I think that the newest GOP spin it that even if the stim did help a little, we should have just suffered through the recession because the exploding debt cause by the stim will kill all our children.

Or something like that.

It doesn't matter is it corresponds to reality or not, only that they can push the meme to the public better than anyone else. So far it appears that that is all that really matters, and the Democrats have yet to grasp and get ahead of that strategy. On anything.

Only a fool or a Republican would argue that throwing money at the economy wouldn't help short term. The real test is whether the economy will continue to expand long term or will we drop into another recession. I have seen nothing to indicate that anyone has addressed the long term strength of the American economy.

I wonder if those tea baggers realize that the government programs they hate, if stopped, would stop their Medicare and social security, perhaps they are all independently wealthy and do not claim social security.
As far as I know John McCain has never refused his social security check.

JS: I wonder if those tea baggers realize that the government programs they hate, if stopped, would stop their Medicare and social security,...

The Tea Baggers only realize one thing: they're angry. And when given facts, they only get angrier and louder.

One point overlooked is that for many people that have more than one part time job - the way taxes are handled - they now owe the government money. A friend of mine working as a adjunct professor was horrified to lean that she owes over $1000 in taxes to the government this year because less taxes were taken out. I can only wonder how this is going to hurt in the grand picture of everyone.

Your morning conundrum

There is overwhelming evidence for global warming too.

So we have a rather stunning conundrum: How do we explain this angry and total rejection of reality? One really must pause in the rush of our days to think about this. Because what is happening in America isn't "normal" in any sense of the world.

One can argue that in 1940 few Germans paused to consider whether Jews were really the problem. It was a cultivated mindset that allowed them to rally to power. Facts didn't matter back then either.

One can also note that there seems to be one right-wing convention after another...
One conservative "Mount Vernon" pact after another...
One threat of purity tests after another...
One teabagger march after another...

Where were the conscience objectors when Hitler blew his nose on the Jews? Where are the liberals and democrats today? Why are there no marches and mass meetings of liberals? How is it that one angry mob has totally dominated the news cycle for months?

Are these so-called expert economists the same ones who never saw the recession coming?

Joe the Plumber had it right. When you create a socialist nanny state and take away people's incentive to work, economic decline is inevitable.

Well, if you count cranky Rand/Mises ultra-right-wing "economists" like Walter Williams ... But then we'd never get an expert consensus.
BTW we should appreciate that high debt really is not a good thing. OK? There are better ways to deal with it than the starvation/johnnie-come-lately-against-Democrats-only approach of Republicans, but it really will cause trouble for just about everyone if not tamed. Don't make the mistake of presuming that the opposite of some "other side" is always the path to truth.

Two Republicans, closing their eyes and covering their ears, and shaking their heads in unison, make them right. If they are unified in their opposition, they just have to be right, facts be damned. This is how their world works.

A war of world views is at hand.

How is it that one angry mob has totally dominated the news cycle for months?
Partly because of the gaming of the MSM, and partly because we don't get out there enough to show passion, to show "skin in the game" as one of our most passionate commenters put it a few months ago. People consider a cool person (like Obama) or nice, tidy prattling intellectual types and soon instinctively get the impression: the don't really care. Can we get that?

"How is it that one angry mob has totally dominated the news cycle for months?" koreyel.

-Because the MSM loves "a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

(In a few short moments the Tiger will be on all THREE networks- Live! Live! Live!)

The Romans has their circus. . .

For many on the right, the stimulus package that rescued the economy...

Your understanding of economics is facile. At the same time the stimulus was passed, other recovery measures were in full swing, like TARP and the Fed's emergency efforts to pump liquidity into the economy (those efforts injected trillions into the economy by themselves...and you seriously believe it was the $200B or so of stimulus that was disbursed last year that made the difference?).

Funny, none of the experts featured in the report you mention share your view. Maybe that's because it's completely divorced from reality.

Well, even ABC, Inc. can get caught up in the lure of tax cuts to do everything under the sun - from stimulating rich people (and corporations) to create jobs to shining your shoes!

Corporations have had the luxury in America of parading around as individuals for awhile now - when will they grow up and act like responsible adults?

The crap that shows 2 + 2 = 3 we are witnessing from our loved ones on the Right is the story of the day, and yet credible news outlets still want to do the Cheney said Obama said polemic.

WTF, are reporters idiots these days, or are they just fettered a bit too close to their corporate masters? -Kevo

Al: "Are these so-called expert economists the same ones who never saw the recession coming?

Joe the Plumber had it right. When you create a socialist nanny state and take away people's incentive to work, economic decline is inevitable."

The economic decline was the result of conservative, free market economic voodoo gone haywire. GOOD GRIEF! WAKE UP!

Don't know what's so surprising about the GOP's position -- truth is the first casualty of Republican talking points.

ABC could have gone to John Cochrane from the famed University of Chicago. NewsHour did on Wednesday for some he-said-she-said love and, not surprisingly, the guy thinks Hoover had the right idea.

If there’s an equivalent to being a global warming denier, this is it:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june10/stimulus_02-17.html

Reaction mixed on ABC news' journalism standards

On the one hand, liberal blogs point out that ABC news strives for fake balance even when they can't find it.

On the other hand, anonymous sources say ABC news is "awesome" and "like, totally journalistic".

koreyel, you make a good point.

Of late, I've been of the Al Franken "the first person who mentions Hitler or Nazis loses" mindset. Especially when Republicans claim that a liberal, black president is somehow a fascist. Bush compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler. On and on and on... Then you've got Pat Buchanan's book claiming that Hitler wasn't really all that evil. After a while, you get sort of numb to the Nazi brand.

Could there be an agenda brewing to desensitize those who would recognize and act on history repeating itself? When the conservatives obstruct or defund social programs, schools, healthcare, and everything else — but the military — it's not the Republicans who get blamed. It's government. Isn't that more than a little convenient?

When a Tea Bagger rally turns violent, as is sure to happen, the government and Obama specifically will be demonized for stepping in [or "cracking down"] to restore order. Jesus, some Republicans are already sympathizing with the Austin terrorist.

I'm no conspiracy theorist. Not at all. But I, like you, often wonder if enough Americans would recognize a turning tide before it swallows them whole.

until there is healthy employment, obama knows -- anyone over a 4th grade level comprehension in the halls of congress or the halls of the white house knows-- that the government will have to continue to run deficits.

the stimulus did little. more is needed. jobs are needed, and financial reform is needed -- reform that takes into account the resting place of shrunken property values.

this will reveal insolvency all over the place. but the longer the wait for that 'transparency' the worse it will get...

the greedy and the gutless -- which pretty much covers washington dc -- dont want to dance to that tune...

Our debt: economic growth, accompanied by modest and controlled inflation,will bring the debt back into line. Could it be that our very low inflation rate for the last few decades, lower taxes on the wealthy, job exports, the collapse of manufacturing and a housing bubble, etc. have left the average citizen, deep in debt, with little job security, declining income, insufficient purchasing power to fuel the economy, terrified and angry?

Can we please bury forever the stupid phrase "nanny state"? Assuring the health of your citizens is not being a "nanny state." It's being a representative government, as every other major democracy but this one seems to understand. Even conservatives should grasp that making it easier for entrepreneurs to cover employee health costs and take risks on start-ups with less fear of a personal bankrupting health care crisis is a good thing.

I'm no conspiracy theorist. Not at all. But I, like you, often wonder if enough Americans would recognize a turning tide before it swallows them whole.

Well said, chrenson. I find myself increasingly impatient with the stance, like Steve's, feigning surprise "that anyone might still take these folks seriously, given their uninterrupted track record of failure." They will not be held accountable for their failures in this high tide of ignorance and rage.

[T]his Republican crowd has been wrong about every major economic policy for at least a generation.

The thing is, there are different definitions of what constitutes being right or wrong about policy. If, by wrong, you mean that GOP policy has been devastating to what was, prior to Reagan, the greatest middle class-based economy in human history, then, clearly, the GOP was wrong.

If, on the other hand, you accept that the GOP's goal was to 'comfort the comfortable,' increase the economic stratification of the US, and destroy the US middle class, then GOP economic policies have been a raging success.

-Z