I think we all knew that the growing call for filibuster reform was going to meet with some resistance eventually.

Well, here it is:

Senior Democrats say Reid will not have the votes to change the rule at the beginning of next year.

“It won’t happen,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who said she would “probably not” support an effort to lower the number of votes needed to cut off filibusters from 60 to 55 or lower.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) echoed Feinstein: “I think we should retain the same policies that we have instead of lowering it.

“I think it has been working,” he said.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said he recognizes his colleagues are frustrated over the failure to pass measures such as the Disclose Act, campaign legislation that fell three votes short of overcoming a Republican filibuster Tuesday.

“I think as torturous as this place can be, the cloture rule and the filibuster is important to protect the rights of the minority,” he said. “My inclination is no.”

Sen. Jon Tester, a freshman Democrat from Montana, disagrees with some of his classmates from more liberal states.

“I think the bigger problem is getting people to work together,” he said. “It’s been 60 for a long, long time. I think we need to look to ourselves more than changing the rules.”

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who is up for reelection in 2012, also said he would like the votes needed for cloture to remain the same.

“I’m not one who think it needs to be changed,” he said.

There are plenty of reasons to believe it's still possible to get these Senators on the same page with reformers, but I won't go into them all just yet. We've got to give them some time and talk things out with them first.

But there is one thing I'd like to address directly right now, and that's the statement from Jon Tester, who said that he thought the real problem was "getting people to work together."

Well, who couldn't agree to that? Right? But here's where I'm going to guess that Sen. Tester and I differ in our approach. For him, the emphasis is probably on "together," whereas for me, the emphasis is on "work." Because the Senate isn't "working," but they're "together" whether they like it or not.

The Senate's not working, because there are something like 400 bills that have been passed by the House during the 111th Congress that the Senate has failed to consider. The Senate's not working, because there are dozens and dozens of executive nominations gathering dust. But most of all, the Senate's not working because it doesn't take any work to stop it from working. And that's what the Republicans are interested in doing. Worse, current rules make stopping the Senate from doing its work the easiest thing in the world to do.

That's just plain wrong, and I'll bet anything Senator Tester would agree with that. I'm guessing that's true because Senator Tester seems like the kind of guy who prides himself on his hard work, whether it's on the farm or in the Senate.

And he strikes me as a fair guy, too. So I know he'll understand when I say that if you want to allow for extended debate to let the minority be heard, that's fine.

But it's not free.

You should have to work -- and work hard -- to be able to stop an important bill. You should have to work yourself half to death to be able to derail an entire legislative agenda. And quite frankly, you shouldn't count on ever seeing the light of day again if you're looking to bottle up the entire agenda of the biggest Senate majority elected in decades. It should be that hard to do.

But it's not. Most times, you don't even have to lift a finger. And you know Jon Tester can't really be OK with that.

The filibuster is no longer a measure of the courage and dedication of a single Senator, fighting against all odds to demand that his voice be heard. Today's filibuster is the coordinated act of an entire party caucus, and it's hardly ever aimed at getting additional debate time, but rather at stifling debate and preventing Senators from doing the job we sent them to Washington (and paid them with your tax dollars) to do. And that's to vote. To make the tough calls and the hard decisions on public policy, and choose a direction for America. They're not doing it though. And they're not doing it because the filibuster makes it impossible for them to do it. (But that's not stopping their paychecks, in case you were wondering!)

Stopping an entire legislative agenda -- or even just demanding a little bit of extra time to debate and consider an important decision -- ought to take real, honest, hard work. And that should mean being on the floor to participate in that debate you demanded. How can anybody "work together" if one side doesn't even have to show up?

That's the current state of the filibuster. The minority need only show up once in a while to vote "no" on whether or not to end debate, but they don't have to show up more than one at a time to actually participate in that debate. Just talk about nothing, one at a time, and then pass it on to a colleague when you feel like heading out for a drink. And once in a while, call in your buddies to show up to say "no."

That's not work.

But the majority does have to do the hard work. They're the ones who prepare measures for floor consideration. Who shepherd it through committee. Who gather support for it among colleagues and interest groups and constituents. Where's the "work" from the minority? All they do in this "working together" business is show up and say "no."

Well, I imagine that even Senator Tester would like to see that change. Only there's no way to change it without opening up to the possibility of changing Senate rules, because so long as there's no way to make Senators do their work, he can wish all day long that his Republican colleagues would "work together" with him and it won't make a damn bit of difference. Maybe he has been wishing, but I certainly haven't seen it happening. Have you? It must not be working real well. And I've got to believe that the reason it's not working real well is that the rules make it so that you have more power when you refuse to work than you do when you agree to pitch in.

That's got to change. And if Jon Tester doesn't think so, I'd love to hear him tell me why.

This should fix all the problems on Wall Street:

The New York company is telling employees that they will no longer be able to get away with profanity in electronic messages. That means all 34,000 traders, investment bankers and other Goldman employees must restrain themselves from using a vast vocabulary of oft-used dirty words on Wall Street, including the six-letter expletive that came back to haunt the company at a Senate hearing in April.

...

Goldman's employee emails have been a touchy subject ever since the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the firm in April of cheating clients by selling mortgage securities that were secretly designed by a hedge-fund firm to cash in on the housing market's collapse.

This month, Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle the civil charges, without admitting or denying the allegations.

So it's not that Goldman Sachs employees will stop pushing "shitty deals." They just won't be allowed to describe them that way anymore.

Though Elena Kagan's confirmation to the Supreme Court hasn't really been in question, the support of five Republicans means that there's no jeopardy in next week's vote.

Retiring Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. announced Friday that he will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, making him the fifth Republican to indicate support for Obama's pick for the job....

Gregg was one of four Republicans who voted both for Kagan’s confirmation as Solicitor General and for Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The other three – Sens. Collins, Lugar, and Snowe – have also said they will vote for Kagan.

Lindsey Graham is the other. Ben Nelson, however, won't. At least that's what CNN's Senior Political Editor Mark Preston tweets:

Neb. Sen. Ben Nelson will vote against Kagan, but will vote with Dems. to help break a filibuster if needed.

That's confirmed in this statement from Nelson's office, based on "concerns" (unspecified) he's heard from Nebraskans. I'm sure Nebraska has been burning up Nelson's phone lines with calls about Kagan.

Nice of him to at least decide he could break this filibuster, particularly now that he knows he won't need to. All of which goes to show that in one area, the Supreme Court,the ultimate vote will generally be along party lines but with enough Republicans who believe that the President's should be shown deferrence in his choice to confirm. Hopefully that will lead Obama, if he is faced with another appointment in his next six years, to nominate a demonstrated liberal to the court.

In a letter sent to BP earlier this month, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott say that BP General Counsel Jack Lynch told them that the reason BP wasn't limiting claims to the statutory cap of $75 million was that gross negligence led to the disastrous explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

"Finally, we note that your letter states: 'We have not asserted the cap provided under the Oil Pollution Act,'" Perry and Abbott say in reference to BP's statement it wouldn't invoke the post-Exxon-Valdez law that limits a company's spill related liabilities to $75 million. "We read that as an attempt to suggest that BP is voluntarily paying claims associated with the oil spill. The truth is that BP has not asserted the cap because it acknowledged that evidence would reveal that the explosion and resulting spill were the product of gross negligence -- which renders the statutory cap irrelevant. We know this because, during a conference call with Gulf Coast attorneys general, BP General Counsel Jack Lynch acknowledged that gross negligence would be revealed as a cause of the explosion that led to the oil spill."

Such a finding would be significant not only because it would render the $75 million cap moot, but because it would also quadruple the fine-per-barrel that the government could assess on BP. The Houston Chronicle runs the numbers:

If the courts find BP was negligent in activities that caused the Gulf of Mexico oil spill it's fines could nearly quadruple.

• Per barrel fines under the Clean Water Act

• Without gross negligence: $1,100

• With gross negligence: $4,300

• Size of total fines assuming 55,000 barrel-per-day spill rate

• $5 billion without negligence finding

• $19.6 billion with negligence finding

Not surprisingly, BP is now publicly denying that Lynch ever told Perry or Abbott that BP would be found guilty of gross negligence. Call me bipartisan, but this is one scenario where I actually believe Perry and Abbott, both of whom are Republicans.

Interesting note: in explaining why it believes it is entitled to a $10 billion tax deduction bailout to defray the costs of the spill, BP includes among its expenses $5 billion in fines, tallied at $1,100 per barrel, the per barrel rate if they are not found guilty of gross negligence. If they are found guilty of negligence, that fine would rise to nearly $20 billion, but from BP's perspective, the upside would be that they believe that they'd be entitled to a larger tax deduction bailout. Of course, that assumes BP is able to get its hands on a bailout in the first place: legislation is on its way to make sure they can't profit from the spill. Let's hope it gets passed quickly.

What's coming up on Sunday Kos ….

• Dante Atkins will have a motivational message in the aftermath of Netroots Nation.
• Decades ago, a science fiction editor set a goal for his authors: "Give me a creature that thinks as well as a man, but not like a man." Now progressives face another challenge, Mark Sumner wonders if we can build a movement that works as well as the conservatives on all levels without becoming like the conservatives.
• Brooklynbadboy will take a decidedly "good riddance" stance towards the downfall of Harlem's "Gang of Four."
• The primary schedule will get back on track this coming week with high-profile primaries in four different states. Steve Singiser will criss-cross the country offering a preview of the goings-on in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Tennessee.
• Laurence Lewis will remind everyone that the right-wing racism now exploding into the open is neither new nor incidental.
• Now that racism and sexism in America are over, Kaili Joy Gray aka Angry Mouse will explore the plight of the new oppressed minority: white men.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Put Your Brain in Neutral with Late Night Snark:

"BP CEO Tony Hayward complained that he was unfairly 'demonized' in the U.S. over his handling of the Gulf oil spill. In response, demons complained that they were unfairly compared to BP CEO Tony Hayward."
---Jimmy Fallon
-
"'THE SEA-NATE'...Of Course, This Boat Is Not The Actual Senate, An August Body, Of Which I Am Proud To Be A Member, Serving Humbly With 99 fellow Americans, But In Fact, A Nautical Pun Utilizing My Place Of Work Lo These Past Many Years, As Well As A Synonym For The Word Ocean, Which Is In No Way To Suggest This Craft Will Purely Navigate Ocean Waters. In Fact, I Have Made Plans This Very Weekend With The Fergusons To Navigate The Merrimack, Retracing The Steps Of The Famed Sea Captain, Arnold Merrimack, Obviously Steps Being A Figurative Form Of Speech. If Anything, We'd Be Following In The Wake, Which Obviously Has Long Since Diminished, That Trip Having Been Embarked On Centuries Ago. But I Digress. The Point Is, I Have A Very Nice Boat."
---The name of John Kerry's new yacht, as read by Jon Stewart
-
"Microsoft is getting ready to debut a brand new slogan. A three-word motto: Control Alt Delete."
---Jimmy Kimmel
-
"Obama is blowing off the Boy Scouts Jamboree! ... For Pete's sake, Mr. Obama! Every president in the last hundred years has gone...except twelve of them.  Reagan never went, but he honored the Boy Scouts every day by wearing the neckerchief.  Technically it was just his neck wattle."
---Stephen Colbert
-
"Sarah Palin was delivering a speech and she said 'refudiate.' It's not a word---you have refute and repudiate, and she combined them. A lot of times that will happen and people will confuse combinations of words. I remember a couple years ago John McCain mistakenly combined the words Vice President and Palin."
---David Letterman

More at Dan's place

Last weekend of July. Unbelievable. Oh, well...Bottoms up!  Your west coast-friendly edition of  Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Sorry, Seanie-Pooh. It looks like your "Al Gore, serial sex assaulter" case just went the way of impeaching Obama over Sestak-gate. Local television station KOIN reports, "The complaining witness, Molly Hagerty, stated that she was sexually abused during a massage session at the Hotel Lucia when Gore was in Portland. Hagerty failed a polygraph test during the course of the investigation, and there was no DNA evidence on the pants she claimed she wore during the alleged incident, according to investigators."

Huffington Post has the very damning - against Hagerty - statement from the Multnomah County DA which basically says that none of her allegations are supported by any evidence.

Will Sean Hannity apologize for his rush to judgment? Don't make me laugh.

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The DNC has a walk down memory lane.

Let's fight to keep it. The DSCC sends out a reminder that "Coats, Vitter, Johnson, Boozman, Blunt, Norton, Buck, Angle, Paul All Want To End Medicare For Seniors In Their States."

Actually, pretty much all Republicans do, though up until recently it hasn't been fashionable (or politically smart) to say so out loud. But the war on the New Deal and the Great Society has really never ended for the GOP.

Fox Nation has a post on its front page called, Fastest White Man In History. Query: How often does Fox Nation take an interest in sports? (H/T David M.)

Even the Fox Nation readers - not exactly a group known for its sensitivity on racial issues - think Fox is race baiting with this post. Even one who commends Fox' "frank and honest discussion(s) about race" thinks it's race baiting.

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It was not exactly a surprise to learn that BP believes thinks it is entitled to a $9.9 billion tax benefit, including refunds on taxes paid in previous years, to pay for the cost of cleaning up its own oil spill.

That's right: despite earning $80 billion over the past four years, despite saying that it will pay for the expense of recovery in the Gulf, BP now wants a $10 billion bailout from taxpayers.

Makes you want to scream out loud, eh? Of all companies in the world that do not deserve a bailout, BP might just be the leading example. (Though, to be fair, Goldman does give it stiff competition.)

It's a horrible idea, and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) agrees. Today he announced plans to block the taxpayer bailout of BP, promising to introduce legislation that would block BP taking advantage of the deduction and any associated tax credits or refunds.

Aside from being the right thing, Engel's idea is political gold: imagine the difficult position it would put Republicans in. Do they support Democratic efforts to make sure BP doesn't profit from its oil spill, or do they believe in bailouts for BP? If Joe Barton's apology is any guide, the results could be a political disaster for the GOP...and another big win for Democrats.

Right now, Democrats can blame Republicans for Senate inaction:

That's some serious GOP obstructionism. Unprecedented.

Democrats can end that by eliminating the filibuster when the new organizing resolution is passed at the beginning of the next Senate. But apparently, too many Senate Democrats hate progress, and would rather have the filibuster as a handy excuse for inaction.

Five Senate Democrats have said they will not support a lowering of the 60-vote bar necessary to pass legislation. Another four lawmakers say they are wary about such a change and would be hesitant to support it. A 10th Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said he would support changing the rule on filibusters of motions to begin debate on legislation, but not necessarily the 60-vote threshold needed to bring up a final vote on bills...

Senior Democrats say Reid will not have the votes to change the rule at the beginning of next year.

“It won’t happen,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who said she would “probably not” support an effort to lower the number of votes needed to cut off filibusters from 60 to 55 or lower.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) echoed Feinstein: “I think we should retain the same policies that we have instead of lowering it. “I think it has been working,” he said.

Ha ha ha ha! "It's been working". In what world? It's a fantastic tool for Republican obstructionists, for corporatist Democrats, for attention whores like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman who get to wield veto power over chamber legislation, and for anyone in the chamber who doesn't want clear accountability and democracy.

Fact is, Democrats have the tools to eliminate GOP obstructionism. If they don't use them, then they won't have anyone to blame but themselves for their chamber's inability to do shit. And if you think 59 has been painful, just wait until we're down to 54-56 seats (or worse). The Obama presidency will be effectively over, even if he sticks around until 2016.

(Via Digby.)

Media conservatives have responded with a torrent of unhinged rhetoric to an Arizona judge's ruling that blocked parts of the state's immigration law from taking effect. For example, Rush Limbaugh suggested the ruling would prevent the state from defending itself from an "invasion," and Jeffrey Kuhner suggested Arizona should consider secession.

Right wing's rhetoric on immigration ruling includes talk of "invasion" and secession

Limbaugh suggests judge's decision prevents Arizona from "defend[ing] itself from an invasion." Responding to Judge Susan Bolton's July 28 decision to block parts of the Arizona immigration law from taking effect, Limbaugh said: "I guess the judge is saying it's not in the public interest for Arizona to try to defend itself from an invasion. I don't know how you look at this with any sort of common sense and come to the ruling this woman came to." [Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, 7/28/10]

Limbaugh predicts that "Muslim terrorists" will "have a field day in Arizona." On the same show, Limbaugh also stated that "we now have a situation where the federal government, through the executive branch and this court, is saying that state and local law enforcement is essentially barred from inquiring into the legal status of individuals who are stopped incidental to other potential violations. That's the net effect." Limbaugh went on to say: "Muslim terrorists are going to have a field day in Arizona. You cannot ask them where they're from. You cannot even act like we know where they're from. You cannot ask them for their papers. We can ask you for yours. Not them." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 7/28/10]

Wash. Times' Kuhner asks, "Should Arizona secede?" In a July 29 column headlined "Should Arizona secede?" The Washington Times' Jeffrey Kuhner stated that the ruling "is unilaterally disarming the people of Arizona in the face of a dangerous enemy" and that "leftist judges -- elitist activists in black robes -- override democratic legitimacy." Kuhner warned that the United States is in danger of becoming a "socialist superstate" and claimed, "The choice is becoming starkly apparent: devolution or dissolution." Kuhner's column was promoted by the Fox Nation.

Hannity, Doocy suggest federal government "won't protect" Arizona residents. In an interview with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Sean Hannity stated on the July 28 edition of his Fox News show, "Is it a fair interpretation in your mind -- today's court ruling -- to say that it appears that the federal government won't protect American citizens, won't enforce the law, and also, on the other hand, now the state of Arizona, that you can't do it either?" Similarly, on the July 29 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy asked, "If the feds won't protect the people and Governor Brewer can't protect her citizens, what are the people of Arizona supposed to do?"

Beck suggests that ruling is suicidal. In a discussion with Kris Kobach, a law professor and Republican candidate for Kansas Secretary of State who helped write Arizona's immigration law, Glenn Beck stated that with the judge's ruling, "you have a suicide pact with the Constitution now for states":

KOBACH: But the Supreme Court has held for centuries, and it's clear that our Constitution requires, that if Congress is going to push the states off the field, it has to be an act of Congress and it has to be an unmistakable statement by Congress that the states are no longer welcome. But what the Obama adm --

BECK: But wait, they're not no longer welcome in this. I think the Congress has been clear. They're not welcome in this. However, they're not doing the job. And so you have a self -- you have a suicide pact with the Constitution now for states. [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/29/10]

Savage: "The judge is a criminal who should be put in jail." Radio host Michael Savage responded to the ruling by calling Bolton a "criminal," adding that "[i]n a sane country, she'd be arrested."

SAVAGE: She's a criminal, in essence. In essence, the judge is a criminal. I mean, you want to add it up? Men died for the sanctity of the ballot box. So, if someone interferes with the ballot box and says you can't vote or your vote is nullified, that's tampering. She's a criminal. In a sane country, she'd be arrested. What do you want me to say here? The judge is a criminal who should be put in jail. In a sane country, any judge who said, "You know what? You may have voted, but drop dead. I'm bigger than you. Your vote doesn't count" -- that's a criminal. [Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation, 7/28/10]

Seth Motel is an intern at Media Matters for America.

So the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that has a long history of fighting discrimination and bigotry, has apparently gone bonkers: they have joined forces with fringe lunatics like Sarah Palin in opposition to the construction of an Islamic Center two blocks from the Ground Zero. Their rationale?

"We are ever mindful of the tragedy which befell our nation there, the pain we all still feel – and especially the anguish of the families and friends of those who were killed on September 11, 2001. The controversy which has emerged regarding the building of an Islamic Center at this location is counterproductive to the healing process."

Adam Serwer responds:

I learned a very important lesson in Hebrew School that I have retained my entire life. If they can deny freedom to a single individual because of who they are, they can do it to anyone. Someone at the ADL needs to go back to Hebrew School.

I have learned the same lesson in my life, not just in Hebrew School, but also being the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. So too has J Street. Even if you have no intention of ever setting foot inside such a center, you should still stand up against the campaign of irrational fear-mongering being waged against the facility -- especially if you are part of a group whose mission is to fight all forms of bigotry. Whether or not the proposed Islamic Center is politically popular is besides the point: the bottom-line is that you can't put an asterisk next to tolerance.

By Brian

Donald Trump visited Your World, Tuesday (7/27/10) and fear mongered that “producing” people will leave the country if the Bush tax cuts are not extended.

Trump said, "I think you're taking away a lot of incentive from a lot of people that produce a lot of taxes… Some of these people will actually leave. They’ll go to different countries who have much lower rates. It's a sad thing to do."

Cavuto, in a nod toward balance, said, "On Wall Street, the trend has been go to Switzerland or low regulation countries like China or Hong Kong. Generally, when its tax rates we're considering, Europe’s are by and large higher, so the notion is where else could they go?"

Trump said, "There are plenty of places in Asia… I'm Trump, it’s a little hard to leave… I happen to love this country, but there will be people that will leave this country, and they'll take their companies with them… They're making their money in Asia, …in India, and they have much lower tax rates… It creates the wrong image… I really think it's a big problem. You really have to keep the taxes down." Trump didn’t say would leave or what kind of information he had that they were going.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

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President Obama is in Motor City today to focus attention on what he feels is an untold success story: the improving fortunes of American automakers thanks to the administration's decision to use TARP funds to bailout General Motors and Chrysler.

DETROIT — President Barack Obama is in the heart of the U.S. auto industry Friday pushing an important election-year claim: that his administration's unpopular auto industry bailout has turned into an economic good-news story.

Speaking at a Chrysler plant in Detroit that recently hired more than 1,000 people, Obama said his administration's bailout out of U.S. car companies saved more than 1 million jobs and kept communities that depend on the auto industry afloat.

Obama said progress in the auto industry is one of the bright spots in the nation's economic recovery. He said that while the auto bailout may not have been popular, the recent growth of car companies is proving critics wrong.

Since the administration took action, the auto industry has added 55,000 jobs -- the best growth since 1999 -- and the administration says 1.1 million jobs have been saved in the economy at large. Unfortunately, the President's visit to Detroit coincides with today's less-than-stellar GDP report which showed continuing anemic growth in the economy.

Against the backdrop of the disappointing GDP report, it strikes me that one of the challenges the administration has in selling the good news out of Detroit is that it doesn't seem to be embracing similar programs for other parts of the economy. Remember, the stimulus only funded about $250 billion in contracts, and that was spread out over three years and the entire economy. The auto bailout cost $60 billion. That imbalance raises a question: if the intervention to help Detroit was successful, then why not do it on a broader scale?

Similarly, even though most economists agree that the spending portion of the stimulus provided a valuable boost to the economy, it's reasonable to ask why there isn't a push to spend more? In other words, given that we know the economy is still weak, if we believe that things like the auto bailout and the stimulus were effective -- but not sufficient -- then shouldn't it stand to reason that we need more of the same?

Instead, we are hearing more from policymakers about reducing deficits and belt-tightening than we are about additional jobs programs. Even if the reason they aren't talking about such programs is recognition that Republicans would block any new initiatives, it seems as if the failure to embrace more stimulus sends the signal that they actually don't believe the original stimulus was effective in the first place, even though that obviously isn't what they really believe.

I guess what I'm saying comes down to this: given that the administration (correctly) believes that the auto industry bailout and the stimulus programs helped the economy, and given that the economy is not yet fully recovered, wouldn't the best way to demonstrate their belief in the value of stimulus be for them to propose more of it, perhaps in the form of a $250 billion per year plan to rebuild our energy transmission grid? And on the flip side, doesn't backing off proposing additional stimulus effectively send a message that they don't believe it works, even if the opposite is actually true?

Update: DarkSyde points to local reaction to President Obama's visit:

Visiting Obama deserves credit for saving GM, Chrysler

President Barack Obama comes to Detroit today, looking for love in the factories of America's hardest-hit big city.

Beset by a sputtering jobless economic recovery, Obama will tout the federal rescues of General Motors and Chrysler as bold moves that staved off another Great Depression and saved thousands of jobs.

While the revivals of GM and Chrysler are still works in progress, at least the automakers are still alive to launch the Chevrolet Volt and the new Jeep Grand Cherokee from the Detroit plants Obama will visit. And that's about as big a triumph as the president can claim from his first 18 months on the job.

Yes, there are still partisan critics sniping about bailouts and "Government Motors." But make no mistake about the Detroit rescue.

The fact that GM and Chrysler are not only alive but modestly profitable in a weak market, after years of losing billions of dollars when car and truck sales were 50% higher, looks like more than just a successful government intervention.

It looks like a flat-out miracle.

That's excellent stuff. Now, let's see more of it. Go national! $250 billion per year in clean energy investments -- it will change America and change the world. And it will be a political success beyond belief.

On Fox & Friends, Fox Business' Stuart Varney argued that it is "inaccurate" to attribute the recession to President Bush and claimed that "President Obama's policies have not fixed that ongoing recession." In reality, Obama's policies have created growth in the GDP and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, while turning around the increases in joblessness that began under Bush.

Varney: "President Bush fixed the financial panic," while the "economy fell off a cliff on President Obama's watch"  

From the July 30 edition of Fox & Friends:

DOOCY: We're all wondering why hasn't the president created more jobs? Well, you know the White House says it's President Bush's fault. Joe Biden said that just yesterday. Listen.  

BIDEN [video clip]: There's never enough until we restore the eight million jobs lost in the Bush recession. Until that happens, it doesn't matter. I mean, it matters, but it's not enough.  

DOOCY: Did he say the Bush recession? Stuart Varney is laughing off camera and he is now on camera to tell us what's going on here. OK, so now, forget about just blaming Bush. Now Mr. Bush has got a recession named after him.  

VARNEY: Let me get my line in here. The president is on a summer recovery tour. The vice president seems to be on a summer comic relief tour. He says it's Bush's recession, harking back two years ago. I think that's inaccurate. President Bush fixed the financial panic. The economy fell off a cliff on President Obama's watch, and President Obama's policies have not fixed that ongoing recession.

NBER: Recession began in December 2007, more than a year before Obama's presidency began 

NBER: Economic activity began to decline in December 2007. The National Bureau of Economic Research announced on December 1, 2008, that based on "economy-wide measures of economic activity," including domestic production and employment, the recession began in December 2007.

Economic indicators show the economy has dramatically improved under the Obama administration 

Real GDP has greatly increased during Obama's presidency. As the graph (taken from Bureau of Economic Analysis data) below indicates, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tumbled in the last two quarters of Bush's presidency and the first two quarters of Obama's. It has increased steadily through the last four quarters:

After steadily increasing in 2008, new jobless numbers have dropped significantly in the time since Obama took office. As data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show, new jobless numbers increased in seven of the last eight months of Bush's term, from just under 200,000 jobs lost June of 2008 to around 800,000 lost in January 2009. The data show that in the time since President Obama took office, new jobless claims have significantly decreased, and, beginning in November 2009, there has been a net increase in employment. From a BLS news release on the June 2010 jobs report:

 

After falling "off a cliff" in October 2008, the stock market rebounded following the passage of Obama's stimulus plan. In the fall of 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) nosedived, dropping 2937.25 points in just two weeks (September 26 to October 10). The Dow continued its downward trend through March 6, 2009, when it bottomed out at 6626.94 points, two weeks after President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law. Since then, the DJI has steadily increased, gaining 26.6 percent in the time since Obama took office, and 33.5 percent since the stimulus was enacted (as of 11:21 am ET on July 30).

 

Economists: government's response to the recession "probably averted ... Great Depression 2.0"

Moody's study shows government's policy response to the recession "probably averted ... Great Depression 2.0." A recent study by Alan Blinder, the president of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, and Mark Zandi, the co-founder of Moody's Economy.com, simulated the "macroeconomic effects of the government's total policy response" to the recent economic downturn and found that while "TARP, the bank stress tests and the Fed's quantitative easing" was "substantially more powerful than" the fiscal stimulus, "the effects of the fiscal stimulus alone appear very substantial, raising 2010 real GDP by about 3.4%, holding the unemployment rate about 1½ percentage points lower, and adding almost 2.7 million jobs to U.S. payrolls."

Wall Street Journal: 70 percent of economists surveyed said stimulus helped. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 12 that 38 of the 54 economists it surveyed "said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosted growth and mitigated job losses, while six said the legislation had a net negative effect."

ABC News: Most on panel of economists "think the economy would be worse" without the stimulus. ABC News reported on February 18 that "most" of the economists on its panel "think the economy would be worse today without the big aid package, which totaled $787 billion and was signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 17, 2009."

NABE: 83 percent say stimulus raised GDP. A February survey of 203 members of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) found that, "[e]ighty-three percent believe that GDP is currently higher than it would have been without the 2009 stimulus package (ARRA)."

Bush admin disagreed with Doocy's claim that "saved or created jobs" metric "does not exist"

Doocy and Varney: You "can't prove" that the stimulus saved or created jobs because that "metric does not exist." From the July 30 edition of Fox & Friends:

VARNEY: There's a lot of things that the vice president has come out with which really do offer a little comic relief. Three million jobs saved or created because of the stimulus plan.

DOOCY: Which is a metric that does not exist.

VARNEY: You can't prove that. You can laugh at it, but you can't prove it. "The stimulus plan is working better than anyone had hoped for." Really? I mean, come on.

DOOCY: Yeah, can we vote on that? Well, Stuart, if you -- just imagine, if you were in the White House, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna say "Yeah, we're sorry that we're stinking up the place when it comes to job creation. Oh, let's blame the last guy."

VARNEY: You have got to defend the policies which you put in place. So you go back to the last guy and say it's his fault, and we're cleaning up the mess.

Bush Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman: "[R]ural development programs have saved or created more than 500,000 jobs." On June 24, 2004, then-Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman stated: "We have estimated that our rural development programs have saved or created more than 500,000 jobs just since the Bush Administration took office in January of 2001." [Accessed via the Nexis database]

Veneman's replacement Mike Johanns: "[E]conomic development in rural areas ... will help save or create more than 1,800 jobs." According to a March 24, 2005, Agriculture Department news release, Mike Johanns -- who replaced Veneman as Agriculture secretary -- stated: "These funds are part of the Bush Administration's ongoing efforts to spur economic development in rural areas and will help save or create more than 1,800 jobs."

Agriculture Undersecretary Thomas C. Dorr "announced the award of $19.75 million to create or retain jobs." According to a May 7, 2007, Agriculture Department news release, then-Agriculture Undersecretary Thomas C. Dorr stated:

Agriculture Under Secretary Thomas C. Dorr today announced the award of $19.75 million to create or retain jobs at rural businesses.

"These funds will help support local economic development agencies, finance infrastructure improvements, establish low-interest revolving loan funds, and help jurisdictions implement regional business and community development plans," Dorr said. "The funding announced today is expected to save or create more than 2,300 jobs in 20 states."

• Joe Scarborough really is a wanker.
• KY-Sen: Run for your lives! Rand Paul says Hitler is coming to America because of Obama and the Democrats!

  Remember when it was beyond the pale to compare the political opposition to Hitler? But that rule only applies to Democrats. Conservatives can do it with impunity.

• And while we're visiting with Kentucky blogger Barefoot and Progressive, he got video of Rand Paul's former campaign manager, and asked him why he didn't pull the plug on the Rachel Maddow interview which got his general election campaign off to such a horrid start.

  The answer? Because Rand Paul was looking really good and making a lot of sense. So much so, in fact, that they had to stick him in Cheney's underground undisclosed bunker for weeks as they waited for the storm to pass.

• July marks a distressing record.

  With the deaths of three more American troops on Friday, July became the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nine-year Afghan war.

  The killings came in a manner and location that has typified the recent increase in violence in Afghanistan. NATO officials said two of the American service members died in a roadside bombing while another was killed by a separate insurgent attack, all of them in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban insurgency is strongest. The rudimentary bombs often made from fertilizer are a favored weapon of the Taliban and the predominant killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

  The latest killings, a total of six over two days, pushed the death toll to 66 Americans, surpassing June, when 60 Americans were killed. The overall toll for NATO forces in July is still below the record reached in June, when 103 NATO troops were killed.

  What a fucking mess. Bring our troops home.

• I want to see Hailey Barbour, Rush Limbaugh, and Bobby Jindal eat Gulf Coast seafood.

  Scientists have found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of tiny blue crab larvae in the Gulf of Mexico, the first clear indication that the unprecedented use of dispersants in the BP oil spill has broken up the oil into toxic droplets so tiny that they can easily enter the foodchain.

• Mosque madness.

  And here we actually get to the nub of the problem. Joking about the exact scope of the proposed mosque exclusion zone the issue here is whether or not we should be defining Islam, as such, as an “ideolog[y] opposed to America” comparable to the ideology that powered the Soviet Union. I say “no,” Team Newt says yes. That’s both repugnant and strategically disastrous.

  And while the ADL embarrasses itself, J Street shows how the issue should be handled.

• Atrios:

  If We Cared About The Women And Children Of The World

  It would be far better to spend $100 billion per year granting them political asylum and paying for their transport and relocation to the US than invading their countries and caressing them with our freedom bombs.

• Rolling my eyes at the latest Fred Barnes idiocy.
• Scientists now believe that there was no such animal as triceratops. Rather, the beloved and well-known dinosaur was the juvenile form of Torosaurus. Here's a diagram of how the triceratops/torosaur skull might've morphed over time. Note, this isn't established fact, just the latest theory from two paleontologists.

  Luckily, triceratops was named first. So if this is confirmed by peer review, and consensus builds that they're the same animal, then "torosaur" will get the axe. That'll avoid the mess we got when Brontosaur was axed because 1) it was the same animal as Apatosaurus, and 2) Apatosaurus came first.

• Who knew Manta Rays could leap nine feet out of the water? So incredibly cool.
• A two-fer: 1) more evidence of Republicans who lie with abandon, and don't give a shit about the fact that they're lying, and 2) more evidence that filibuster reform is long overdue.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh regularly tout their supposed accuracy and often claim their critics never prove them wrong. Fittingly, this in itself is a complete falsehood. Limbaugh and Beck are wrong for a living, but have been rewarded for their perpetual wrongness by assuming the role of the two most important cogs in the conservative media.

Every day, the conservative noise machine -- Fox News, Beck, Limbaugh, and other prominent conservative talk radio hosts and bloggers -- hurl false accusations with the hopes of damaging the Obama administration, Democrats, and progressives politically. Make no mistake: this is the primary motivation for the majority of the stories they promote. Pesky things like "facts" and "reality" are, at best, a trivial concern.

Often, these attacks are baseless, easily debunked, and laughably absurd -- yet conservative media outlets rarely (if ever) offer corrections when they are proven wrong. Instead they either double down on their attacks or simply ignore that they were wrong in the first place and move on to the next overhyped bit of nonsense.

While it may seem like a minor story in the grand scheme of things, one example from this week perfectly exemplifies the utter lack of journalistic standards endemic to conservative media.

Early this week, conservatives were in their usual panic mode over what they claimed was evidence that the Obama administration "backed" or "preferred" the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the terrorist better known as the Lockerbie bomber. As we pointed out, reports -- often the same reports these conservatives were linking to in order to make their arguments -- indicated that the administration wanted Megrahi to "remain imprisoned in view of the nature of the crime."

Fox News twisted reality to claim that the "U.S. Backed Freedom, Not Prison, for Bomber." Matt Drudge splashed a huge headline across his website announcing that the "White House Backed Release Of Lockerbie Bomber." Pam Geller -- whose deranged rantings have earned her frequent appearances on Fox News and bylines on Andrew Breitbart's "Big" websites, Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller, and the American Thinker -- called for a "special investigation" and a "charge of treason" for Obama.

Rush Limbaugh -- while bragging, as he often does, that he was "executing assigned host duties flawlessly" with "zero mistakes" --claimed that Obama "backed the release" of the Lockerbie bomber because he wanted to "make nice with the Muslim world."

Late Monday, when the State Department released the administration's correspondence with the Scottish Ministry of Justice, it confirmed in unambiguous terms that the administration was "not prepared to support Megrahi's release on compassionate release or bail," and that "it would be most appropriate for Megrahi to remain imprisoned for the entirety of his sentence." They stipulated if he were to be released, he should remain in Scotland rather than risk him receiving an "extremely inappropriate" "welcoming reception" upon being transferred to Libya.

So, after this story completely fell apart, did conservative media figures correct the record and let their readers/listeners/viewers know that the administration did not "support" or "prefer" the release of the Lockerbie bomber?

Of course not.

Conservative blogger Jim Hoft -- whose ongoing popularity and influence in conservative media says a lot about their complete indifference to accuracy and credibility -- linked to the letter and proclaimed that the administration "preferred" his release. This was akin to pointing at the ground and saying "this is the sky."

Fox Nation, almost 48 hours after the story had completely fallen apart, still had the following headline and image on their front page:

And you can be sure that in a few months, whenever Sean Hannity or anyone else in the noise machine decides to twist a news story to claim that the Obama administration is "weak on terror," they'll point to the time the administration supposedly "preferred the release of the Lockerbie bomber" in order to buttress their point.

It's a perpetual dishonesty machine.

If this were an isolated incident, perhaps it would be possible to (partially) excuse conservative media outlets for their shameless performance "covering" this story. But as we detailed this week, the right-wing media routinely promote fake stories (for example, the epic freak-out over the imaginary Obama proposal to "ban sport fishing.")

For another good example of how the perpetual dishonesty machine works, have a look at this segment from Tuesday's Fox & Friends. In it, Glenn Beck, Steve Doocy, and Peter Johnson Jr. seized on reports of the U.K. supposedly "admit[ting] its socialized health care is a mess" in order to attack health care reform. They rehashed some old favorites from conservatives' misinformation campaign about health care reform, claiming that we "modeled" reform on the British system and fear mongered about imaginary "death panels." Neither of these attacks were true when they appeared last year, they weren't true this week, and they won't be true the next time Fox's hosts bring them up. 

This pattern is undeniable, and at this point is just expected behavior for the conservative media. The larger problem is that "mainstream" outlets still frequently treat garbage from conservative media figures as newsworthy, and ombudsmen at major newspapers like The Washington Post regularly chastise their colleagues for not seizing on conservative nonsense faster.

It says a lot about the state of the media when Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, and other prominent media conservatives can be caught pushing a blatantly false story, offer no correction, and have their behavior met with a collective shrug. Conservative media outlets retain their unfortunate power and influence over the public discourse because they are able to lie largely without consequence.

They did it all this week, they did it all last week, and they'll do it again next week.

Dishonest damage control: Shirley Sherrod edition

Though conservative media outlets mostly avoid accountability for their shameless dishonesty, occasionally, one of their overhyped "scandals" blows up in such epic fashion that they are forced to publicly defend themselves. Fittingly, their defenses often rest on provable falsehoods.

In the wake of Shirley Sherrod's firing and (attempted) rehiring, Fox News, Andrew Breitbart, and conservative media figures have transitioned into damage control mode, a large, shameful part of which entails attacking Sherrod as a radical Marxist race-baiter.

While Breitbart (whom Sherrod announced plans to sue this week) deserves a hefty dose of criticism for revealing yet again that he is a dishonest hack, it's worth taking a closer look at Fox News' role in this story. 

Fox originally defended their journalistic integrity by unequivocally stating that they did not cover the story prior to Sherrod's resignation. Among the Fox personalities making this argument were Dana Perino, Steve Doocy, Glenn Beck, and James Rosen. As we pointed out repeatedly, Fox News did cover the story prior to her resignation on both FoxNews.com and FoxNation.com, and Bill O'Reilly taped his segment calling for Sherrod's resignation before she stepped down.

Fox News VP Michael Clemente eventually conceded to Politico that Fox had covered the story online before Sherrod resigned, which he blamed on a "breakdown in the system." Give me a break -- Fox should not get a pass on this one. How low a bar has Fox set in terms of journalistic responsibility that they think a legitimate defense for their behavior is saying "well, only two of our websites and our top-rated TV host planned to run with this story before we got the facts straight, so we mostly did a good job." Really?

The fact that Sherrod happened to resign before O'Reilly's segment aired has absolutely no bearing on the lack of journalisticresponsibility inherent in O'Reilly's segment in the first place. And Fox's online coverage of the story, coupled with their past transgressions, seem to indicate not that there was a "breakdown in the system," but that the "system" doesn't even exist.

Glenn Beck's dangerous game

On July 18, an apparently deranged ex-convict named Byron Williams packed his truck with guns and allegedly set out to kill employees at both the ACLU and the Tides Foundation in the hopes that his actions would "start a revolution." Williams' mother indicated that her son was angry because of his unemployment and "what's happening to our country." According to her, Williams watched television news and was upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items." Sound familiar?

While the ACLU has long been a bogeyman for conservatives, the Tides Foundation is far more obscure and hasn't earned nearly as much attention from the right-wing media. There is, however, one media figure who has made the little-known Tides Foundation a focal point of his attacks: Fox News' Glenn Beck.

As we detailed, Beck has repeatedly demonized the Tides Foundation on his Fox News program - referencing the organization at least thirty times by our count. Beck often includes Tides in his bizarre conspiracy theories, and has referred to them as a "shady organization" that is a "major source of revenue for some of the most extreme groups on the left" and wants to "warp your children's brains."

In the wake of the attempted attack, Beck has stood by his attacks on Tides, going so far as to brag about "turning the light of day" on Tides while also pointing to their inclusion on his blackboard as "the first time that I really realized its success."

Beck's denial of any responsibility for this incident is complicated by his almost-daily use of overtly violent rhetoric. Among many, many other examples, Beck has:

• Suggested Obama is pushing America toward civil war and deliberately "trying to destroy the country."
• Capped two weeks of violent fear mongering about progressives by warning that when their attempts at a "soft revolution" fail, eventually progressives "just start shooting people."
• Said the "people around the president" support "armed insurrection" and "bombing."
• Repeatedly insinuated that the Obama administration will kill him.
• Used a quote from Jefferson to launch into a warning about coming "rivers of blood."
• Compared himself to "Israeli Nazi hunters" and announced that "to the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter."
• Included in his advice to Liberty University grads that they should "shoot to kill," and that graduates "have a responsibility" tospeak out, or "blood...will be on our hands."
• Informed viewers that the "world is on edge" and said that "those who survive" will "stand in the truth" and "listen."
• Said that some progressive groups don't have "a problem with blood in the streets."

And just today, Beck claimed the present day will seem like good times "when we're behind barbed wire and just eating rock soup."

Despite the fact that he routinely suggests progressives are going to kill or imprison his viewers and listeners, Beck tries to thread the needle by urging his followers not to resort to violence.

As Media Matters' Matt McLaughlin asked this week, what does it say about Beck's rhetoric and his audience that he feels it necessary to tell his followers not to kill people?

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Media Matters' Ben Dimiero

We've repeatedly posted our concern about the consequences of Glenn Beck's violent rhetoric. Now we ask you to join Media Matters' campaign to demand that the shareholders of Fox News' parent company, News Corporation, renounce that rhetoric.

As Media Matters notes, "It's time for those who profit from Beck to take responsibility for his incitements to violence. Beck's paranoid, dishonest and incendiary rhetoric doesn't just reflect on Beck -- it reflects on News Corp., Fox News' parent company, and its shareholders."

Sign the petition here.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

How To Fight The Tax Cut Wars
by Jonathan Chait
The New Republic, July 26, 2010

The next big fight in Congress revolves around extending the Bush tax cuts. Unlike issues like climate change or stimulus, where the public does not accept the Democrats’ basic analysis of the problem, on the tax cuts the Democrats hold the whip hand. The question is whether they emerge with a political win, a public policy win, or both.

Let’s review a few basic facts about the Bush tax cuts. When Republicans took control of government in 2001, their top priority was reducing tax rates on high income earners. Since tax cuts for the rich were unpopular, they had to pair those cuts with middle-class tax cuts in order to make them politically salable. That’s how they pressured Democrats into supporting them. By packaging the whole thing together, they could accuse Democrats of opposing tax cuts for the middle class if they voted no.

Now, ten years later — and what a decade of bountiful economic growth we’ve enjoyed with the energies of investors and entrepreneurs finally unleashed from restrictive Clinton-era tax rates! — the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire. Republicans want to extend the whole thing. Democrats just want to extend the parts that benefit people who earn less than $250,000 a year.

Now, here’s the underlying dynamic. Raising taxes on the middle class is unpopular. But raising taxes on the rich is wildly popular. The truth is that neither party cares very much about the portion of the Bush tax cuts that benefit the middle class. Republicans just threw that in to sell the upper-bracket tax cuts, which is what they care about. Democrats might prefer a more progressive tax code with lower middle-class taxes, but most of them would rather have the revenue instead. But Democrats promised not to raise taxes on people earning less than $250,000 a year — a promise they felt they had to make in order to win. And they can’t break that promise without suffering political consequences.

Republicans, on the other hand, don’t want to pass an extension of the middle-class Bush tax cuts without the upper-bracket tax cuts. That would leave the federal tax code more progressive than it was under Bill Clinton — you’d have a combination of Clinton-era tax rates on the rich and Bush-era tax rates on the middle class. Conservatives have been fretting about such a result for more than a year, warning ominously about a country in which half the population pays no income tax. (They’d still pay other taxes, but the central Republican goal is to minimize the progressivity of the tax code.)

So we’re down to a game of chicken. Here’s why the Democrats hold the whip hand. They can pass an extension of the middle-class Bush tax cuts through the House. If Republicans let the bill pass, then they’ve lost their leverage to extend the unpopular Bush upper-income tax cuts. If they filibuster it, then Democrats can blame them for raising taxes on middle-class Americans. It would let Democrats out of their pledge. (Hey, they tried to keep the middle-class tax cuts.) Then nothing would pass, and we’d instantly revert to Clinton-era rates across the board.

What kind of effect would that have on the deficit? A huge one:

[graph appears in the article-- at http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/76563/how-fight-the-tax-cut-wars]
That dark orange stripe is the portion of the deficit attributable to the Bush tax cuts. That would be wiped out. Ending the tax cuts would basically solve the medium-term deficit problem.

The key factor here is that, just as Republicans got to frame the debate in 2001 by combining the tax cuts into an up or down vote, Democrats can frame the debate now by separating the policies Republicans pretend to care about from the ones they actually care about. Republicans want to have a vote on the whole collection of Bush-era tax cuts. Democrats shouldn’t give it to them. You hold a separate vote on the middle class portion and dare them to oppose it.

This seems to be the plan:

“The Senate will move first, and it will be a test to see whether Republicans filibuster” to block the bill in a bid to also win tax cuts for higher earners, said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, head of the House Democrats’ re-election effort.

“If you can’t get it out of the Senate, then you take it to the election,” Mr. Van Hollen said in a recent interview. “You say to the American people that Republicans want to continue to hold middle-class tax relief hostage for an extension of tax breaks for [the well-to-do]. That will be the debate.”

Republicans have followed a strategy of opposing nearly everything the Democrats do. It’s worked very well. But the peculiar dynamic of this debate puts the Republicans in a position where they can’t win, and obstructing the Democrats is probably their worst move.