Author: dmirons

Lower Risk of Double-Dip Recession?

ABC’s Jake Tapper interviewed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on This Week yesterday. While his words were encouraging (no double-dip recession, the economy is growing again) Geithner’s head-shaking body language, worry lines in his forehead, tension around his mouth, and the tightness of his voice all indicate great stress.

Seventeen minutes, all worth watching. The best part is the last three minutes or so.

Whose idea was it to seat them facing each other in two small chairs in that enormous room?

Lower Risk of Double-Dip Recession?

Posted on by dmirons Link 0

Chart of the Day – The numbers track a negative: The growth and decline in job losses from December 2007 through January 2010. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics via Speaker Pelosi’s office via TPM

Posted on by dmirons Image 0

Will anyone take on the filibuster?

President Obama just reminded Senate Democrats: “You had to cast more votes to break filibusters last year than in the entire 1950s and ‘60s combined.  That’s 20 years of obstruction packed into just one.”

Jim Fallows cited this quote in a recent series on the topic, including a couple of exchanges with a knowledgeable DC reader who believes bipartisanship can’t work. Those posts are here and here. Fallows’ own thoughtful mini-essays are here and here.

They’re all worth reading if you believe the filibuster is one of the central problems of American democracy today.

Tom Geoghegan made a solid case for the unconstitutionality of the procedural filibuster in a Times op-ed last month. In a longer piece in The Nation last year, he made it clear how difficult the fight would be to end it.

If the President eventually tires of calling for real governing bipartisanship, we’ll know it when he and Vice President Biden start campaigning against the filibuster.

I’m not holding my breath, but I’m hoping the day will come.

Posted on by dmirons 0

McCain’s Hypocrisy, Mullen’s Integrity

John McCain’s hypocrisy on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is stunning.

Here’s Maureen Dowd today: “Three years ago, McCain told a group of college students that he would drop his objections on the issue ‘the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, "Senator, we ought to change the policy.”’“ That day arrived yesterday and the Senator from Arizona was having none of it .

Andrew Sullivan sums up yesterday’s testimony by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The integrity of Admiral Michael Mullen’s statement is the real news of the day: "He said that requiring servicemembers to lie as part of their duty to their country violated their integrity as soldiers and the military’s integrity itself. He said, in other words, that the current policy is dishonorable. I agree with him.”

Me, too.

More reactions to yesterday’s Senate hearings here from the first paragraph of The Daily Wrap of The Daily Dish.

I was especially glad to hear Mullen say that he had served with gay service members since 1968. At that time, I was in the U.S. Army learning Russian in Monterey. While there, I got to know soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who were openly gay, but only with people they trusted. On the whole, they were smarter, funnier and far better language students than average. I learned then that a fearful reaction to homosexuality was both stupid and wrong.

Our military will be stronger when we finally recognize that Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom solved this problem long ago – and we’ve hurt ourselves by being so late in catching up.

Posted on by dmirons 0