Not terribly shocking, but Iran is apparantly going to back out of yet another agreement. I'm not sure why anyone in the administration thought a direct negotiation with Iran would change anything. It sounded good in the campaign, but from a real-world perspective, it simply doesn't work.

Minister Says Iran Won’t Ship Uranium Abroad - NYTimes.com

Fixed that for you.

Rep. Buttars and I are pretty far apart politically, but I can see his point here:


From Andrew Sullivan.

Also he doesn't want them stuffing it in his kids face, which is fair.

That is pretty hilarious.

Also he doesn't want them stuffing it in his kids face, which is fair.

Could he have possibly said that without realizing what he was doing? lol

An early change in the House already. Dennis Moore (D) has announced that he is retiring after 12 years in office. He's survived in a heavily Republican district for the Democrats, but was facing an uphill climb for reelection due to his support for Obama's policies judging from recent polls and news. This district will likely go back to the red side in the 2010 election.

Republicans line up to vie for Moore’s congressional seat - KansasCity.com

Early compared to what? It's not earlier than the likelihood of IL-10 going to the Democrats after umpteen years of being on the GOP side of the ledger.


Unless the Palinites split the GOP vote, of course.

Doesn't seem early in comparison to NY-23 either.

I'll assume you're not fully aware of the situation. This isn't like the New York situation. It will go to the GOP. I'd bet my retirement savings that happens. Easy double-up there.

Just like the Mizzou-Nebraska game

O RLY? Cook lists KY-3 as R+3. For reference, NY-23 is currently R+1, but in the last two cycles the Republican won with over 60% of the vote. Obviously I don't have local information, but honestly KY-3 seems just ripe for another GOP split courtesy of the Palinistas if a moderate Republican gets the nomination.

So I'm curious as to why you post this and ignore things like NY-23 and IL-10. Further, you describe it as an "early change" and "due to support for Obama's policies" as if to suggest a trend.

If you are indeed suggesting a trend, then honestly it's pretty simplistic, since any casual observer of American electoral politics knows that the President's party usually suffers in the first mid-term elections after his inauguration.

However, this year we have a more interesting trend: the likelihood that, in a number of races, the GOP may split its votes between moderate & conservative and allow either:

A) An easy D win in what should have been a competitive race (see IL-Sen)

B) A D win in what should have been an easy R victory (see NY-23)


I still think the Democrats will lose seats in the House next November, but the damage may be much less than expected if Palin & her ideological allies (pretty much the entire conservative GOP pundit class) can keep up their effort for the next 12 months.

I would be very surprised to see any repeat of NY-23 on a widespread scale. It was easy for the Tea Party crowd to get involved in NY-23 because there weren't a ton of other races going on. I think you'll see some primary fights next year, but I wouldn't expect a lot of third party challenges.

Yeah, I don't expect it to be widespread either, and in fact it may not happen at all (12 months is a long time in politics). But it still remains more of a possibility than in previous cycles and in some particular cases (again, IL-Sen comes to mind), it could be quite critical.

Since this is a predictions thread, one thing I think might happen that would be truly interesting is a more-or-less equal disinterest in both parties come the election season.

Polls continue to show a large amount of the antipathy towards House Republicans holding over from the 2008 election. If House Democrats continue to bungle, they could be in a similar boat by polling time. Thus this could be one of the better cycles in recent history for well-funded independent candidates.

So my prediction is this: Since 1943, the greatest number of non-Republicans/non-Democrats in the House at any one time has been 2, and currently there are none - this next cycle will see more than 2 elected.

:D

1. I have no clue why you're listing Kentucky when we're talking about Kansas here.

2. I'm not suggesting any trend. It's 'early' because it's 2009 and the Republicans can count on grabbing that seat. The only question is which one wins it.

3. As far as the reasons, I'm once again assuming you're speaking from a total lack of understanding of the situation. Moore has been hammered for weeks now locally for his support of Obama's spending bills while claiming to be a 'blue dog Democrat'. He was in serious trouble and he knew it.

Panerd's 2010 predicitons:

While they will both be running as Republicans I hardly would consider either Peter Schiff (CT) or Rand Paul (KY) to be anything but Libertarians in sheep's clothing. It will be interesting if either of these guys can make it out of the primaries because if they do I think they both have a good shot at winning senate seats.

(I know, I am a big fan of Ron Paul and am slightly biased but I seem to be seeing more coverage of him lately which is a good thing for these other guys. Schiff is going to taken to the rail due to his father being in jail for tax evasion but I think his father's reasons might actually gain more voters for Peter than a Dodd smear campaign will cause him to lose)

I think Linda McMahon is the best choice for Republicans in CT. She kind of has a nice mix to lure different demographics. She has a strong business background while also having name recognition that would appeal to young voters. But the biggest thing she has going is that she can fund her own campaign and allow the GOP to use their money elsewhere. That's a huge plus and I think the GOP will really get behind her in the primaries.

I agree with all of the reasons you state but I sure hope it doesn't happen. McMahon would be a better alternative to Dodd but that is about it. I am pretty sure she would just do whatever the national Republican party tells her to do and that is 50% of the problem. Schiff on the other hand has stated he has no plans to be a career politician and justs wants to try to right the "Titantic" before it hits the iceberg. He is a "bit" (understatement of the year) of a bear but I would much rather have a guy that is skeptical on everything than someone who will agree to a Democratic plan as long as they put more money in the plan for Republican ideas as well.

I think you're right. The big fights are going to be in the primaries. Anybody that can win a primary is a fool to give up the name recognition and infrastructure a party would provide. Schiff, Paul, Rubio etc. all are looking to get the benefits of running as the Republican candidate.

So, Flasch and MBBF both have kids and suddenly I couldn't find the thread. Hell, we even had a Presidential address and this thread is down on page 3 ;)

Just sayin'

SI

I was thinking the same thing: "the Obama thread has really slowed down recently". :D

I was going to post something this morning about Bank of America paying back all their TARP funds plus interest but I then got pooped on.

These things tend to happen from what I understand

SI

You haven't lived until both your infant and your dog vomit on the carpet simultaneously... and you're the only adult in the house.

Let me tell you, that was an awesome morning.

Edit: My personal best is being peed on FOUR TIMES in one day. Luckily, however, I've never been pooped on. However, every time I pick up Sam to put him in the bath I think to myself "self, this could be the day, are you ready?"

/watches all the single guys squirm....

haha

my sister peed on my mom right after she was born

There's honestly not that much to talk about because there's not a whole lot being done right now by the administration. I've actually been on the board quite a bit. Can't go much of anywhere with a one week old kid other than the internet. :)

I found it pretty amusing at the 'job summit' today that Obama spoke about small business and how they are hurting the job market by finding ways to keep productivity up with less resourses to eek out a profit. Seriously? Small business owners are now supposed to give away profit just for the sake of hiring more people to make the unemployment figures look better?

Sometimes they just can't help themselves. A National Review writer questions whether teabagger is the new n-word.


"Get off my porch you teabagger!"

Nope, but thanks for playing

SI

I cant seem to find a direct quote where he said that? Link to quote or video?

Obama:

i think the actual quote that you cited and the way that you discussed it up in your initial post above is really informative.

i read that quote and it would be QUITE a leap for me to get to where you got to from it.

I agree DT. It would be quite a leap for you to interpret that statement that way. :)

The rest of the quote, including the end of the sentence where MBBF stopped:

sssh ronnie, you're ruining MBBF's spin!

key part that just shows the massive amount of spin you put on things MBBF:

That's why we made more credit available to small banks that provide loans to small businesses. That's why we provided tax relief, to help small businesses stay afloat, and proposed raising SBA loan limits, to help them expand.

Interestingly enough, there's absolutely nothing in the rest of that that changes the context of the quote I cited. Let's be honest here. There's a fundamental need for this administration to villianize any profit-taking, whether it's corporations or small business, to make themselves look more like they're for the common citizen and those under the poverty line. It's a good way to attempt to get reelected, but it's an extremely poor approach to solving the recession and debt issues facing this administration.

I'm calling BULLSHIT on your first sentence. If you can't see that it absolutely fundamentally changes the context of the quote that you cited then...I don't know...get your eyes checked.

No, it's just that the part you quoted is unarguably factually correct, and the claim that Obama is asking businesses to "give away profits" doesn't appear to be anywhere in there to me.

But DT's citation concerning loans to small businesses makes my point. He's offering the same opportunity to roll their companies further into debt just like he did with the government with no clear plan on how to address those issues. Just make jobs for the sake of making jobs. Obama is ignoring the simple truth that those small business would only use loans to survive this recession. They're not doing it to create more jobs because it makes no sense to do so in a recessional period.

I fail to see how that is equivalent to asking them to "to give away profit just for the sake of hiring more people to make the unemployment figures look better."

Or is making credit available the same? It's a moot point anyway, because that's what he's saying they've already done. In the speech you quoted he is asking those assembled to develop more ideas to accelerate hiring.

he's not offering them loans to make jobs. he's talking about offering them loans so that they can be the engine that leads the country out of the recession. It's a fact that small businesses drive the bulk of the economic activity in this country...you need to get those small businesses able to innovate and continue to develop their product offerings during the recessionary period so that they can begin to lead us out of it

They could start by rolling back minimum wage increases and abandoning threats to make them pay for healthcare that would scare anybody off from new hiring that could bite them soon...

There's no innovation involved. There's reduced profits all around. They can't lead us out of recession with more loans. They need a tax break. It's as simple as that. Offering them the opportunity to increase their debt is going to draw little more than laughter from business looking to survive this recession. They may take the loan to survive, but it's not going to be used for investment or job creation. Anyone who believes that is whistling through the graveyard.

Okay, now I'm coming in on the other side. First off, he did say tax breaks in addition to loans and some other bits.

Second, do you understand how business financing works? Most businesses work off a continual line-of-credit, where income goes to pay off loans, while more loans come in to pay off current expenses. One issue with the financial crisis last year was banks stopping those loans, which meant businesses with little cash (most small businesses) had no money to operate on. That needed/needs to be freed up for the business to have the capital to operate and grow. That's what I believe he's talking about here.

I'd like to see the substance of the exact tax breaks he's referring to. And as you noted above, the taxes associated with the health care bill loom large.

I certainly understand the line of credit situation. That needs to be resolved as you said to keep things going. But it doesn't do anything for the job situation. No intelligent small business owner is going to add jobs in the current climate just because the money is available. There has to be a tax cut that facilitates that shift. Until then, no jobs will be created and small business owners correctly should put away their money rather than invest it.

im trying to find a SFW image of "full of shit" but Im giving up suffice to say that this page, 140, again showed that MBBF is what we thought he is.

So if nobody creates jobs during a recession how does a recession ever end?

Gosh, I guess your right. It never ends. I guess we're stuck.

Where did I ever say jobs were solely responsible for bringing an economy out of a recession?