of solitary confinement in federal prisons. State prisons are equally vulnerable to Eighth Amendment challenges concerning whether inmates are subjected to “substantial risk of serious harm.”
...
Federal law on torture prohibits conduct “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” And “severe” physical pain is not limited to “excruciating or agonizing” pain, or pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, or even death.” The severe mental suffering from prolonged solitary confinement puts the confined at risk of brain impairment.
...
In 1890, the U.S. Supreme Court said of solitary confinement essentially what Dickens had said: “A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others, still, committed suicide.” Americans should be roused against this by decency — and prudence.
In most circumstances, people who commit serious crimes are defective. Torturing them will not make them better people, and it certainly doesn't make us better people. It makes the criminals more defective, and deadens our souls.
I know I'll receive a ration of shit for this post from the "They deserve to rot in Hell, they're just getting what they deserve" crowd, but so be it. Nobody should be tortured in our country, neither al Qaeda nor pot smokers. Nobody. That's not who we are.
14 dead in Waco. How many folks will go to jail?
More than 3x the recent Boston Bomber Brothers death toll. How many will pay for cash over safety? What's your guess?
NPR: No law mandates reading Miranda rights
However, any info gained before reading rights will likely be inadmissible at trial.
They were interviewing a law professor named Kermit Roosevelt.
Cops and Donuts: It's True! (Watertown)
Dunkin Donuts kept the lights on during chaosOn block after block of Boston’s Financial District and Downtown Crossing, Starbucks shops went dark as the city locked down, spurred by a manhunt for the second Marathon bombing suspect. Dunkin’ Donuts stayed open.
Law enforcement officials asked the chain to keep some restaurants open in locked-down communities to provide hot coffee and food to police and other emergency workers, including in Watertown, the focus of the search for the bombing suspect. Dunkin’ is providing its products to them at no charge.
“At the direction of authorities, select Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in the Boston area are open to take care of needs of law enforcement and first responders,” spokeswoman Lindsay Harrington explained via e-mail. “We are encouraging our guests to stay home today and abide by the lock-down, per the governor’s recommendation.”
Whatever it was... It worked!
Look, I thought I was the most cynical person on Earth. But these
threads decrying the militarization of Watertown have me looking like Mary Tyler Moore on shrooms.
Dear Lord! People were running around throwing pressure cooker bombs! They blew up hundreds of people, executed one peace officer, and almost another. Maybe you want these guys operating freely in your neighborhood, but I didn't want them in mine and was damned glad that they were taken seriously and taken out.