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Add comment January 30th, 2009

No government layoffs? You’re kidding, right?

Add comment January 30th, 2009

 

I heard a complaint the other day — never mind where; I don’t want to embarrass the guy — to the effect that the layoffs in the current economic crisis are all coming in the private sector but not from government payrolls.

In reality, state and local governments, faced with sharp declines in tax revenues, are laying people off by the tens of thousands.

Fully seven months ago, before the crisis deepened, there was THIS STORY about government layoffs.

Now, as the situation worsens, we see stories like THIS and THIS and THIS.

Granted, on the whole, state and local government jobs actually increased last year, but that was mostly under provisions of budgets that had been adopted months beforehand.  As new fiscal years approach, and as governments struggle with severe budget pressures, layoffs will abound.

Rudy “9/11″ Giuliani says bonuses for Wall Street execs are better than welfare for poor folks

1 comment January 30th, 2009

 

Aren’t you glad THIS GUY wasn’t elected president?

Has Dennis Miller ever been funny?

10 comments January 30th, 2009

Two of the world’s creepiest people joke about waterboarding:

Blago wanted to give Senate seat to Fitz?

Add comment January 30th, 2009

My thanks to regular Applesauce commenter echo4charlie for THIS SATIRICAL PIECE from the Onion.

At the expense of Limbaugh and the GOP, Obama and the libs put on a clinic on hardball politics

14 comments January 30th, 2009

 

This is just too, too delicious.

One week ago today,  President Obama ADMONISHED Republican lawmakers to quit listening to radio blabber Rush Limbaugh. The president thereby baited a political trap, although hardly anybody saw it as such at the time.

The new administration — especially White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel – seems to have recognized that a golden political opportunity had arisen when El Rushbo famously declared that he hopes Obama fails as president. Limbaugh’s comment was ill-advised in light of the president’s CONSIDERABLE POPULARITY.

Here was a chance to paint Limbaugh, a notorious liar and bombastic racist and misogynist, as the face of the Republican Party.

Limbaugh took the bait, blustering for hours every day about how the president had singled him out as a reigning adversary.

Then, Obama got an unexpected gift when Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican, ABJECTLY APOLOGIZED to Limbaugh for having publicly disparaged him. The gesture made Gingrey and, by implication, his like-minded GOP colleagues look like spineless cowards who jump at Limbaugh’s command.

Another gift was the unanimity with which House Republicans voted against Obama’s economic stimulus bill, despite the administration’s gestures of bipartisan compromise when it made certain changes to the legislation to appease conservatives. It was as if they were paying more heed to Limbaugh than to a flexible administration in a time of great national crisis.

So, now the trap is springing, as liberal groups use Limbaugh as a bludgeon with which to beat on Republicans. (See HERE and HERE.)

In the end, Republicans will learn that with friends like Limbaugh, they don’t need enemies.

As I’ve noted here before, Democratic presidential candidates have carried the popular vote in four out of the five presidential elections since Limbaugh became a national figure. The man’s value to the Republican Party is vastly overrrated, and Obama’s shrewd gambit likely will diminish it further.

Don’t you just love it?

Should Roland Burris resign his Senate seat?

3 comments January 30th, 2009

 

THIS GUY says Roland Burris should resign from the Senate now that the sleazeball who appointed him has been kicked out of office.

I disagree.

Granted, Burris’ conspicuous egotism is a bit hard to take, and I don’t expect his Senate tenure to win any historic plaudits, but there’s no evidence that his appointment by Rod Blagojevich was anything but perfectly legal.

Besides, I doubt that Burris would survive next year’s Democratic primary election, should he choose to run. Two years from now, we’ll likely have a new junior senator from Illinois — a Democrat if President Obama remains popular, or a Republican if he doesn’t.

This guy says — approvingly, mind you — that President Obama is a “two-faced liar”

Add comment January 30th, 2009

Greg Palast has a HUMOROUSLY FRANK TAKE on President Obama and the economic stimulus bill.