Two different places, two different situations, same sentiment expressed.
Friday night, a band of around 100 protesters (the last remnants of Occupy?) marched down the street in Oakland, smashing car windows. They attacked Obama HQ, which is across the street from the Fox, as you can see in the reflection. While some frustration with the Obama administration is to be expected from the left, attacks like this only serve to discredit the movement and really turn off the citizens of Oakland that support Obama with all their heart - and there are many of those. Bad move. Could be why crowds that once numbered in the thousands have now dwindled to a few roving vandals here.
Bottom picture: A's fans begging the team to stay. Reports this morning have Mayor Quan meeting with MLB officials and developers on a new ballpark near the Port/waterfront/downtown area. Sounds like a plan. Make it happen. The Giants will never allow the team in San Jose, and Oakland needs the economic benefit, not to mention the identity as a major league city.
The rest of the news....
Economist Jared Bernstein points out the obvious flaw in Paul Ryan's (and Mitt Romney's) fantasy-fueled budget plan: It won't work. The direct quote: "Have never come anywhere close to working", to be more precise. More: "It's thus no more plausible nor responsible to tout such an unrealistic vision from the right than it would be for an American politician to proclaim his allegiance to the ideas of Karl Marx and write down plans for confiscating wealth and socializing the means of production." Budgets need to be based on reality, not ideology, and the reality is that trickle-down economics is a proven failure.
FactCheck.org also takes an extensive look at the Romney/Ryan budget today, and comes to the same conclusion as everyone else: It will give the wealthy huge tax cuts, raise taxes on the middle class, makes dubious claims about job growth, and the math doesn't work anyway. "But Romney is not arguing that more jobs and growth should compensate for a tax system that puts a greater burden, or a larger share of a reduced burden, on middle-income taxpayers. He’s promising that the share of taxes won’t change. He has failed to prove that’s possible. And based on available evidence, we don’t see that it is."
Romney to the Fed: "Don't help the economy! My plan is better!" Uh huh. See above.
The Tampa Bay Times, home of the Republican convention, calls out the Romney plan today as well. "Too often candidates get away with fanciful claims that they can cut taxes without reducing defense spending or worsening the deficit. Romney's attempt was properly called out by a group of number-crunchers. If he has a dispute with the results, he needs to provide specifics on just how he will provide massive tax relief to those at the top without adding to the tax burdens of average people." Bottom line in all of this: Romney does not have a workable plan for the nation's budget or economy, period.
Wonder if the Des Moines Register is sorry that they endorsed Romney in the primaries now that he has attacked wind energy production. Today's editorial makes a strong defense for the industry.
Romney's claims on misspent green energy stimulus money earns two Pinocchios from Kessler. Mitt is lying, surprise, surprise. Seeing the pattern yet? If you want an even bigger whopper from the Romney campaign, check out the claims he is making on veteran's voting rights in Ohio. Complete and total falsehood.
The GOP abandons "teh gay" as a wedge issue. Those of us who remember 2004 couldn't be happier. Best line comes from James Downie writing for PlumLine today: "The fact that gay marriage foes’ latest stand is taking place in a fast food restaurant hardly bodes well for the movement’s long-term health. For years now, majority support for gay marriage has been an question of when, not if, and now we’re rapidly approaching the point where such foes are rightly consigned to the fringe of American politics." If only we could do the same with trickle-down economics.
"We Now Have Our Smallest Government in 45 Years." Amazing chart shows the drop. "So how badly has this actually hurt the job market? The Hamilton folks estimate that, if the share of government workers was back to 2007 levels, we'd have about 1.7 million more jobs than we do today."
The Sierra Club tracks the Big Oil Money that is attacking renewable energy. Worth a read, especially in light of the new report that shows that extreme weather we are experiencing is being caused by man-made climate change.
Nine states have accounted for $350 million in ad spending so far. From the AP: "Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida... account for 120 of the 270 electoral votes a presidential candidate needs... while the rest of the country is virtually ad-free, the Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns, along with a host of mostly Republican-leaning independent groups, are going at it in those really competitive states. Voters in just 67 of the country's 210 media markets are confronted by campaign ads on local stations."
Mars, bitches! (look it up) Congratulations to NASA and the U!S!A! on the Curiosity rover. Proof that we still got it, if we only try.
Oakland loves their team....
