Tea Anyone?

From Some Guy with a Website
via Huffington Post

The Republican Wrecking Ball

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has released a new ad entitled "Wrecking Ball"

So What is a Hedge Fund?

Here's an interesting video with an answer.

A look inside hedge funds from Marketplace on Vimeo.

Quote for the Day

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and economic adviser to President Obama, says it's a Depression.

Here's His Post From Talking Points Memo.
And Here it is on Blogger.

It's a Depression

Robert Reich's Blog
April 3, 2009, 9:51AM

By Robert Reich

The March employment numbers, out this morning, are bleak: 8.5 percent of Americans officially unemployed, 663,000 more jobs lost. But if you include people who are out of work and have given up trying to find a job, the real unemployment rate is 9 percent. And if you include people working part time who'd rather be working full time, it's now up to 15.6 percent. One in every six workers in America is now either unemployed or underemployed.

Every lost job has a multiplier effect throughout the economy. For every person who no longer has a job and can't find another, or is trying to enter the job market and can't find one, there are at least three job holders who become more anxious that they may lose their job. Almost every American right now is within two degrees of separation of someone who is out of work. This broader anxiety expresses itself as less willingness to spend money on anything other than necessities. And this reluctance to spend further contracts the economy, leading to more job losses.

Capital markets may or may not unfreeze under the combined heat of the Treasury and the Fed, but what happens to Wall Street is becoming less and less relevant to Main Street. Anxious Americans will not borrow even if credit is available to them. And ever fewer Americans are good credit risks anyway.

All this means that the real economy will need a larger stimulus than the $787 billion already enacted. To be sure, only a small fraction of the $787 billion has been turned into new jobs so far. The money is still moving out the door. But today's bleak jobs report shows that the economy is so far below its productive capacity that much more money will be needed.

This is still not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it is a Depression. And the only way out is government spending on a very large scale. We should stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about American workers. Use money to build up Main Street, and the future capacities of our workforce.

Energy independence and a non-carbon economy should be the equivalent of a war mobilization. Hire Americans to weatherize and insulate homes across the land. Don't encourage General Motors or any other auto company to shrink. Use the auto makers' spare capacity to make busses, new wind turbines, and electric cars (why let the Chinese best us on this?). Enlarge public transit systems.

Meanwhile, extend our educational infrastructure. So many young people are out of work that they should be using this time to improve their skills and capacities. Expand community colleges. Enlarge Pell Grants. Extend job-training opportunities to the unemployed, so they can learn new skills while they're collecting unemployment benefits.

Finally, accelerate universal health care.

Tim Kaine and the license plates

The left is mad at VA Governor Tim Kaine. What are they mad at? They are mad that the Gov and DNC Chair allowed Pro-Life advocates to have a "choose life" license plate.

If Kaine were merely the governor of the Old Dominion, the move might have been less notable. Kaine—a Catholic who says he is personally opposed to abortion but pledged to leave the right to choose intact—won office in Virginia partly by seeking to reassure social conservatives.

But he is now on a national stage. And his decision could echo among women's activists who are among the most powerful financial supporters of the party.

“It is surprising that Governor Kaine would do this, but it’s all the more surprising that he would do it as chair of the DNC,” said Paulette McElwain, the president of the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood.

McElwain exchanged numerous calls with the governor’s office over the license plates and organized a grass roots effort that logged more than 2,000 calls to the governor’s staff.

“We provided him with abundant information,” she said. “We’re terribly disappointed that he decided to sign it.”

In Washington, NARAL/Pro-Choice America channeled more than 17,000 emails and 200 calls to the DNC urging Kaine to veto the bill.

“It is unfortunate that, even after receiving thousands of messages from Virginians and pro-choice activists across the country, Gov. Kaine has opted to sign a bill that advances a divisive political ideology at the expense of women’s health,” NARAL/Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan said in a statement.
-From Politico

It may be my own ignorance, but I didn't know that having a license plate could cause harm to anyone's health. This is a waste of resources. IT'S A LICENSE PLATE! Why waste all this energy fighting A LICENSE PLATE! Get your own license plate...not to mention what the REAL issue here is...freedom of speech.

Thanks for angering your base, Mr. Kaine, but I guess he feels like he has to attack the liberals if he wants Villager props.
- From Crooks and Liars

As a response to that quote above. If the base is angry over a license plate then I fear for the future of the party.

I need for the Left to focus on REAL issues not stupid sidebars.

[Politico]
[Crooks and Liars]