Republicans Sabotaging The Economy For Political Reasons, Obviously!

From Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly, go read the whole thing, but these last couple of paragraphs were simply golden.

Republicans said a payroll tax cut would help create jobs, and now they’re opposed to their own idea. Republicans said the Economic Development Administration is great for the economy, and now they’re opposed to that, too. Republicans have traditionally supported infrastructure investment, but the “infrastructure bank” idea appears likely to be killed by the GOP. Many Republicans endorsed the TANF Emergency Fund last year as an incredibly effective method of lowering unemployment, and the congressional GOP killed that, too.

Republicans are blocking qualified Treasury Department nominees who could also be working on economic policy. Republicans are blocking qualified Federal Reserve nominees who could also help improve the economy, while demanding that the Fed do nothing to promote economic activity. The GOP is demanding that Congress and the White House agree to immediately take money out of the economy and eliminate public-sector jobs, even when conservative economists say that’s crazy. What’s more, these same Republican officials have made it abundantly clear that failure to give them the cuts they want would force them to crash the economy on purpose.

And it’s against this backdrop that one of the most powerful Republican officials on Capitol Hill has argued, more than once, that his “top priority” isn’t job creation, but rather, “denying President Obama a second term in office.”

This is a conversation worth having.

The Next Week At Extreme Liberal’s Blog!

I started writing a post this morning and realized that my head wasn’t really in it. This is the time of the year that I volunteer for a local festival, Muskegon Summer Celebration, and for the most part, it is my vacation every year. I started out as a committee member 14 years ago and soon became the director for the Arts and Crafts Fair and then a few years ago, the site director for the entire festival. I’ve since cut back to being a committee member again, helping out where I started, at the Art Fair. It is an awesome festival that has fallen on hard times in recent years because of the struggling economy in Michigan, but this year several local organizations stepped up to help put it on again. Over 1500 volunteers help put on this festival and it brings people into our city from all over the state.

I’ve decided that I’m going to take a bit of a break from blogging for the next week, I won’t completely stop, but I will more than likely just share links to stories that I’ve read that I think you may enjoy. I can’t stop reading about politics, I’m a junkie, but I am going to take a break from writing so much about it for the next week. If something comes up and I can’t help myself, you may see a rant or two from me. I’ve tried to recruit a couple people to be guest bloggers, but haven’t had any luck with it, they know who they are. :) So since I am the lone writer, I have to give myself some downtime.

My mood of late has been bouncing around when it comes to politics. With MSNBC seeming to go full anti-Obama, trying to appeal to Fox New viewers apparently, I am a bit down about that. I have stopped watching them completely at this point and have used some of that extra time to write the sponsors of Rachel Maddow’s show, Lawrence O’Donnell’s show and MSNBC executives directly. It would be nice if there was fair treatment of our President from at least the one network that claims to be left leaning (the nighttime opinion shows) and I wish they would at least attempt to balance out their reporting and opinions. Instead, we’ve been subjected to a lot of one-sided bashing from a group of faux left bloggers and pundits. I tweeted this yesterday that sums up how I currently feel about MSNBC…

Morning Joe creates the meme, news shows promote it, opinion shows bash him. Fuck em!

As far as my mood about the election in 2012, I am still very optimistic and have confidence that by November 6, 2012, Democrats will have the momentum and will sweep out a lot of Republicans and could very well take back the House of Representatives. There will be a backlash to the craziness that has been happening since the village idiots have gained power. I’m very anxious for the Obama campaign to get in gear and start fighting back against the many attacks from the GOP, the media, the “professional critics” and every other selfish, click grubbing asshat who thinks our democracy is a fucking game and people’s lives are the dice. It’s going to take a lot of work to counter all that bullshit, but I learned in 2007-2008 not to underestimate the abilities of the Davids, Plouffe and Axelrod or the abilities of our most awesome president. I’m storing up links and quotes from the asshats to throw back in their petty, selfish little faces in a year and a half.

But really, we all need to get involved and help. I’ve donated money already to President Obama and will give a lot more in the next year and a half. I consider it an investment on the future. I’m also tossing around many ideas in my head on how to counter the organized effort by some who claim to be on the left against our President. They are so small minded, it really shouldn’t be hard to take them out, if it is done before they get too much traction. I’m afraid a lot of my fellow bloggers aren’t willing to go too far out of their way to help, though. But I’m determined to do my part, regardless of whether they help or not.

I’m not abandoning the blog by any means, so please keep coming back. And if any of you awesome readers want to take a stab at writing a post or two, email me at liberalforreal@gmail.com. I am willing to edit for you, if need be.