By Michael Bryan John Munger recently dropped out of the GOP nomination race for Governor. His slogan was "Real Leadership. No Excuses." Advertisement It was on his website, his lit, his media, his billboards. You get the idea that maybe he means it. And yet when he decides to throw in the towel, he puts … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Memo to the media: just stop publishing Rasmussen Reports press releases about their polls. It constitutes journalistic malpractice at this point. As I have reported earlier, Rasmussen Reports are an outlier poll of questionable credibility. Daily Kos summarizes the latest amazing polling by Rasmussen Reports: After revelations broke that Blumenthal had, that one … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said in a press conference today that following a meeting with President Obama she is "encouraged that there's going to be much better dialogue" about the illegal immigration problem her state faces. She added though that the question of a Department of Justice challenge to the constitutionality of … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

President Obama gave a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on Wednesday that was largely ignored by the media and condensed down to a simple bullet point by the AP that Obama seeks to roll back Big Oil's tax breaks (Arizona Daily Star headline).

This speech was so much more than this over-simplification by the AP (and the Star). It was about economic theory and the role of government. I know, I know… way too deep for the media types to understand. Besides, it contradicts the pre-packaged talking points the media relies on from the GOP everyday. Stenography is so much easier than actual thinking… thinking hurts their pretty little heads!

If today's media reported on John F. Kennedy's "The New Frontier" speech they would have given it a paragraph or two focusing on a minor policy point rather than his overarching visionary theme. Significant history is being lost to poor quality news reporting today.

Transcript of Remarks by the President on the Economy at Carnegie Mellon University (condensed):

[W]e’re continuing our efforts to recover and rebuild from an economic disaster that has touched the lives of nearly every American.  That’s what I want to talk about today — the state of our economy, the future we must seize, and the path we chose to get there.

It has now been a little over 16 months since I took office amid one of the worst economic storms in our history.  And to navigate that storm, my administration was forced to take some dramatic and unpopular steps.  These steps have succeeded in breaking the freefall.  We’re again moving in the right direction. 

An economy that was shrinking at an alarming rate when I became President has now been growing for three consecutive quarters.  After losing an average of 750,000 jobs a month during the winter of last year, we’ve now added jobs for five of the last six months, and we expect to see strong job growth in Friday’s report.  The taxpayer money it cost to shore up the financial sector and the auto industry, that's being repaid.  And both GM and Chrysler are adding shifts and operating at a profit. So, despite temporary setbacks, uncertain world events, and the resulting ups and downs of the market, this economy is getting stronger by the day. 

Now, that doesn’t mean this recession is by any means over for the millions of Americans who are still looking for a job or a way to pay the bills.  Not by a long shot.  The devastation created by the deepest downturn since the Great Depression has hit people and communities across our country very hard.  And it’s not going to be a real recovery until people can feel it in their own lives.

In the immediate future, this means doing whatever is necessary to keep the recovery going and to spur job growth.  But in the long term, it means recognizing that for a lot of middle-class families — for entire communities, in some case — a sense of economic security has been missing since long before the recession began. 

Over the last decade, these families saw their income decline.  They saw the cost of things like health care and college tuition reach record highs.  They lived through a so-called economic “expansion” that generated slower job growth than at any prior expansion since World War II.  Some people have called the last 10 years “the lost decade.”

So the anxiety that’s out there today isn’t new.  The recession has certainly made it worse, but that feeling of not being in control of your own economic future — that sense that the American Dream might slowly be slipping away — that’s been around for some time now.  And for better or for worse, our generation of Americans has been buffeted by tremendous forces of economic change.  Long gone are the days when a high school diploma could guarantee a job at a local factory — not when so many of those factories had moved overseas. 

* * *

And that's why I’ve said that as we emerge from this recession, we can’t afford to return to the pre-crisis status quo.  We can’t go back to an economy that was too dependent on bubbles and debt and financial speculation.  We can’t accept economic growth that leaves the middle class owing more and making less.  We have to build a new and stronger foundation for growth and prosperity — and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for the last 16 months.
  
It’s a foundation based on investments in our people and their future; investments in the skills and education we need to compete; investments in a 21st century infrastructure for America, from high-speed railroads to high-speed Internet; investments in research and technology, like clean energy, that can lead to new jobs and new exports and new industries. 

This new foundation is also based on reforms that will make our economy stronger and our businesses more competitive — reforms that will make health care cheaper, our financial system more secure, and our government less burdened with debt.

* * *

Now, some of you may have noticed that we have been building this foundation without much help from our friends in the other party.  From our efforts to rescue the economy, to health insurance reform, to financial reform, most have sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers.  They said no to tax cuts for small businesses; no to tax credits for college tuition; no to investments in clean energy.  They said no to protecting patients from insurance companies and consumers from big banks. 

And some of this, of course, is just politics.  Before I was even inaugurated, the congressional leaders of the other party got together and made a calculation that if I failed, they’d win. So when I went to meet with them about the need for a Recovery Act, in the midst of crisis, they announced they were against it before I even arrived at the meeting.  Before we even had a health care bill, a Republican senator actually said, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo.  It will break him.”  So those weren’t very hopeful signs.    

But to be fair, a good deal of the other party’s opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about the role of government.  It’s a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges.  It’s an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face:  more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations. 

The last administration called this recycled idea “the Ownership Society.”  But what it essentially means is that everyone is on their own.  No matter how hard you work, if your paycheck isn’t enough to pay for college or health care or childcare, well, you’re on your own.  If misfortune causes you to lose your job or your home, you’re on your own.  And if you’re a Wall Street bank or an insurance company or an oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences for everybody else.

Now, I’ve never believed that government has all the answers.  Government cannot and should not replace businesses as the true engine of growth and job creation.  Government can’t instill good values and a sense of responsibility in our children.  That's a parent’s job.  Too much government can deprive us of choice and burden us with debt.  Poorly designed regulations can choke off competition and the capital that businesses need to thrive. 

I understand these arguments.  And it’s reflected in my policies.  After all, one-third of the Recovery Act we designed was made up of tax cuts for families and small businesses.  And when you think back to the health care debate, despite calls for a single-payer, government-run health care plan, we passed reform that maintains our system of private health insurance. 

But I also understand that throughout our nation’s history, we have balanced the threat of overreaching government against the dangers of an unfettered market.  We've provided a basic safety net, because any one of us might experience hardship at some time in our lives and may need some help getting back on our feet.  And we've recognized that there have been times when only government has been able to do what individuals couldn't do and corporations wouldn't do.

That's how we have railroads and highways, public schools and police forces.  That's how we've made possible scientific research that has led to medical breakthroughs like the vaccine for Hepatitis B, and technological wonders like GPS.  That's how we have Social Security and a minimum wage, and laws to protect the food we eat and the water we drink and the air that we breathe.  That’s how we have rules to ensure that mines are safe and, yes, that oil companies pay for the spills that they cause. 

Now, there have always been those who’ve said no to such protections; no to such investments.  There were accusations that Social Security would lead to socialism, and that Medicare was a government takeover.  There were bankers who claimed the creation of federal deposit insurance would destroy the industry.  And there were automakers who argued that installing seatbelts was unnecessary and unaffordable.  There were skeptics who thought that cleaning our water and our air would bankrupt our entire economy.  And all of these claims proved false.  All of these reforms led to greater security and greater prosperity for our people and our economy. 

So what was true then is true today.  As November approaches, leaders in the other party will campaign furiously on the same economic arguments they’ve been making for decades.  Fortunately, we don't have to look back too many years to see how their agenda turns out.  For much of the last 10 years we've tried it their way.  They gave us tax cuts that weren’t paid for to millionaires who didn’t need them.  They gutted regulations and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight.  They shortchanged investments in clean energy and education, in research and technology.  And despite all their current moralizing about the need to curb spending, this is the same crowd who took the record $237 billion surplus that President Clinton left them and turned it into a record $1.3 trillion deficit.

So we know where those ideas lead us.  And now we have a choice as a nation.  We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward.  And I don't know about you, but I want to move forward.  I think America wants to move forward.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Late political calendar update: What: Meet John Dougherty, candidate for U.S. Senate When: Thursday, June 3, 2010 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. Where: Hotel Congress (Copper Room), 311 E. Congress Street, Tucson Meet and greet John Dougherty, Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate. The candidate will speak followed by a Q & A at the … Read more

by David Safier The Accidental Guv lied/stretched-the-truth/misrepresented her father's service during World War II and the nature of his death to add heft to her outrage at being compared to Nazis. (See posts below for details.) The Nazi references hurt her beyond measure, she said. "They are awful . . .  It hurts. It's ugliness … Read more