A Really Bad Week for the NRA and Wayne LaPierre (Not that there's anything wrong with that)

After the murder of children in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA is under-fire. And momentum from the progressive gun-control side is showing no signs of slowing. In fact, the more NRA leader Wayne LaPierre pushes his crazy apocalyptic fearmongering and hatred for President Obama, the more foolish and out-of-touch he seems. This only invigorates the Left, giving us hope that the NRA's power is waning, and LaPierre is losing the battle.

Please, proceed, Mr. LaPierre.

Last week in a Senate Hearing on gun control measures, LaPierre seemed to blame everything in society for mass shootings except guns. Then he pooh-pooh'd background checks:

My problem with background checks is you’re never going to get criminals to go through universal background checks. All the law-abiding people . . . you'll create an enormous federal bureaucracy, unfunded, hitting all the little people in the country who will have to go through it, pay the fees, pay the taxes. We don’t even prosecute anybody right now that goes through the system we have. So we're going to make all those law-abiding people go through the system, and then we aren't going to prosecute any of the bad guys if they do catch one. None of it makes any sense in the real world.
~ Wayne LaPierre of the NRA

Mr. LaPierre, that's the point! Criminals won't go to purchase the guns, because there will be a background check! We'll stop them from the original purchase. You missed that point completely! And I think it's basic. (applause in the room)
~ Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois

More Quotes from the Gun Hearing Here:
Snark Amendment: Wayne LaPierre ~ Kids Need a Security Blanket of Guards and Guns


On Saturday there was the sad story of America's top military sniper, Chris Kyle, getting shot On a Gun Range in Texas. Yes, on a gun range, where everyone is probably a member of the NRA, everyone was armed and everyone is generally knowledgeable about guns. Another veteran suffering from PTSD shot Kyle and an acquaintance, and even though they were in a place built for the sole purpose of shooting at targets, the two men didn't have a chance to fire a single shot in return. There couldn't be a better example of how stupid it would be to "arm everybody," even teachers in schools. Because guess what? Plenty of armed people have died in the wars as well. Ask any soldier. Guns won't stop bullets.

Read the whole story with all the quotes here:
Snark Amendment: American Sniper Chris Kyle Shot to Death on Texas Gun Range

On ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Progressive economist Paul Krugman tore into the NRA and LaPierre:

PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: But what really strikes me -- I don't know how this plays, you know, what will happen. What strikes me is we've actually gotten a glimpse into the mindset, though, of the pro-gun people and we've seen certainly Wayne LaPierre and some of these others. It's bizarre. They have this vision that we're living in a "Mad Max" movie and that nothing can be done about it, that America cannot manage unless everybody's prepared to shoot intruders, that -- the idea that we have a police forces that provides public safety is somehow totally impractical, despite the fact that, you know, that is, in fact, the way we live.
So I think that the terms of the debate have shifted. Now the craziness of the extreme pro-gun lobby has been revealed, and that has got to move the debate and got to move the legislation at least to some degree.

During the Super Bowl the snti-gun group Demand a Plan started by NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran an advertisement with a video clip of Wayne LaPierre from a few years back saying he favored universal background checks. It's very effective because at one time the NRA made sense and that's what society wants, so LaPierre and his minions are totally out-of-touch with mainstream America.

Demand a Plan on Twitter




And the worst thing that happened to Mr. LaPierre was when he appeared on Fox News, usually a safe haven for gun-nuts. But not this time - it became his worst nightmare. Usually pro-conservative interviewer Chris Wallace raked the NRA spokesman over hot burning coals in a sudden fit of real journalism. Because basically LaPierre was lying about Obama "taking all our guns" - just absurd fearmongering. There is no universal ban on guns and there probably won't ever be. He also tried to pin all violence on "gangs" in Chicago and Washington D.C. when obviously the hometown Newtown shooter wasn't a gang member and neither was the man who shot Chris Kyle on the gun range. Guns are the key - not the class designation of the shooter.

WALLACE: The murder today, because one of the things that concerns people, it seems every day we talk about a shooting. Oftentimes, mass shooting.

LAPIERRE: Right.

WALLACE: Day after day after day. And the frustration is you don't think that the answering -- that limiting guns has anything to do with that. And I understand there is some things you think will work and we'll talk about that.

The murder yesterday of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, this was a man who wrote "American Sniper". This is a man credited with the largest number of confirmed kills of any American soldier ever. He and another man gunned down at a Texas gun range.

LAPIERRE: If you want to stop violence in this country, here's what you do, OK? First, if you want to protect or kids, you put armed security in schools. I'm not talking about arming teachers, I'm talking about police officers, and I'm talking about certified professional security people. There is not a parent that sends off their kid to school that wants those kids to be unprotected. Just in Atlanta this past week, armed security stopped a shooting in an Atlanta school. Stopped it, right? Stopped it.

Second --

WALLACE: Here's the problem -- but here's the problem, respectfully, sir. If you -- if you arm people at schools, a lot of these people aren't just motivated to kill people in schools, they want to kill people.

And, forgive me, and, if it's -- school is too tough, they'll go to a movie theater. Like James Holmes. They'll go to a shopping center. They'll go to a gun range and kill Chris Kyle.



~~~~~~~~~~

Complete Transcript from Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace

WALLACE: All right. You oppose gun control as a form of government tyranny. But in the Senate hearings, this week, you offered a different reason for it. Let's take a look.

LAPIERRE: Right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAPIERRE: What people all over the country fear today, is being abandoned by their government. If a tornado hits, if a hurricane hits, if a riot occurs, that they're going to be out there alone, and the only way they will protect themselves, in the cold, in the dark, when they are vulnerable, is with a firearm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Do you really think that that is a more serious threat, marauding bands of Americans during a hurricane or a tornado, do you think that's a more serious threat to the average American than the steady drum beat of gun violence and sometimes mass gun violence?

~~~~~~~~~~

WALLACE: A couple of weeks ago, the NRA started running an ad that created a great deal of controversy. Here's a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Are the president's kids more important than yours? Why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Mr. LaPierre, do you regret putting up that ad?

LAPIERRE: The point of ad was this -- it wasn't picking on the president's kids. The president not --

WALLACE: It mentions them.

LAPIERRE: The president's kids are safe and we are thankful for it. The point of that ad --

WALLACE: They also face a threat that most children do not face.

LAPIERRE: Tell that to people in Newtown. Tell that to people --

WALLACE: Do you really think the president's children are the same kind of target as every school child in America? That's ridiculous and you know it, sir.

LAPIERRE: You know, unfortunately, I think there are parents all over the school that think -- all over the country that think their kids are entitled to the same amount of protection when they go to school, and they want --

WALLACE: So, they should have Secret Service?

LAPIERRE: No, but what they should have is police officers or certified armed security in those schools to keep people safe. If something happens, the police -- despite all the good intentions, is 15 to 20 minutes. It's too long. It's not going to help those kids.

Certified armed security in schools, just like --

WALLACE: But that's not going to protect them in the shopping mall, in the movie theater, on the streets.

LAPIERRE: Which is why we need to do everything else I'm talking about. Let's enforce the federal gun laws which we did not do now against gangs with guns, felons with guns -- my gosh, in the shadow of where we are sitting now, gangs are out there in Washington, D.C. You can buy drugs. You can buy guns. They are trafficking in 13-year-old girls --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: I understand there are lots of problems out there and this isn't going to solve all of them.

But you can't say, that -- first of all, the gangs don't commit the mass murders, Adam Lanza wasn't a member of a gang. James Holmes was not a member of the gang.

You talk -- one of the points of the ads that I want to ask you about, is you made it a class argument, the rich and elites.

LAPIERRE: Sure.

WALLACE: They have bodyguards. They have security.

LAPIERRE: Sure. And Mayor Bloomberg has it. Mayor Bloomberg has bodyguards.

WALLACE: I'll tell you who else has security. You do.

LAPIERRE: Sometimes. Yes.

WALLACE: And, you have security. Today you have security.

LAPIERRE: Yes, and you talk about hypocrisy right out in the open, we have had all kinds of threats on me, OK?

WALLACE: Does that make you an elite -- an out of touch elite because you have security?

LAPIERRE: I don't deny anybody the right to security when they need it. What I'm saying, it is ridiculous, Chris, for all the elites and all the powerful and privilege, the titans of industry, to send their kids to school where there's arm security. They have access to semi-automatic technology. They have access --

WALLACE: First of all, I don't know anybody who has -- I don't know anybody elites who sends their kids -- my children went to the same school that the Obama children went to, many years ago, and there were no armed security there.

LAPIERRE: A third of the schools in the country already have armed security.

WALLACE: I understand that, but the idea of an elite class, it's just nonsense, sir.

~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Krugman for Secretary of the Treasury?

I'm a fan of Nobel-Prize winning economist and NYT writer Paul Krugman. He is also author of great books like The Conscience of a Liberal, The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future, and End This Depression Now!. He's a force to be reckoned with in the world of economics - few can match his breadth of knowledge, or his willingness to be outspoken. Did I mention he is anti-austerity? Yeah, that's good, too.

Now there's a petition started by actor Danny Glover asking President Obama to seriously consider him for Secretary of Treasury to replace out-going Wall Street guy, Tim Geithner, who is like the anti-Krugman.

As of right now the petition has 208,755 signatures out of the 225,000 that was the original goal. That's huge! And yes, I signed it, too, because I want to join others in sending a message to President Obama that picking another Wall Street insider might not be the most creative idea in the world, or the best thing for our country.

Petition at Sign-On.Org

We urge you to nominate Paul Krugman for Treasury Secretary. Krugman will protect Social Security and Medicare from benefit cuts, promote policies to create jobs, and help defeat the austerity dogma in Washington and around the world.
Petition Background
Press reports say President Obama will soon nominate a new Treasury Secretary . Press speculation has centered on candidates likely to support the Wall Street agenda of cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits and other domestic spending rather than government policies to create jobs. We want President Obama to nominate Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who opposes austerity and wants the government to focus on creating jobs.

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., on why this is a good idea:

Krugman has been right about the major problems facing our economy, where many other economists and much of the business press have been wrong. A few examples: he wrote about the housing bubble before it collapsed and caused the Great Recession; he has forecast and explained that large budget deficits and trillions of dollars of "quantitative easing" (money creation) would not cause inflation or long-term interest rates to rise; and that the "confidence fairies" would not reward governments that pursued austerity in the face of recession.
Most importantly, Krugman is on the side of the majority of Americans. He has written extensively in favor of policies that favor job creation, explained the folly of budget cutting in the face of a weak economy, and opposes cuts to social security and Medicare benefits.
. . . since most of Wall Street's money went to Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the run-up to the November election, Obama doesn't owe anything to the people who crashed our economy and are now fighting to make senior citizens, working and poor people reduce their living standards.

Krugman has responded that maybe he does more for the country playing devil's advocate as the "Outside Man" on the New York Times:

Part of the reason is that I am indeed the World’s Worst Administrator — and that does matter. Someone else can do the paperwork — but an administrative job requires making hiring and firing decisions, it means keeping track of many things, and that, to say the least, is not my forte.
Oh, and there’s not a chance that I would be confirmed.
But the main point, as I see it, is that it would mean taking me out of a quasi-official job that I believe I’m good at and putting me into one I’d be bad at.
So first of all, let’s talk frankly about the job I have. The New York Times isn’t just some newspaper somewhere, it’s the nation’s paper of record. As a result, being an op-ed columnist at the Times is a pretty big deal — one I’m immensely grateful to have been granted — and those who hold the position, if they know how to use it effectively, have a lot more influence on national debate than, say, most senators. Does anyone doubt that the White House pays attention to what I write?

He's got a point about the confirmation, but then again, Obama can get things through Congress that few Presidents can. And the GOP might rather have someone who is a true liberal, someone they can bash daily, unlike Geithner who was a more low-profile Wall Street insider and therefore respected by the GOP as pro-business. Hey - that's another good reason to choose Krugman!

I think it's time to give Krugman a shot to actually work in the Administration instead of being their most vocal economic critic. I signed the petition because I think Krugman is right up there with Elizabeth Warren in his understanding of real Americans, and he cares more about the social safety net than Wall Street.

I am curious how Obama will respond to this. If he thinks Krugman isn't right for Treasury, then heck - make up a new post for him where he can help people! Put him in, Coach!

To President Obama and all the Smarmy Wonks in D.C.: No Grand Deal, Period

Some disturbing ideas are trickling out of Washington about Obama making a deal with Boehner to only tax the rich at 37%, while raising the retirement age to 67, with cuts to so-called "entitlements" still on the table. In other words, Obama and Pelosi are close to caving in negotiations instead of simply letting us go over the cliff in January.

I can't even express how made of fail this is. Please: Just. Don't. Do. It.

Ezra Klein writes on the Washington Post writes as if this is a done deal:

Talk to smart folks in Washington, and here’s what they think will happen: The final tax deal will raise rates a bit, giving Democrats a win, but not all the way back to 39.6 percent, giving Republicans a win. That won’t raise enough revenue on its own, so it will be combined with some policy to cap tax deductions, perhaps at $25,000 or $50,000, with a substantial phase-in and an exemption for charitable contributions.

The harder question is what Republicans will get on the spending side of the deal. But even that’s not such a mystery. There will be a variety of nips and tucks to Medicare, including more cost-sharing and decreases in provider payments, and the headline Democratic concession is likely to be that the Medicare eligibility age rises from 65 to 67.

That’s not a policy I like much, but New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait accurately conveys the White House thinking here: They see it as having “weirdly disproportionate symbolic power,” as it’s not a huge (or smart) cut to Medicare benefits, and most of the pain will be blunted by the Affordable Care Act.

Ezra Klein surely considers himself one of the "smart people" in Washington, and when in doubt, Rachel Maddow swoons in to tell him just how cute and nerdy he is. But the rest of us out in the real world don't have such a glowing opinion.

There's smart, then there's smart. I know Klein says he doesn't like the deal as he lays it out, but then he turns around and agrees with this hideous article by his fellow wonk Jonathan Chait which again takes the nerdy approach that all of this would somehow be "good" for the elderly and the Dems. Honestly?

Jonathan Chait in NYMag: Go Ahead, Raise the Medicare Retirement Age

Many of my liberal wonk friends have been making the case against raising the Medicare retirement age — see Sarah Kliff, Matthew Yglesias, and Jonathan Cohn. Their basic case is that raising the Medicare retirement age is a really stupid way to save money because it just forces people to stop buying health care through Medicare, which is relatively cheap, and start buying it through private insurance, which costs way more.

They’re all totally right about this. Still, when the question comes to what concessions the Democrats are going to have to accept, rather than what policy makes the most sense, raising the Medicare age seems like a sensible bone to throw the right.

. . . raising the Medicare retirement age would help strengthen the fight to preserve the Affordable Care Act.
. . . a side effect of raising the Medicare retirement age would be that a large cohort of 65- and 66-year-olds would suddenly find themselves needing the Affordable Care Act to buy their health insurance. Which is to say, Republicans attacking the Affordable Care Act would no longer be attacking the usual band of very poor or desperate people they can afford to ignore but a significant chunk of middle-class voters who have grown accustomed to the assumption that they will be able to afford health care.

Huh? Is Jonathan Chait serious? Turning Medicare into Obamacare for two years would be better somehow and would "prove" something to the Right, and then all will be well? Dream on, brother.

it strikes me as completely delusional, and almost evil, to imply that seniors should throw themselves on the sword so Obama can strike a Grand Bargain with Boehner, who after all belongs to a party who thinks the elderly (except their own mothers) are a bunch of takers and moochers. And Chait really expects this plan to win over Republicans? I just don't get the logic of any of this.

Save us from the "smart people," or as Paul Krugman calls them, the "Very Serious People."

Last night, Chait was getting plenty of flack for what he wrote:

FireDogLake: Jon Chait's Miserable Endorsement of Raising the Medicare Eligibility Age

David Dayen makes me wonder why someone as smart as Jon Chait would write such an idiotic column bit.ly/SLmIcm

— Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) December 7, 2012

I lack the words to describe how democratically perverse a deal that raises the Medicare eligibility age would be.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 7, 2012

Ezra Klein using Maddow guest host platform to blatantly shill for Chait "surrender on Medicare age" plan. Unbelievable. Wow, wow, wow.

— Ryan (@RTMcNeely) December 8, 2012

In my opinion, if this is a trial balloon, it's already lost altitude, crashed and deflated into an impotent pile, like Mitt Romney's Limp Blimp in Florida just before the election.

How many times do we have to reject an idea before Washington gets it?

Paul Krugman writes there is going to be a day of reckoning and hell to pay if Obama makes this deal.

Ezra Klein says that the shape of a fiscal cliff deal is clear: only a 37 percent rate on top incomes, and a rise in the Medicare eligibility age.
I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that this is just a case of creeping Broderism, that it’s a VSP fantasy about how we’re going to resolve this in a bipartisan way. Because if Obama really does make this deal, there will be hell to pay.
. . . this looks crazy to me; it looks like a deal that makes no sense either substantively or in terms of the actual bargaining strength of the parties. And if it does happen, the disillusionment on the Democratic side would be huge. All that effort to reelect Obama, and the first thing he does is give away two years of Medicare? How’s that going to play in future attempts to get out the vote?
If anyone in the White House is seriously thinking along these lines, please stop it right now.

Indeed, Mr. Krugman. This way lies insanity for the Dems. We would rather go off the flippin' cliff any day than capitulate to Boehner and the GOP.

I also saw a rather unbelievable twitter conversation in which someone wrote that Medicaid was more important than Medicare because one affects "poor children" while the other affects the "rich older people." What does that even mean? That the elderly have no value? Let's recall once again that in the population known as the 99% out here, or the 47% or whatever, most of us AREN'T Rich! Therefore, it is a myth that the elderly are rich people living on the backs of the young.

There are millions of lower middle class seniors dragging themselves to crap jobs for years, standing on legs with varicose veins, putting off procedures due to bad healthcare programs, putting off dental work, sacrificing everything BECAUSE they care so much for young people - their children and grandchildren. They have to keep going for them, not for some cushy retirement. With the state of 401K's these days, real retirement isn't even an option if you aren't Mitt Romney.

AARP know this - that's the same group that boo'd Paul Ryan off the stage just a few months ago. Do you folks in Washington think we are going to stay quiet now? God help you if you believe that.

To hear this damned message about a Machiavellian deal being blurped out by a bunch of smarmy wonks is an insult to all Democratic voters. It's even an insult to all Republican seniors because they are just as poor as anyone else! Red states are poor states, so this is a stupid deal for Boehner as well.

In fact, I keep trying to calm myself down with the idea that this trial balloon is floating in order to turn seniors against Boehner, but I'm not sure. We've seen Obama try to make friends with Boehner before,to win over the Republicans in an almost cringeworthy way, like casting pearls before swine. Jon Stewart told him "they will never be your friends, so stop trying so hard." And yet, President Obama is idealistic enough to think he can still do it.

But at what cost, Mr. President? How many times are you going to alienate the base and give the Republicans another victory they can chortle about in their all-white all-men meetings to which you will never be invited? And meanwhile, the base is up in arms over another bad deal in which we get the shaft and learn to like it.

No more. No more. No more. NO MORE.

This thing is no better than the Ryan plan to throw the working poor under the bus to protect the tax base of the young.

You know - it's like the Ayn Rand thing - Atlas Shrugged - Atlas didn't care - Atlas went home and had a martini and forgot all about the old lady in the checkout line and the man working the jackhammer and the nurse at the hospital and the guy washing dishes in the restaurant. Obama loves to tell these All-American stories on the campaign trail, so why not remember them while dealing with Boehner?

Voters rejected Ryan and his Randian ideas on November 6. If Washington has forgotten that, the voters are going to remind them soon big time, to the point that you'll never forget it again! I promise you. No more. No more.

Krugman Slams Press Over Debate Dishonesty

Today on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, economist Paul Krugman had some strong words for the press, who praised Romney's "style" this past week after the Debate in Denver instead of fact-checking his lies on his shifting positions.

The show also featured Republican pundit Peggy Noonan, Mary Matalin and her husband, Democratic strategist James Carville, and Democratic spokesman Robert Gibbs. Some of their statements are below as well . . .

At one point Matalin accuses Paul Krugman of being a liar for saying that Paul Ryan has a "voucher" plan. *eyeroll*

Complete Transcript Here

KRUGMAN: I don't know whether to blame Lehrer or blame the president but it was kind of amazing because Romney was not only saying things that are not true, he was saying things that his own campaign had previously said weren't true. The one that got me was not the stuff about taxes but the thing about covering people with pre-existing conditions which his plan does not, which he has said that before and his campaign has walked it back in the past and there he was right again saying, well, my plan covers people with pre-existing conditions which is displaying a kind of contempt to the public...

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you think it's the moderator's job to call him on that...

KRUGMAN: No, I'm not sure whose job it is, but it is -- there's a contempt for the whole process. There's a contempt for us people, because he's thinking the news media will not cover me on this, as long as they say it forcefully they'll say I won, which is more of the ways...

MATALIN: Oh, you're going to say the press is against Obama now?

KRUGMAN: The press just doesn't know how to handle flat out untruths.

~~~

KRUGMAN: When you say my covers pre-existing conditions when it doesn't and when your own campaign has admitted in the past that it doesn't, what do you say? That's amazing.

MATALIN: You have Mitt characterized -- and you have lied about every position and every particular of the Ryan plan on Medicare from the efficiency of Medicare administration to calling it a voucher plan, so you're hardly...

KRUGMAN: It is a voucher plan.

MATALIN: You are hardly credible on calling somebody else a liar. Here's what else...

~~~

NOONAN: I think one of the key things about the debate is it's changed -- we will look back on it as an historic moment in this election. It upended things. This is what it upended. Barack Obama was supposed to be the sort of moderate centrist fellow, who looked at Mitt Romney, this extreme, strange fellow. By the time that debate was over, Mitt Romney seemed a completely moderate, centrist figure, who showed up as Mitt Romney the governor, not as Mitt Romney the candidate.

KRUGMAN: Except that everything he used to claim his centrism wasn't true, so this is a question, does that start to take its toll over the next few months.

~~~

STEPHANOPOULOS: And finally, will we see a different game from President Obama in the next debate?

GIBBS: Well, again, I think now that Barack Obama has had the opportunity to meet both Mitt Romneys, I don't doubt that he'll make some adjustments. I know he's looking forward to the next debate.

~~~

PEGGY NOONAN, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yeah, I thought the president barely showed. I thought "The New Yorker" cover -- the now famous "New Yorker" cover in which they had a candidate Romney at a podium looking at the empty chair where Mr. Obama would have been, captured it all. I am very curious about what the heck happened. Was it a strategic mistake on the part of the Obama campaign to play it a certain way and it didn't work or were there other factors involved? To me it is a mystery and one of those delicious things that will probably be answered in the big books about 2012 but, yes, the president was bad, Romney was good.



STEPHANOPOULOS: You want to jump right in here.

PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: This is classic Obama. He really, really wants to be the president of national unity. He's always wanted to be the reconciliation candidate and his instincts always in confrontations is to not go for the jugular but to go for the capillaries. He doesn't -- did the same thing in 2008. People forget just how weak his campaign was through August of 2008 when he just was refusing to make the obvious case against McCain and then he toughened up but also...

STEPHANOPOULOS: In the debate he toughed up in 2008.

KRUGMAN: Because he needs to be -- have his head against the wall.

So this was classic. This was him - this was the real Obama who does not like -- he really wants to be a president of the whole nation. And he somehow has a hard time wrapping his mind around the necessity to take a tougher line.

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I said on CNN I said I didn't want to come to this conclusion but sitting watching I have to come to it. He just didn't want to be there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So it wasn't strategy?

CARVILLE: I don't think it was. We'll know the next debate. I mean he's obviously either got to be different or it's going to be pretty bad but just looked like to me he really didn't want to be there. His mind wasn't on it. He didn't want to engage. He just wanted to get through the 90 minutes. And I'm sure he's a very competitive guy. I hope -- knock on wood - we're going to see a different President Obama at Hofstra.

ABC's This Week: Two Georges and Three Pauls

On ABC's This Week, George Stephanopoulos - and his cohort George Will - juggled three "Pauls" ~ Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, and Paul Krugman. There's also a Cokie and a Cory, but they don't add much substance.

Video of Episode Here

Complete Transcript Here

Paul Ryan was almost impossible to pin down with specifics about what he and Romney would do if elected. Mainly he just repeated GOP talking points and lies about how various programs work.

Here's a good example: On Medicaid. Ryan dances around all the good that Medicaid does for children, seniors, and the disabled, and instead starts bashing Obamacare. He also ignores the basic fact that most governors know good and well that their constituents need Medicaid, and that states don't have the resources to make up the difference if those funds are cut. Ryan's version of "flexibility" for the states is code for "pay for it yourselves."

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Clinton also took aim at the savings you do propose in Medicaid -- $800 billion, the largest specific savings in your plan. That's about a 35 percent reduction over the next decade.

And the president argued that it's going to be devastating for seniors who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care, middle-class families challenged by disabilities, children with autism. How can you squeeze that much money of a program, $800 billion, without cutting benefits or restricting eligibility?

RYAN: Here's the secret on this one. Medicaid spending still goes up under what we're proposing. What we're saying is we want to repeal ObamaCare, because we think it's a terrible law. And so we're taking away the massive increases in ObamaCare that are attributable to Medicaid. About a third of the people that ObamaCare is supposed to serve, they're just pushing people on Medicaid.

Here's the problem, George. Medicaid is not working. More and more doctors are less likely to even take people with Medicaid. It's a system that needs reforming.

So we don't want to put more money and force more people on a program that's failing, that's not working. We want to reform Medicaid. And so what were saying is, don't expand this program as dramatically as ObamaCare does. Keep it like it is, increase its funding and send it to the states so the states can fix this problem. I think government closest to the people, especially in providing health care for the poor, works the best.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But The Urban Institute has estimated that between 14 million and 27 million people will -- fewer people will be covered under that plan. And won't the block grant, block-granting this program, sending it to the states, mean that low-income and disabled people will lose their guaranteed right to coverage?

RYAN: No, not at all, of course not. Look, governors are asking us all the time for more flexibility on Medicaid. There are a lot of different ideas out there on how best to cover the low-income populations of various states. And look, every state has different issues and different problems. So we want to be able to give the states the tools they need, make sure that they spend this money on their Medicaid population, but give them the ability to fix the problems in their unique state --

STEPHANOPOULOS: But doesn't --

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- individuals will not have a federal guarantee under a block grant. That's correct, isn't it?

RYAN: Sure. No, with maintenance of that -- I won't get into the details, but with maintenance of effort requirements, which is what we've done in the past, they still have to serve this population. They just get more flexibility on how to serve this population, instead of all these rules and strings from Washington that make it really hard for them to make sure that they can meet the mandate and provide the best possible quality care to low-income populations.

Yep ~ that flexibility thing will solve everything. No details necessary - just vote him into office and he will "fix" the system. Oy Vey.

Then Rand Paul and Paul Krugman bickered over another talking point ~ whether government has "exploded" under Obama, which according to the GOP, it has. Rand Paul fervently believes it, anyway.

PAUL: ... understand is you are arguing that the government sector is struggling. Are you arguing that there are fewer government employees under Obama than they were under Bush?

KRUGMAN: That's a fact.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: No, the size of both -- of government is enormous under President Obama.

KRUGMAN: If government employment had grown as fast under Obama as it did under Bush, we would have a million-and-a-half more people employed right now, directly.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: Are there less people employed or more people employed now by government?

Then they got back to commenting on Paul Ryan - with a classic Paul Krugman smackdown of doofus and Democratic concern-troll Cory Booker:

Booker: . . . This is Paul Ryan who used to be a man of substance, who put up plans, I may disagree with some of them, but with great levels of specificity. Now they have said they're going to cut $5 trillion in taxes, increase spending in the military, and somehow not dig us into a deeper deficit budget...

. . . KRUGMAN: I'm going to disagree, respectfully, he was never a man of substance. This is who he always was. That was always an illusion.

Later, Krugman had a few choice words for the Republican Convention:

KRUGMAN: It's not a matter of individual speeches or strategic positioning. The Republican Party is where it is because that's where the base is. And you watched that whole primary process, Republican candidates had to appeal to their base, which is by and large elderly white people arguing with empty chairs. And they could not -- they could not reach out to the growing demographic--

Old Republican Geezer George Will thinks we should do away with political conventions entirely - I guess because he wanted to go bed early instead of watch them, plus he yearns for the day when Bill Clinton isn't making lengthy speeches (dream on, George). Paul Krugman points out the educational purpose of such a convention, bringing the whole thing back around to Paul Ryan, whose speech truly "defined" him at the RNC in Tampa.

WILL: We need a little data on who watches these conventions and what effect they have. Because, you know, conventions are a government program, and there is an enormous amount of tax dollars that goes into this. And like all government programs, they are immortal and they go on forever. Maybe we should terminate these.

KRUGMAN: I thought the two conventions were enormously informative. A lot of people who normally catch politics in snippets on the news, got to see extended laying out of positions on both sides. And a lot happened. Right? We saw -- we saw the implosion of Paul Ryan, you know, extraordinary dissent and reputation, because people got to see him speaking at length on national TV. We saw Bill Clinton laying out a case in more detail than most people would ever get to see. These were -- I'm not sure that conventions don't decide anything in terms of who gets nominated, but they turn out to be extremely effective educational programs.

Romneys Say "Trust Us, We're Rich"

Mother Jones has a slideshow of Mitt Romney looking unhappy on the campaign trail, and it's not surprising. What seems most depressing to the candidate is that ordinary people just won't trust him and believe whatever he says about his past business deals, his offshore accounts, and especially his old tax returns. To Mitt it is just unreal that he might be questioned or mocked over money, of all things, when money is what has come easiest for him in life up till now.

Paul Krugman has a column in the New York Times about why the Romneys feel entitled to be unquestioned by  "we-the-people."

Pathos of the Plutocrat

Like everyone else following the news, I’ve been awe-struck by the way questions about Mr. Romney’s career at Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, and his refusal to release tax returns have so obviously caught the Romney campaign off guard. Shouldn’t a very wealthy man running for president — and running specifically on the premise that his business success makes him qualified for office — have expected the nature of that success to become an issue? Shouldn’t it have been obvious that refusing to release tax returns from before 2010 would raise all kinds of suspicions? By the way, while we don’t know what Mr. Romney is hiding in earlier returns, the fact that he is still stonewalling despite calls by Republicans as well as Democrats to come clean suggests that it could be something seriously damaging.

Ann Romney is simply outraged that anyone would question her husband's ability as a financier, espcially that "undignified" President Obama. In an interview with ABC News yesterday, she got quite huffy when asked about their tax returns, which led to the not-politically-savvy move of making a remark with the now trending-on-Twitter phrase "You People" which some have taken as dismissive and condescending.

Honestly, Ann Romney doesn't sound like a seasoned political wife, and this stonewalling strikes me as a form of deep denial about the state of her husband's campaign right now. How long do they think they can wait on the tax returns?  Sorry, Ann ~ "Trust Us, We're Rich" just isn't going to cut it. In fact, that's a line many con men use to lure suckers, and "we people" just aren't as stupid as you think.




From ABC News

Robin Roberts: One distraction has been the tax returns. Both Bushes gave multiple years, ten, twelve years. President Obama gave 7 years of tax returns. Your husband has been adamant about only the two years that have been released. Why won't he follow the example of others on both sides of the aisle?

Ann Romney: You know, I think there's reasons for all of these things. You should really look at where Mitt has led his life, where he's been financially. He's a very generous person. We give 10% of our income to our church every year. Do you think that's the kind of person who is trying to hide things or do things? No, he is so good about it. When he was governor of Massachusetts, didn't take a salary in the four years.

Robin Roberts: Why not show that then? Why not release the returns because then it's a moot point?

Ann Romney: Because there are so many things that will be open again for more attack, and you just want to give more material for more attack. And that's really -- that's just the answer. We've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life. . .

On the attacks from the Obama administration over Bain outsourcing and whether Romney lied in his SEC filings:

Ann Romney: I'm not disappointed, I'm not surprised but I think it was beneath the dignity of the office of the president. to do something as egregious as that. To do something on that level, I believe it was beneath the dignity of the presidency.

Paul Krugman ~ It's Depression, Not Recession

Paul Krugman in a keynote speech yesterday at the Netroots Nation Convention 2012 in Providence, Rhode Island (my slightly edited transcript).

A Recession is when things are headed down. A Depresssion is when things are down.

It's not as bad as the Great Depression but it's incredible awful. If you don't know people who are suffering then you must be living in a very rarified environment - with the Romney clan or something.



Every time I hear some politician saying we need to think about the Debt and the burden on the children, I think what about the young people right now who can't get their lives properly started?"

None of this has to be happening....We didn't have a plague of locusts. We were not hit by a tsunami. There wasn't some act of God that created this terrible situation. It was acts of man. And perhaps more importantly right now, it's easily solvable. We've seen this movie before. We know how this worked.

You tend to think that people who are demanding that we solve this thing quickly must be crazy idealists who are defying the wisdom of economic knowledge. But it's actually the other way around. It's actually the people in charge who are refusing to end this thing quickly, who are ignoring the lessons of history and rejecting economic knowledge that we know from history.

There are lessons that I thought we had learned really well like Do not slash government spending and lay off hundreds of thousands of workers in the middle of a Depression. I thought we knew that, and yet we've been ignoring all of that hard-earned knowledge.

I have seen an advance copy of the New York Times Book Review of my book . . . and the reviewer is shocked at the lack of respect I show for 'highly respected people' like Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. There's a phrase I picked up . . . "Very Serious People" - capitol V-S-P, and we've been living under the tyranny of the Very Serious People who are partly defending class interests and partly just plain getting it wrong. Just going with their prejudices instead of what we know from textbook economics, what we know from 80 years of historical experience, and are messing this up.

We could solve this. Solving this Depression is not fundamentally an economic problem. It's a political problem. It's a problem of getting those Very Serious People out of the way and doing what we actually all ready know, which is why gatherings like this are important. Thank you all.

Paul Krugman Demolishes the Ryan Plan

Remember Eric Fehrnstrom, the hapless surrogate for Mitt Romney who made the etch-a-sketch gaffe? Well, today he was out of his depth once again on ABC's "This Week" trying to debate economics with the master, Paul Krugman, who deftly squashed the idea that the Paul Ryan budget makes economic sense, referring to it as a "fraud" and "imaginary."




And what's so delicious is that George Will also pushes and gets Fehrnstrom to admit that Romney backs the scorched-earth Ryan Plan. You'll recall that last weekend, the conservative Will expressed frustration with Romney for cozying up to "bloviating ignoramus" Trump, for which The Donald called him the "most overrated journalist alive." George got a little revenge today, helping to put Fehrnstrom on the hot seat so that Krugman could move in for the coup de grace. Politics really does make strange bedfellows these days. Who knew that George Will and Paul Krugman could be a tag-team?




Read and learn, children. This is how we do it:
Transcript from Crooks and Liars:

KRUGMAN: Well, the economy is weak. It's not terrible, but it's weak. The bitter irony here has to be for Obama, certainly for people like me, is that if the Republican answer is "let's slash spending, let's have low taxes," that's actually the policy we've been following. It's amazing, actually. Especially if you look at the last couple of years, what we've actually seen is sharply...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me show you -- we have a chart in your blog this morning.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, this is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: We created it. It shows the point you're making.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, this is real government spending, so it's federal, state and local combined, deflated, you know, adjusted for population growth and inflation, and it is plunging. It's plunging mostly because of cutbacks at the state and local level, because the aid that they were receiving in the stimulus has run out, but also because unemployment benefits have been expiring because Congress won't -- you know, Republicans in Congress won't extend them.

So in effect - and, by the way, if you extend that chart backwards, there's been nothing like this since the demobilization after the Korean War. We're actually practicing government austerity on a scale that we haven't seen in 60 years. It's not the president's policy. In effect, we've already got the policies that Republicans say they will impose if they take the election, and yet, of course, it may lead to the defeat of this president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And that's the point Stephanie was making, so bringing it back to you, what would Governor Romney do right now -- not in the future -- right now, to get the economy moving again?

FEHRNSTROM: Well, it's not just, as Paul says, tax policy. That's part of it, of course, but it's also spending policy, it's regulatory policy. It's confronting China on their unfair trade practices. It's -- it's a whole -- it's labor policy, George.
The governor has laid out very detailed plans. People can go to mittromney.com and learn about them for themselves. But I think what we really have here...

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: ... ...I know from detailed plans and there is nothing there. There is not...

CUTTER: ... he's going to deregulate Wall Street, which we know how that turns out. We're going to go back to risky financial deals that crashed our economy. And on China, you know, we've been hearing this blustering on China for quite a while now. What exactly is the governor going to do? There's...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... I want to bring in George Will.

FEHRNSTROM:  He'll do what this president has failed to do in China, which is to declare that China is a currency manipulator. Look, we're all in favor of free trade. In fact, we don't think this president has done enough to reinvigorate trade talks -- trade talks with our friends, but China is -- is robbing us blind. They're stealing...

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: I was very much for that. I've been demanding that we declare -- but the window for that has passed. Right now, the Chinese economy is tanking. So if you were thinking you were going to get a big boost out of beating up on the Chinese now, two years ago I thought was really a good time to do that. But my god, now that is totally out of date.




WILL: On another matter, I didn't hear a robust answer to George's question. Where does the governor stand, Governor Romney, on the Ryan plan? Does he endorse it?

FEHRNSTROM: Oh, he's for -- he's for -- he's for the Ryan plan. He believes it goes in the right direction. The governor has also put forward a plan to reduce spending by $500 billion by the year 2016. In fact, he's put details on the table about how exactly he would achieve that. So to say he doesn't have a plan to -- a plan to restrain government spending is just not true.

KRUGMAN: Can I say, the Ryan plan -- and I guess this is what counts as a personal attack -- but it isn't. It's not an attack on the person; it's an attack on the plan. The plan's a fraud. The plan is a big bunch of tax cuts, some specified spending cuts, basically for poor people, and then a huge magic asterisk which is supposed to turn into a deficit reduction plan, but, in fact, if you look what's actually in it, it's a deficit-increasing plan.

And so to say that -- just tell the truth that there is really no plan there, neither from Ryan, nor from Governor Romney, is just the truth. That's not -- if that's -- if that's being harsh and partisan, gosh, then I guess the truth is anti-bipartisanship.

FEHRNSTROM: So may I ask you, Paul, do you prefer the president's plan? KRUGMAN: Oh, yeah. I mean, the president -- at least it's -- you know, I don't approve of everything, but there are no gigantic mystery numbers in his stuff. We do know what he's talking about. His numbers are -- you know, all economic forecasts are wrong, but his are not -- are not insane.

These are -- these are just imaginary.