Rick Santelli Fired Up: ‘If It Wasn’t for the Tea Party We’d Be Rated Triple-B’

Santelli is the grandfather of the Tea Party and always lays down the truth.



The Blaze



Rick Santelli — the man whose speech on stimulus and bailouts in February 2009 is credited with helping launch the Tea Party — was fired up in this morning about the lack of leadership in the White House and all the political wrangling around what is really a simple problem- the government spends too much money.



During the CNBC segment, Santelli ripped into the “blame Bush, blame the sun” culture currently on display in the White House. He said it’s clear “we all know deep inside no country is the same it was five years ago,” and as for stocks going down, “we’re already Ralph Cramden on thin ice, now an infant’s jumped onto our shoulders.”









Obama is just a baby!

Michele Bachmann Calls for Obama to Demand Geithner’s Resignation hammers him on ratings downgrade

Michele Bachmann voted against the debt ceiling deal because it doesn’t do nearly enough in reducing 14 trillion national debt and it increases it by another 2 trillion.

The reason S&P downgraded the U.S. is because of the outrageous amount of debt it carries.

Bachmann got it right, and Obama as usual got it wrong.


The Blaze

Michele Bachmann called for President Barack Obama to demand Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s resignation in response to S&P’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating Friday.
More here

Rick Santelli Gives MSNBC Guest Ezra Klein a Lesson in Economics on Live TV

For some reason Liberals/Progressives hold up Ezra Klein as if he’s a combination Yoda and the Dalai Lama. They hang on every word he says as if it was coming from the Burning Bush.

However, he doesn’t know anything about anything other than to regurgitate the same old templates of Liberalism.

He’s a master of academic theory that plays well in the faculty lounges of Harvard and Yale.

But, when it comes to real world, he doesn’t know shit!

The Blaze

Rick Santelli, the man who’s 2009 firebrand speech on government spending is considered a seminal moment in the Tea Party’s founding, gave MSNBC analyst and Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein a stern lesson in free markets on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday morning.
Klein made some assertions about the financial crisis, including that most people agree two economists he cited have “done the best work on financial crises,“ and then offered up that the role of the Federal Reserve is ”often overlooked.”

Klein continued on and quoted one of his favorite economists calling for another ”round of significant inflation,“ and then asked Santelli to respond to the assumption that a recession would cause money to move around in a way that is ”unfair.”

United States loses AAA credit rating from S&P, Thank You Barack Obama

For the first time in American history, thanks in huge part to the incompetence of the most ill equipped man ever to be elected president, the United States has lost its AAA credit rating.



President Barack Obama has led this country on a downward spiral with his “spread the wealth” mentality that seek to punish those that are successful with higher and higher taxes and rewards the sluggards in our society (aka Obama’s base) with free cells phones and food stamps.



With Obama, its take from the “Haves” and give it to the “Have Nots”. That’s what he believes in according to his mentor Saul Alinsky. And Obama is doing just that to destroy the country, by design, to remake it into a socialist’s paradise with big government picking up the pieces.



Mission accomplished, Mr. President!





Reuters



The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday in an unprecedented reversal of fortune for the world's largest economy.



S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government's budget deficits and rising debt burden. The move is likely to raise borrowing costs eventually for the American government, companies and consumers.



"The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics," S&P said in a statement.



The decision follows a fierce political battle in Congress over cutting spending and raising taxes to reduce the government's debt burden and allow its statutory borrowing limit to be raised.



On August 2, President Barack Obama signed legislation designed to reduce the fiscal deficit by $2.1 trillion over 10 years. But that was well short of the $4 trillion in savings S&P had called for as a good "down payment" on fixing America's finances.



The White House maintained silence in the immediate aftermath of S&P downgrade.

The political gridlock in Washington and the failure to seriously address U.S. long-term fiscal problems came against the backdrop of slowing U.S. economic growth and led to the worst week in the U.S. stock market in two years.



The S&P 500 stock index fell 10.8 percent in the past 10 trading days on concerns that the U.S. economy may head into another recession and because the European debt crisis has been growing worse as it spreads to Italy.

U.S. Treasury bonds, once undisputedly seen as the safest security in the world, are now rated lower than bonds issued by countries such as Britain, Germany, France or Canada.



'DAUNTING' IMPLICATIONS

As the focus for investors shifted from the debate in Washington to the outlook for the global economy, even with the prospect of a downgrade, 30-year long bonds had their best week since December 2008 during the depth of the financial crisis.



Yields on 10-year notes, a benchmark for borrowing rates throughout the economy fell as far as 2.34 percent on Friday -- their lowest since October 2010 -- also very low by historical standards.



"To some extent, I would expect when Tokyo opens on Sunday, that we will see an initial knee-jerk sell-off (in Treasuries) followed by a rally," said Ian Lyngen, senior government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Connecticut.



More here



I’m sure Obama is going to blame George Bush for his own mess. The 2012 election can’t come soon enough to send this fraud back to Chicago, or Kenya!



Memeorandum

BREAKING: NY-26 Goes Democratic... and Why it Means Something

You know you're in trouble when upstate New Yorkers (some who make the hillbilly characters from the film Deliverance seem sophisticated by comparison) join in kicking a conservative politician to the curb -- in one of the most conservative districts in the state (and possibly the nation). This is a district that voted against Obama, who took the rest of NY by a landslide. This is the same district that hasn't voted in a democrat in, like 100 fuckin' years...

Today, upstate voters voted in a... democrat! LOL

Paul Ryan by DonkeyHotey

Sure, you say that it's just one measly district, but I believe this is a bad omen for the knuckle-dragging twats on the right. For one, they poured enormous amounts of money and resources into this election -- in what should've been a cakewalk. The right wing parade of national batshittery passed by the district to lend their name recognition and support.

And they lost. They lost because this was a referendum on right wing fiscal policies -- mostly rehashed dismal failures of past decades: rob from the poor to give to the rich. Otherwise known as Reaganomics, supply-side, trickle down bullshit. Bush I had it right: it's magical thinking dressed as economic policy, or better put: Voodoo Economics.

Public Policy Polling shows why this election is very important moving on:

Congressional Republicans are extremely unpopular and voters think they're doing an even worse job than the Democrats they put out of office six months ago. That was true in NY-26 and that's true nationally. Last month we found nationally that 43% of voters thought House Republicans were doing a worse job than the Democrats did while in the majority to only 36% who felt they were an improvement. Even in NY-26, which voted 13 points more Republican than the country as a whole in 2008, 38% of voters think the Republicans are doing a worse job than the Democrats to only 34% who think they're an improvement. You can talk about Jack Davis all you want but the reality is that if voters thought House Republicans were bringing the improvement they hoped for when they went to vote last November Jane Corwin would have won tonight...

And believe me, the take-away here -- the chum in the water -- is that House Democratic candidates will run against John Boehner and the Ryan plan next year. Again, Public Policy Polling lays out the cruel numbers:

Boehner's approval rating nationally is a 25/42 spread and even in this traditionally Republican district it's a 28/45 spread. Barack Obama's not popular in this district either, don't get me wrong- his approval is a 42/51 breakdown. But it's remarkable that his net approval is 8 points better than Boehner's in a district that John McCain won by 6 points in 2008. Again you can talk about Jack Davis all day but if John Boehner was more popular than Barack Obama in this district, as you would certainly have expected the case to be, then Jane Corwin would have won tonight.

Interesting times indeed...

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Update #1 (h/t Steve Benen)

Last night's was a huge upset -- a body blow against the conservative agenda, but it’s also the latest in a spate of recent victories for democrats...

• New Hampshire: Last week, there was a special election in a state House district where Republicans have dominated for years. The Democratic candidate won in a landslide, even after a local town clerk illegally required photo IDs to vote.
• Florida: Also last week, Jacksonville was home to a high-profile mayoral race, and the state GOP touted the election as the first warning shot of the 2012 cycle. Instead, voters elected Democrat Alvin Brown — Jacksonville’s first African-American mayor — stunning the Republican establishment statewide.
• Wisconsin: Three weeks ago, there was a special election in a Wisconsin state Assembly district that has been represented by a Republican for 16 years. In this case, the Democrat won by eight points.
• Maine: Two weeks ago, there was a special election to fill a vacancy in the state Senate, in a district that has been very competitive in the recent past. In this case, the Democrat won by a crushing 2-to-1 margin.

This is not to say that Dems have recovered from a brutal 2010. Dems withstood a beating after doing well in 2009 special elections, for example. Also, Let me be clear: last night's winner is at best a Blue Dog democrat, hardly something progressives should celebrate. Still...

Conservatives began the year with the help of a passive corporate-run media with all the national momentum going for them. However, after a series of losses in races Republicans should have won easily, it is clear (except to conservatives, apparently) that the American public isn’t buying what the GOP is selling.

Ball of Confusion (Madness)

¡Hola! Everybody...
What can I say? There’s sooooo much going on in the world today it’s hard to figure out where to start... (lots of links!)

* * *

-=[ It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World ]=-

It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance.

-- Elizabeth Taylor

First, while the mostly conservative US media and political class assure us that toxic sludge (or at least “safe nuclear reactors”) are good for us, you’d better not drink the water (or milk) in Japan, cuz, you know, the radiation levels are kinda/ sorta above levels. Shit, I live about 25 miles from a steaming mess of nuke that’s more dangerous than the Japanese glow-in-the-dark one. Imagine trying to evacuate about 22,232,494 (more or less) people from the NY Metro area? We’re not very polite... LOL

I find it ironic that the same people who were after the Village Idiot’s head (on a platter) for waging war under false pretexts and redistributing wealth (upwards), now applaud Obama as he does the same. In fact, we’re fighting three wars right now. Teachers are being fired, jobs (and record profits) continue to be outsourced, republican state governors are trying to bring us back to the days of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire tragedy, and we just ejaculated 131 Tomahawk missiles at $1 million a pop.

Hold on while I sneeze:

::ACHOOO-HYPOCRITES::

Sorry, but I’m allergic to moral cowardice.

On the entertainment front, raging beauty, talented actor, compassionate activist, Elizabeth Taylor passed away. The first time I saw The Last time I saw Paris, I was so struck by her beauty, it felt as if her image was burned into my brain synapses. What a gorgeous freak of nature! IMNSO, Taylor was matched in beauty and talent only by the as sublime Dorothy Dandridge (who, unfortunately, wasn’t allowed to shine). Taylor also cared, she left the world a little better than she found it, AFAIC.

I spent all day yesterday meeting with lawmakers and attempting to sway their positions regarding criminal justice policy. The event was part of a coalition of organizations that included a group from the Juvenile Justice movement. Right now NY State, which is facing a so-called budget deficit, is maintaining several empty prisons at the cost of more than $200 million per year. In addition, we’re closing schools at a time when we’re sending juveniles to prisons deemed inhumane by federal investigators. The cost of keeping one child in prison per year in New York state? Over $100,000. Some researchers put the actual cost at over $200,000 per bed, per year!

The good news? For me it was hanging out with a great bunch of very young activists, who were well-versed on the issues and who, in passionate terms and an informed manner, schooled members of our state legislature on the foolishness of incarceration as a panacea for all social ills. Even legislators hostile to our agenda seemed genuinely impressed by the young people in my group. I’ll be writing little bit more about this process later on this week. For those of you who like to beat up on our youth, I am compelled to ask: what the fuck are you doing to make this world a better place?

So, there you have it: there’s the mess, the message, and there’s also solutions to the mess. Which part did you play today? Are you making this a better world?

Just sayin...

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery form civilization...